We’ve often been asked how and what we cook on the road and, to be honest, it’s surprisingly similar to cooking in our apartments in San Francisco and New York City. While some aspects such as working in a smaller space and lack of an oven have required some getting used to, there haven’t been […]
Category Archives: Van Build
Espar / Eberspaecher D2 Heater Installation in a Sprinter
After many cold nights without a heat source in our Sprinter, we finally bought and installed an Eberspaecher Airtronic D2 heater. We chose to do the installation ourselves, and while time-consuming (probably 10 hours of labor), it is definitely a doable project and we recommend doing it yourself. We bought our heater at Heatso, based […]
Cedar Panels
We’ve had several people ask us “Why put cedar in there?” and our response is “why not?!” At the time of the build, we wanted the van to be functional, but also cozy and to feel like home. During the endless hours working on the van, we kept debating what to do with the walls and […]
Stove and Overhead Kitchen Storage
Stove Storage One of our favorite aspects of our kitchen is that we can have stoves at the store, storing it in the bedframe, just below the bedside cabinets. Whenever we need it, we slide it out onto the counter. When we don’t, we can use the entire counter space. Out of ½” birch veneer, we […]
Feeding Station Build (ie the Kitchen)
As we were building out the van in Pennsylvania last March, it started snowing (a lot) out west. At that point we had only completed the bed frame, but decided to take a little break from building and go on a 10 day “test” trip from Pennsylvania to Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, to ski. While […]
Electrical Update – Solar
We’ve been seeing a number of different solar panel setups while on the road (most of them probably fairly small compared to the typical US RV). Ours has worked well for us, but I just recently helped troubleshoot someone else’s setup, and there are some lessons that may help improve on common problems. The setup was […]
Bed-Side Cabinet Storage
The platform for our bed and cabinet storage is 68” wide, of which we decided to use 50” for the bed, and the remaining 18” for storage compartments. To decide on these dimensions we laid down to see what is comfortable. The width of a queen size bed is 60”, so while ours is a […]
Bed Frame Construction
The most important consideration for our van build was, of course, the layout of the floor plan. We chose a Sprinter with a 144” wheelbase and high roof because its length allows you to park in regular parking spots, while its height allows both of us to stand up, even though Jakob is 6’2”. The […]
Sound Dampening, Insulation and Windows
In this post we’ll cover some of the initial steps in our Sprinter conversion, from back in March when we were struggling with freezing conditions that made it difficult to want to be outside. This post covers sound dampening, insulation and windows. Sound Dampening: When driving an empty Sprinter van, you can get quite a […]
Sprinter Fuel Filter Change
Since we might be encountering diesel of dubious quality south of the border (or perhaps better, who knows), it’s a good idea to know how to change your fuel filter. We buy OEM filters at the Mercedes dealerships and carry a few spares, just in case. They’re about $50 and probably a bit cheaper online. […]