Designing Flora

So we've bought the big girl… Now we need to decide how to lay her out.

Before we decided to embark on the #vanlife, we had a few creature comforts, most apparent in our purchase several months earlier of our absolutely wonderful fantabulous Super King bed. I LOVE THAT BED! We had spent two years sharing an Ikea double (single) and to say it was tough was an understatement, Emily sleeps like a star fish and I’m pretty (very) tall so a large bed was a must. We had seen a lot of van lifers design their beds the width of their van, this was not going to cut it for us (no chance), I’m (we’re) way too tall for the 1.7 meter wide width of flora.

Fun fact: LDV’s (like Flora) were designed to be very thin for the postal service, their biggest purchasers in the 80’s and 90’s, as it allowed the vans to navigate small roads and alleyways

Instead we decided to make our bed length ways, to the tune of 2 metres so the bed is going to be huuuuuuge. Not only will it make sleeping arrangements comfortable, it will also give us huge storage potential. Next was deciding on how we wanted to build the bed? Emily gave me the options of a static bed (the bed is fixed creating tons of storage) or a convertible bed which gives you the option to switch the bed into a table during the day. With limited space we decided to go down the route of the convertible bed so it can be switched in and out as we need. So now, the plan is a 2 metre long bed made of two benches and a table that can drop down between the benches to complete the bed, and the two benches still offer LOADS of storage for our hiking and camera gear, winning.

With the bed layout decided, we were left with 1.2 meters of van length left, we needed to fit in our kitchen, shower and maybe a toilet. After much head scratching, we decided the toilet and the shower were out. We wanted a sizeable kitchen as we love to cook and knowing we have space to cook is important to us. Solar showers are so vogue too. And erm toilets… Well we plan to be wild campers sooooooo wild wees? (Catch me outside how bout dat). The kitchen is going to have a fridge (cold beers for the win) Big ol' sink for Emily to wash her hair, but not to do the washing up, we do the chores equally (equality ftw), and a 2 burner hob for cooking! Alongside that we wanted plenty of water storage 75 litres, which has to be inside as we wanna visit Norway in the winter (we crazy fools) and room for our gas bottle which again needs to be big as we plan to be off grid for a while at a time.

When drawing a diagram, it’s hard to get a feel for how much storage we were going to have, so we planned in some overhead storage for clothes, food and toiletries. These would run the full length of the van on one side and then to the sliding door on the other. 30x30x(length of van) ended up being the measurements we decided on.

Oh, and, above the cab, we’re going to have a massive shelf, a request by Emily… who plans on living a minimalist life, suuuuure :’). (MORE STORAGE!!! YAY THINGS)

We need so much wood.

(Ps. Thank you @40hoursoffreedom and @rebeccamoroney for the inspo)

(Italics are Emily)