It has been a long time since I have written. I blame that mostly on life. Building a van, and writing about building a van, were both cutting in on it. I still had a few articles in the pipeline and I will push these out first, then bring you up to date.
The time I have been waiting for in this whole project is starting. Installation of the hardwood floor. Here I am actually already a step ahead. I already have some flooring left over from a bedroom remodel in my old house. Plus I have done some hardwood flooring before. Mostly Johnny Menards specials -- oak, unfinished wood that has a surface rough enough to four-wheel across once you get it installed. Plus, in that wood there is often a lot of short pieces, knots, chip-outs, etc. so you end up wasting more as you install it. It is more work because unless you really want to waste wood, you end up cutting a lot of tongue and grooves to use the wood on both sides of a bad spot. They say you should measure the square feet of your floor and add ten percent. So I did that, plus I added an extra ten because of what I am used to. But here is the difference. I live in Amish country now. I ordered black walnut flooring from an Amish man in a neighboring town. It cost me Menards grade-two-oak pricing ($4 sq/ft) but the difference is, this Amish flooring is perfect. Smooth, long lengths, perfectly milled and it fit together like a puzzle. I re-floored that bedroom (it was also less work to assemble because it fit together so perfect) and ended up with a big’ol stack of wood left over. I only need about fifty square feet for the van.
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| The vent hole, cut into the floor. |
I tell you what though, it was a funny situation that day I was picking up that flooring along with some eight inch black walnut trim and other millwork. I really wasn’t thinking and I brought The Wife with me. She runs toward short skirts and has bright pink hair. And the thing was, the boss was away from the mill that day. The oldest son was in charge, so the shop was running a little loose. I hadn’t paid yet, not even a down payment when I ordered it a month earlier. The son and I headed off to the office where the bill had to be calculated. The boy was nervous with his maths. It took some serious cypherin’, and four repetitions to get a one-to-three tie breaker answer. Meanwhile out in the shop those Amish men had never seen anything quite like that at the sawmill. There were about six of them sort of orbiting around. Trying to look like they were working. She tried to talk to them a little but when she did, they were tongue-tied blushing and looking at their shoes. I had never had so much help loading the pickup.
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| Cutting just a bit more from the bulkhead door. I did a taper cut from about a quarter inch out on the outside to nothing next to the hinges. |
The bedroom flooring project was done three years ago and I have had this stack of wood sitting ever since. Shortly after I decided this whole van thing was something that was going to happen, I knew what the flooring would be. I checked online a few places and saw it had been done before. I have been waiting ever since to put in the first of it.
In my research I learned it was good to install it on the bias (that is to say, diagonal) on the floor. Remember, you aren’t building a house here. You are building a structure that routinely has to twist. Diagonal layout better allows the van to flex in all directions than if the flooring is square. It didn’t take me installing very many pieces to be really happy this was the case. Looks-wise, this floor is way more interesting than if the floor ran length-wise.
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| Cutting with a sawzall this close to the floor caused me to gouge it out some from the tip of the blade. |
However, that said, it was at least five times the work to install it this way. The majority of the first pieces went through the saw about seven times, cutting angles and T&G before they were ready to install. Throw in a couple instances of “shoulda measured twice” and it was a long night for what seems like very little accomplishment. Still though, I think it is amazing to see that flooring laying there.
To start this out, the first thing I did was crawl under the van with a drill. I put four holes, one in each corner, up through the insulation and sub-floor, into the van. Thus marking the corners where back in the beginning of this project I had number one son and his friend cut a hole for what will eventually be my floor vent. Once I had the holes, I drew a line between them and used my jigsaw to cut out the block. When I did it, I threw that block in the trash. Now, as I type this out tonight sitting in my night parking lot, I hope the trash doesn’t get emptied tomorrow. I want to pluck that block back out of there. I will attach the block onto the plywood square I made to cover the hole. Winterizing is as easy as keeping the block in. (I will be making a window screen cover as well, so I can keep it open as a vent and keep the bugs out.)
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| Craft paper, covering the sub- floor, ready for some walnut! |
Doing some more looking into this as I prepared to move on to laying flooring I realized I had made a mistake. Though I had cut off my bulkhead door back as one of the first steps, I cut it off straight. However the door actually sags. So, on the end of the swing it was hanging down too far to allow the flooring. Additionally, with the bulkhead wood in place, I didn't have the ability to remove the door again. I just figured this was something I would never have to do. I ended up cutting it in place, though I gouged out the sub floor a bit doing it.
Next, I built a frame out of the hardwood flooring to go around the vent hole. All the flooring that butts up against this frame will need to have the groove cut into the angle so the flooring locks together. The same at the bulkhead doorway, where those pieces will all need a tongue cut in them. It is amazing to see it going into place!
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| Frame built from the flooring. This goes around the floor vent hole. |
Some things I am discovering… The LED lights I bought cheap at a certain Big Box Lumber causes the watt/volt/AH meter I bought to blink and appear to reset. The lights are really cool and have to stay somehow, but the information from the meter is going to be really valuable. As it now sits I have the LED lights wired straight into the fuse panel in the back. Then I have a wireless remote I can use to change the light colors and brightness. As I have the meter wired in right now in the floor to ceiling shelf, about every minute or three the panel zeros like it is reseting, then changes to what look like the correct numbers. So it isn’t like it is losing any information or anything. But, rather worrisome.
Let me talk to you a little bit about what van life is like. Last week I charged up the van in the shop on Wednesday night so I was at 100% when I left there at midnight. I turned on the LED lights for about an hour, charged my device and laptop. Thursday night I begged off van work and spent two hours in a bar. So in the van, the furnace was not turned on until eleven pm. When I got back I ran heat, charging laptop/device, LED lights for two hours. Friday I turned off the heat in the morning and the van was empty over the weekend.
Monday at one in the afternoon I popped out to the parking lot and turned on the heat. At one thirty pm, The Wife arrived from the city park she had been enjoying. I left my desk and joined her for a nap in the back. I tell you what, the van sleeps better with a warm body next to you. No doubt about that. At two thirty my alarm went off and I had to return to public service. The Wife, all warm and cozy said she would sleep just a bit longer. She was staying in town this day to pick up Number One son and his girlfriend, just back from far off warm places. She had to pick them up at three.
In the meantime, I was in contact with Number One Son and they were running late. I did a family finder on my iPod and guessed The Wife was sound asleep. I texted her several times, never got an answer. Finally I walked out there a little after four and woke her up. Obviously the van sleeps just fine without a warm body beside you as well. Those blackout shades I installed work great! |
| After two nights of work, the flooring is looking great! |
There were other cars at the shop tonight. A bummer because unlike the the night before, I was really looking forward to getting in and getting some things done. But here is the deal. There is another project going on in the shop tomorrow night. I can’t get in. The silver lining of all this means I will have run four nights full occupancy and two cold weekend nights where theoretically nothing is being used, since the batteries were last charged. So it will be interesting to see how much percent my batteries will be drawn down.
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