The starting point
The owner had spent real time using the van and knew exactly what wasn’t working. The layout didn’t fit how they actually moved through the space, storage was awkward to reach, and several areas felt unfinished. What began as a short list of specific changes turned into a more involved custom project once we talked through how everything would need to fit together.
The constraints
A van is about as far from a square room as you can get. Wheel wells intruded into the floor plan, existing components had to stay where they were, the walls curved, and every surface was uneven. Nothing could be built to standard dimensions and expected to fit. Each piece had to be measured, fitted, and scribed around what was already there, and there was no spare room to hide a bad measurement.
What I built
The project covered most of the interior: an insulated door wall with a custom door, lower cabinetry, refrigerator storage, an under-bed face frame, a toilet slide, a subwoofer enclosure, chair and cubby storage with a cubby top, water-pump access, and upper cabinet skins. The visible woodwork — white-oak doors and trim, plus a scribed white-oak desk top — tied the pieces together. I also handled shiplap, a weather-sealed sliding door, fitted panels, and mounting for a monitor.
Details worth seeing
The desk top was scribed to the van’s actual wall profile so it sits against the curve without a gap. The white-oak trim runs consistently across pieces that were built and installed separately, which is what makes the interior read as one finished space instead of a collection of boxes. Fitted panels close the gaps around wheel wells and existing components, and the storage — cubbies, the toilet slide, the water-pump access — is placed where it’s actually reachable in a tight space.
What the work was meant to do
The goal was a van where everything has a place that matches how the owner uses it: storage that’s reachable, surfaces that work for daily tasks, and details that hold up to the vibration and temperature swings of life on the road. A project like this isn’t about square footage; it’s about making a small space easy to live in.