Van making
A pipe dream to go on adventures in a beautiful self-converted campervan is one, like many people, I’ve had for ages. As a child I drew designs for how I’d convert a double decker bus into a house. As an adult, a real life van is something I imagined could possibly, hopefully, happen, one day. Before then I’d just occasionally go down rabbitholes online looking at other people’s designs, store up ideas, perhaps even borrow one for a holiday if I was really lucky.
For two years through the pandemic, I moved every few months or even weeks. Friends, family, short term digs, I was (am) hugely privileged and grateful to have spaces available, a roof over my head. I spent time in many lovely homes and I’ll write more another time about hospitality and all the things that are beautiful about that. I’m especially grateful to my parents for their unconditional support, and my oldest friend Naomi, and her husband Ant, for giving me and an impossibly tiny puppy a place to be when we need(ed) it.
But the stress of wondering where I should go next, the loss of theatre work and colossal damage to the arts, the unknowns of what was coming, the right thing to do, was heavy. With studying and post-pandemic change, its been almost ten years since I’ve lived somewhere I can make my own. And hopes and plans at the start of this year to move somewhere new, and choose where home would be, crumbled away, leaving me at a loss about what was right, now.
After all the moving, all the uprooting, all the things planted and then lost - not only in the last few years, but in the legacy of being queer and christian (another story for another time) - new plans were painful and complicated. And also, in this season, a seed of an idea impossibly grew, that a little van would be a way to hold this time and all these things. A tiny transient space, a way to be present in many places, deliberately for a season, to do by choice, what circumstances had chosen for me so many times. To be present to this moment, to the unknown moments to come.
And to explore an idea that I had been holding in my heart and mind for a while now, to walk. To make pilgrimage. Walk in all that is happening, walk into new places and prayers, walk alone and with God, walk with old friends and strangers. People share their stories as they walk. I love stories, and want to make space for others’ stories. And walking, and a little van, seemed a way to hold my own story.
When you walk, no matter what you feel, or what is happening, or where you are, or what you face, still, you move. The landscape changes. You go, and come back. You travel through. You are present. Though answers may not be clear, still you have been somewhere, and the land holds you, and you make something, in your footsteps.
It was a pipe dream still, really. A persistent idea, but an unrealistic one. I couldn’t afford a van; but as I mentioned this idea to people, they seemed to get excited. And then. My parents called me, and said they were selling their car, but did I want to borrow it first. A Berlingo, popular as a micro campervan. And then. My we-met-because-of-the-pandemic new and brilliant friend Tamzin called and said, I don’t know if this is useful, but I’ve seen a kit you can buy online, to turn a car into a campervan, have you ever heard of a Berlingo? I’m not really into that kind of God-providing thing any more, but this did throw me a bit.
By the way, I massively admire van-lifers, and I don’t want to live in a campervan. I long for a place with a foundation, a welcoming, story-and-food-filled home, a beautiful garden and a table to gather people round. Ideally, an open fire and a kitten friend for Robin. But while the dust of broken things settles, creating some small new good just-for-this-time thing made some kind of sense. Something with my hands, sawdust and screws, finding things that fit, felt somehow right, for now.
I didn’t want to buy the kit though, I wanted to build. To learn. To make till my arms ached and I had something that wasn’t there before.
A comfy bed is Very Important, obviously. And my heart was set on a sliding frame. There are all sorts of designs out the for camper beds. Two large sheets of wood, stacked on top of each other when not in use. Something that folds. A permanent bed across the whole of the space. A basic mattress on top of some plastic boxes. But I wanted one that slides, made from scratch, by me.
I chose the wood mainly because it was the size B&Q did that came smooth with rounded edges. Using the same wood for everything made the design easier, and meant barely any waste leftover. And I liked how it looked, sturdy and square. I thought a lot about how deep the bed needed to be to comfortably sit on, when it was a bench in the daytime, vs how wide a gap I could have in the centre of the van, so it wasn’t too cramped. I figured out how it would slide, and how it would fit together, and how many screws I would need. After trying to do the maths and make a model on paper, I took the very normal route of using Pages (the Mac equivalent of Word) to design it, because there’s a ruler in the programme and I could slide the sections around, until I got everything to work.
I proudly carried the heavy piles of wood out of B&Q on my shoulder, and remembered how good it is doing this stuff. I’ve always loved making things, anything I can do with my hands and imagine into being. As a child, I used to make things from wood - catapults, bows and arrows, little boats - I got a Swiss Army Knife for my 8th birthday, replaced in my late teens after I lost the original on some expedition. Knife number two, still going strong, came in handy for bed making. The little saw, screwdriver, big and small knife blades helping with all sorts of tasks. Except one - I wish teenage me had chosen a knife with a corkscrew!
Not with wine, l spent many glad hours power drilling, remembering from somewhere to use tape to mark the depth of the holes, making pleasing piles of sawdust and hoovering them up. Less skilful was my first screw, because I didn’t know what the countersink drillbit was for. (Now, countersinking is my favourite, so satisfying.) With the penknife, I hacked away bits of wood until that screw (in so tight I couldn’t start again) lay mainly flat, and swallowed the fact it wasn’t perfect.
My smart and kind friend Mike gave a me a lot of advice and deserves a lot of credit for his help and knowledge. He set up his table saw for me, and let me use his excellent workshop, and suggested measuring tips, with zero mansplaining and much generosity. Those slats would have taken a long time by hand, and I would have had less fun.
Robin hung out with me for most of the making, except the table saw bit, and was mainly cheery or quietly bored. Only occasionally did she really get stuck in, such as when she helpfully moved her bed on top of the wood I was working with.
Bed frame made, I needed a mattress. After researching all kind of foam, the cheapest option for something that would be good for my back, was actually a new mattress from Ikea. I would cut it into two pieces to make seat cushions, that would fit back together at night. But my van building research had told me that sometimes mattresses contain fibreglass between layers, so I wanted to check before hacking it open. Turns out Ikea is spectacularly hard to the hold of. After mammoth detective work to find a number to call, and speaking to various people who read aloud to me the basic info right in front of me on their website, I got given two different email addresses that didn’t work. Everyone was bemused and mainly wanted to warn me that chopping the mattress in half would invalidate my guarantee. OK, I said, but can you guarantee no fibreglass?
Finally, a real person answered my question, all OK. So armed with a sharpie and a snap knife, and no Robin-helping, mattress surgery was completed. The wood and cushions, although the most economical options I could find, were the main investment for the van. Everything else was a bargain or a repurposing, so to cover the sofa cushions/mattress, I upcycled an old duvet cover my sister gave me, and was glad I don’t often have to wrap massive squashy parcels that seem to move independently. At last, it was done. And it was comfy.
I’ll do another post about how the whole van works, how it everything fits and functions, practical solutions and pleasing miniature useful items, places for a cool box and stove and even a little toilet. How I found ways to make it safe and secure without damaging the car in any way (so that it remains sell-able) and ways to make it beautiful. The saga of curtains. How the first night I realised a lot of the stuff I needed was inaccessible once I pulled out the bed, and had to rearrange. How I really enjoy putting little hooks in and hanging things in useful places, and how it’s important to have enough mugs to make someone a cuppa, and space for a guest to sit inside, if it’s raining.
But for now, enough to know, I built a sliding bed, and pilgrimage had begun.
If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.
Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.
Do not go
without letting it echo
in your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
That is what
this journey is for…
(From Beloved Is Where We Begin, by Jan Richardson)