We Are Home

I have been trying to write this journal for over a month now. All I can say is that I am still in complete and utter amazement at our home! I am so proud of Orsuré and myself! We built our home, and she is BEAUTIFUL!

When we started out, we may have been a little over ambitious, but we slowed it down. We took the time needed to make a beautiful home.

Like many others who name cars and boats, we named our van ShaVanda. It's like Shawanda, but with the word "van" spelled and pronounced in the name. We're proud of the fact that our home is a van.

We bought our van at the end of last September (2017), and we had a vision for what we wanted. Then the question hit hard, how do we make it a reality?

We fell in love with the layout of the Hymer Aktiv RV. But this RV isn't built on the van chassis that we wanted. The van we have is a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van. This chassis is a tiny bit shorter in length than the Ram Promaster chassis of the Hymer, and it's a good foot narrower than the Promaster. So how do we get nearly the same features in our van? ... It took us about 11 months, but we eventually figured out how to do something similar that meets our needs and wants.

This is our home. We built it. Yes, we had some amazing help, and we could not have done it without you - thank you, from the bottoms of our hearts! I love our home!

We added Flares to our van frame to make it possible for Orsuré and me to sleep comfortably, laying across the width of our van. Our mattress is so comfortable, it's hard to want to get up each morning. We made the mattress with a 2 inch layer of pillow top foam and then 5 inches on top of that of memory foam. Below our full-sized bed is our amazing and spacious storage.

We made a bench seat to maximize the view as it faces out our sliding door. Our driver and passenger seats are able to swivel around, and when they do, they with our bench seat forms a living room where four people can comfortably sit and talk. The bench seat with the driver seat turned around can double as a guest bed.

Our galley kitchen is big enough to prepare meals on and little enough as to not block our view through our sliding door. We have a marine-grade fridge with a little freezer - this has been a real game changer in our diets. The fridge runs on 12-volt direct current, turns itself on and off using only 4 amps when running, is entirely propane-free, and being marine-grade, does not require being perfectly level to run efficiently. We have a beautiful butcher block countertop. When we're sitting in our living room, the counter doubles as our entertainment center.

We built a wardrobe that is 2-in-1, meaning it is both a wardrobe and a bathroom. Our clothes are well organized in bins on the shelves in our wardrobe. Our bathroom is spacious and includes a little toilet. Having a toilet is absolutely amazing because when the urge comes in the middle of the night we don't have to step outside.

Our decor is stunning. It is both modern and cozy, with our Special Walnut stain on our ceiling, wardrobe and bench, our Weathered White paint on our walls and galley, and our Shit Ton Of Black by Sherwin Williams paint we had created for all our trim pieces. Adding special touches, we have an art piece from West Elm and plants, making our van feel extra home-y. Because of all these touches, we hear audible gasps of awe of inspiration from guests everytime people see our home.

Two incredibly efficient 12-volt direct current, 100-amp-hour, lithium-ion-phosphate Battle Born Batteries power our electrical system. We feed solar energy to our batteries, even on very cloudy days, from our 330-watt solar panel on our roof. We also have a shore power outlet outside, to feed 120-volt alternating current to our 2000-watt Aims Inverter-Charger. The inverter-charger converts the alternating current to direct current and inverts direct current to alternating current to supply power to 120-volt outlets. Additionally, we can monitor both our solar panel and our battery system on our cell phones their Victron-Connect Bluetooth devices.

ShaVanda is a 4x4 van, and we take advantage of this by going off-roading as often as we can. Being a van and a home, our home comes with us everywhere we go. Being mobile, our backyard is ever-changing. There is so much I love about our van.

We are home.