The build
It started as a bare shell: a second-hand panel van with a bulkhead, a ply floor and nothing else. No windows behind the cab, no wiring worth the name, and a smell of diesel and old carpet that took a fortnight to leave.
The work happened in the gaps — evenings, weekends, a borrowed corner of a yard with one power socket. Insulation first, because everything after it is decided by it. Then the loom, run twice, the first version having put the fuse box exactly where the bed needed to go. Then water, then heat, then the fit-out: a bed that folds, a kitchen that pulls out, a table that is neither.
What the build taught me is that a van is not a product but a negotiation. Every litre of water is a kilo of battery you cannot carry; every window is heat you have to buy back. The sheet below is the record of those trades, not a wish list.
