Bad Ideas For A Great Reason

A down and depressed week followed by a week of being sick.   I started coming down with it on Friday evening while involved in volunteering for The Wife’s boy scout troop.   An overnight lock-in at a local school just at a time when what I really needed was more sleep.   A perfect storm.   Playing chaperone and welcome to the land of ice and snow.

Back into the deep freeze here.  It is below zero at noon and I wore my parka on the eight block walk up the hill to the pizza joint I love.  They serve a great “pizza sandwich” something the rest of the world would call a calzone.    This place is off the beaten path and usually fairly quiet.  If I leave work and take a right, I go downtown.  Lunch is gonna cost me eleven or twelve dollars easy.  I walk up here and I have a great meal for $5.37.  I tip $4 and I am still at least a buck ahead of walking downtown.  The waitresses treat me like visiting royalty.  …Even the really cute one.

Plans for the van are really coming together now but I want to offer you some advice.  The reason it is really great to have a number of eyes look over your plan is because there will be things you are doing for the wrong reason.

I will catch some hell for writing about this because I never say anything negative about my wife.   I tried to write it from an outside perspective so I wouldn’t name names.  That didn't really work out though. I still would have been in trouble and y'all would have been confused.  It isn’t about the negative though, it is about the bad ideas that come for the best of reasons.

After a few weeks, the plan firms up more and more.   There are less pencil marks on the printouts between version numbers.  Less edits. The ones that happen are starting to become additional data.   Like remembering to measure the distance from the floor to the bulkhead vent holes so this can be added into the plan.   Or the actual dimensions on the pillar just behind the side door.   But at this point, for the really big things, stuff is getting pretty well nailed down.

This is a big exciting planning event in our lives and The Wife and I are talking about it a lot.   Particularly when we are together.   I, showing her the latest version of the plans.  She, playing devils advocate  …her favoritest thing in the whole world. :-)  We were talking about storage and how much she likes storing things in drawers.   Under the bed in the back, if everything goes according to plan, we will have something on the order of fifteen inches between the bottom of the bed and the floor.   When I was thinking in terms of the ultra cheap solitary boars nest of a van, I thought of putting plastic tubs under there.   Really though this area would have to serve as primary closet.   She was pushing for maybe a stacked set of two seven inch drawers and a fourteen inch deep on the other side.

The original idea with the batteries all on the right
side, cutting into storage.

But here was the deal.   With the way we had the plan laid out at the time, the battery bank which was on the right side of the van, considerably cut into the storage area.  Plus on the left side, the floor to ceiling shelf wouldn't allow a drawer to pull out.   The Wife came up with a great solution.   One that I thanked her for at the time and couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of myself.   By shifting the battery bank over to the left side the storage space could be greatly optimized.   One set of drawers fully available.   The other single drawer compromised by requiring the table to be folded down to fully pull out the drawer.   No wasted space!   Perfect!

The modified plan, shifting the batteries to the left.

Then I posted my plans to a public forum to garner comment.   The very first one encouraged me to look at the left side of my plan.   Batteries, inverter, microwave, fridge, counters, all lined up on the left side.  Basically everything heavy all lined up on the left.   Hell!  This thing was going to drive like a three legged pig.   I might just as well keep my left turn signal on permanently.

The lesson I am trying to pass on to you is to have lots of people offer opinions on your ideas.  The new eyes that see it, will see it in new ways.   Some of those opinions are worthless and if you have already done a lot of research you will be able to identify them.   Others, lacking the history of it being all about the drawers will be able to see it for what it really is.

Lets talk about some other design.  The van is going to need a table.   The table is going to be a desk.  It is going to the primary eating area.   It will be the primary horizontal surface.  So, if the van is going to be stationary for a few days, this table will accumulate the crap a horizontal space will tend to.  It will need to be strong.   In addition to those physical requirements, it is also going to be a center of information.   This is where the Inverter Control Panel is going to be.   It will have a couple of USB ports for charging devices.   It might have a couple of drink cup holders.

This will be one of the next design processes.