The making of Vantasi

[B350]

Holy smokes, it's been a while. Christmas and New Years has come and gone but, we actually got a little work done on the van in the mean time too. It's hard to dedicate every weekend to spending a day or two in a storage facility. There are other responsibilities like vintage snowmobile rallies and motorcycle ice riding after all!

[B350]

Back to the van...
When it's too cold in a storage facility to use vinyl floor adhesive you just heat up the floor and the van. With some plastic hung over the doors and a small space heater we quickly got the interior to a comfortable 70 plus degrees. I've never laid a floor of any kind so I was a little concerned about keeping each row of plank parallel to the center line. While my girlfriend, Christi, applied the adhesive, I cut and laid floor planks. It could not have worked out better. Everything laid perfectly parallel and, in our opinion, looks great.
Being the floor is a full 4mil vinyl, locks together and is glued, we don't foresee any issues with water finding its way underneath it. Plus, water can't damage the vinyl plank. Time will tell how it holds up...

[B350]

Another project we finished in the comfort of our living room and dining room was wrapping our wall panels in marine vinyl. We got some great, leather soft, grey vinyl from a local discount fabric store along with commercial DAP Weldwood contact adhesive. With plenty of cardboard, some open windows and a fan running we went to town. After eradicating three to four of our weakest brain cells we had some great looking door panels and walls wrapped in vinyl.

What does Christi have strapped to her feet? That's the snowboard no kid wants- a 2x6 wrapped in a beach towel with two straps screwed to it. That's how you evenly push 1/4" hardwood plywood to the furring strip in the van without damaging the vinyl.
I secured the walls to the furring strip with screws run through a pre-drilled piece of aluminum. None of the aluminum will be visible once the rest of the cabinetry and gaucho are in place.

[Bbasso]

If you don't mind, could you please share the link to the flooring you used?
That looks like something I have in mind.
Thanks

[B350]

Originally Posted by Bbasso

If you don't mind, could you please share the link to the flooring you used?
That looks like something I have in mind.
Thanks

Hey Rob, I got the vinyl plank floor through Bestlaminate. Plenty of different wood grains and colors to choose from. I suggest getting samples. We looked at about 10 different types before choosing the one we ended up using.

Bestlaminate Perfecto Vinyl Whitewash Grey Oak

[Bbasso]

Thank you, that looks great in your van.
How much did you need?

[B350]

I got 72 sq ft (4 boxes) which was enough for the entire floor front to back, side to side.

[Bbasso]

Thank you



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[B350]

2 months since my last post?! Total slacker... Well, before you get the latest on how much sawdust accumulated in my nostrils I should add that I had to work too... So, on my last work trip to TX I had to put in a few laps before heading back to MN. For your 2-stroke pleasure-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ6VfBgZ76U

[B350]

Back to Vantasi. And building cabinets. I got a few quotes from local guys to build cabinets which was rather shocking. So, I figured I have zero cabinet building experience, no wood shop to work in and a full time job already so why not tackle this myself? To the internet... With an idea of how the layout should come together in the spacious 72 square feet of living space we taped everything off on the floor and thought about it. Yep, gaucho here, fridge there, counter top 33" high 4' long, pantry, a bunch of large drawers and cubbies. Shouldn't be too hard...

I got a membership at a wood shop (American Workshop), picked up a bunch of 3/4" and 1/2" baltic birch and proceeded to learn a few things.

All of the uprights were cut from cardboard patterns first and test fit before putting them together with the horizontal shelves. A little trimming here and there and wa-la, we have a nice fit that follows the wall curvature. This all does include about the 1,357th time in and out of the van.

I wanted the look of face frame inset cabinets for the counter top and gaucho cabinets. But, I did not want to build face frames. So, I got crafty with my circular and reciprocating saws. I fenced each cut with aluminum angle stock so I could get straight lines with the circular and finished the corners with the reciprocating. Damn that's nice. Only took a couple of minutes. Ha!

I hate to admit it but I've never so much as used a dado blade. 60 hours of sawdust huffing later I have dado cuts down. I dado cut all the cabinetry joints and glued them forgoing any angle brackets and screws. The result is definitely stout.

Does anyone have any tales of properly glued cabinets coming apart in a van?