because the owners have to find clever ways to expand their space so in this

week's episode of tiny tours I'm going to show you inside of one tiny home on

wheels that I've been calling the Swiss Army knife of ants why because the

owners Dan and Rachel have found many different ways to expand their space

including custom moving furniture and folding parts that really turn their van

into a multi-purpose home

I'm Dan and I'm Rachel and this is our van. So we have been living in the van

almost 14 months so we originally moved into the van because we wanted to spend

more time helping out people doing some volunteer work doing mission work he

just said hey I'm going out of town on all these volunteer projects I'm really

feeling like I'm doing things that are worthwhile and I feel bad that we're

spending so much time apart why don't you come with me and I can take the

Sprinter van and I can put a sink in it and I can put a bed in it and he had all

these ideas I thought it sounded crazy I knew nothing about a van life movement

neither did he in the beginning she was not fully on board he actually took me

to a tiny house show and I saw other people I saw other buses that was when

it really started to click for me and so that's the point that I said yes so our

van is a 2003 Dodge Sprinter van it is a 20 foot bumper to bumper that gives us

77 square feet of living space from the driver seats back so we do have a lot of

moving pieces in the van we've got the rolling closet extending table the bed

frame the toilet is on a rollers to counter spaces that pop up we have two

monitors that drop down one reason that we do have all the moving parts is so

that we have more open space because when we push everything in and we move

it around different parts of our van have walking space all of that basically

makes the van just feel so much more open and it really allows us to maximize

our space which is made it easier to live in for me personally because

otherwise I felt a little claustrophobic in here without all the moving features

come on inside check it out so this is our kitchen this was actually really

overwhelming to me first when we we moved in the van trying to cook full

meals here I would just get halfway through it and then just go sit down but

I've now gotten used to the small space some things that really help is Daniel

added in some counter space so this actually clicks up this also actually

flips up and so it works as a either a table if you're sitting here or it works

as another counter space our reason for moving in the van was so that we weren't

working all the time just to pay bills but that we could actually enjoy life so

the quote is live a life you don't need a vacation from it's really the heart of

the tiny house community I think so the sink is really deep which is a little

bit unique I think in a van we do have an electric water pump it

also works as a sprayer and can come all the way out to here so if we needed to

spray down something we could we actually started our journey in the van

with a hand pump and I don't recommend that it was really hard to pump and wash

your face or do anything useful so we've loved the upgrade this is also where our

bathroom is because this so it's just on a drawer slide we didn't want it to take

up a whole space in the van because this is 77 square feet so the toilets not

something we want always presents so it is a nature's head composting toilet so

do you mostly use the toilet in the van or and you're also using public that's a

good question we do try to use public again it's

readily available but we don't go out of our way like give it to the middle of

the night or it's really cold outside we just use this one so one thing that was

really important to us in design is we didn't want a lot of bungees we didn't

want things to be falling constantly we really didn't want to have to lock down

our home every time I wanted to move it since this is also our only vehicle and

driver so one thing that my husband did was he made these magnetic knife holders

and boon holders and that's actually all of our utensils right here this is

everything we have and we've gone on some really bumpy roads and it never

falls off the cast-iron even a magnet behind it so it locks into

place and it actually doesn't move either while we go down the road even

the tea kettle has a little magnet right there so that it doesn't move so

everything really looks just like this we mostly use spoons as you can see in

fact our plates aren't even readily available because we almost always just

use these little bowls that we can pull out easily we like to keep our meals

into one dish we have 21 gallons of water so it really helps to do dishes

conserve of water if everything just fits in this bowl with a spoon and

that's it I made these little tags I'm very proud of that because I'm not a

real DIY er my husband did most Sofia construction in here but I made these

these tags that was mine one thing we found early on about living in 77 square

feet is it can get disorganized really fast and that could be really

overwhelming when you're living in a tiny space so we did this in a basket

system and it's actually built on a lip right here so you have to pull up to

pull the baskets out and what that means is they never fall when we're driving

they've never fallen in the 14 months we've lived here and we don't have to

bungee them in so they just look clean and nice and love this oven I really

can't say enough good things about this it's a camp chef's outdoor oven and it

cooks an entire pizza that was really important because I love pizza it runs

on propane both the burners and the oven usually there's a 1 pound propane that's

hooked to the bottom but we have hooked it up to a bigger propane tank just so

that we don't have to keep buying the 1 pounds the 1 pounds were usually cooking

about 10 meals for us so it was affordable but still a little bit

annoying when we're living into your full time so this down here is our

fridge and we actually got this used off of I think Craigslist is just like an

old 12-volt fridge for 50 dollars but it does the trick for us we got a little

freezer space up here but mostly it's just refrigerator so that's been a

little bit of a life adjustment going from always having frozen pizzas and ice

cream in the freezer to not really having a freezer this is a coffee pour

over this is our mug section where we keep our little pour over and then

in the morning and we do this at least one time a day we put a little bug down

here we put our filters in there well our water and then we can just pour

a little pour over right here so these three switches right here this top one

is just this backlight and we really like this one because we first come in

and the the van is dark our other light switches are all the way on the other

side of the van this right here the red one is actually to turn off the propane

and we are pretty good about turning off that switch as soon as we finish using

the propane and that's just a little extra safety feature and this bottom one

is probably the most important but it controls the electric water pump so when

we turn it off the pump is not going and that is important because if we start to

get to the bottom of our water level and we don't turn it off the pump will just

continue to try to suck water continuously and it would burn itself

out the lights are all LED we put them on separate switches so you have one in

the back these two in the middle and then those two that's really convenient

so if one person wakes up you can isolate the lighting so it helps ever

who's still asleep not be affected by the light the rest of our pots and pans

are down here we don't use these on daily just kind of what we're doing

soups so we have the seating over here but we also have seating on this side as

well when you're entertaining and eating you got to have a comfortable table to

sit out so we have this one designed it's going to fall out so it allows

ample seating space the table extends a pretty good length under the bed so it's

still stabilize it just can be a little bouncy so we will add a leg on it sooner

or later but we like this design because it's nice and big when we need it it

sits here most of the time for just the two of us it still gives us plenty of

room to walk around or the other persons here we're working it allows that so

just because you go into a tiny space doesn't mean all your friends instantly

become tiny you want to be honest to entertain have people over so the table

will pull out and we can sit comfortably six to eight people here for dinner it's

communities a big aspect of why we're on the roads we want to just be able to

meet new people and provide a comfortable place to hang out so when

we're working we both have laptops but she does customer service so she

needs that second monitor readily available to get to all she has to do is

plug the HDMI port in the back and then it's ready to go so it's fully pivotable

however you need it to and then it just stores back up here

and so this one has a different lock but it can pivot all the way around we

mostly use it in the back for watching TV how do you get internet in the van so

we was using Verizon hotspot for the longest time but we just made a switch

over to Togo Togo users like ATT tires you pay about 300 bucks for the device

it's the big white bubble you see on the top of the van but then you pay three

hundred and sixty dollars for the year and you get unlimited data and we have

pushed it to the limits and they have not thought of this yet here is where

the bay would traditionally have to sit in a van to be R to be a full-sized

mattress and not have to be multiple pieces this is a solid piece of foam

here five inch film we put it on a rolling system so we can push it back

it opens up for that fifth and sixth person and then the bed is on a actuator

here so it's on a motor here that crazy or lowers the bed for comfort and also

if you raise it up all the way and allows you to shut the back doors and

still have the entertaining spot so people always are curious do you sleep

with all these clothes and no we don't we put it on a rolling system we have a

lock here and that rows it out of the way and when the bed's here you still

have ample amount of space to allow you feet to hang off the bed

we both get 18 inches of closet space so we have 36 inch closet in essence so she

gets this side and I got this side and on her side we've put a nice lock that

holds you close tight because if they're not tight they may bounce off throughout

the transition this is a piece of aluminum goes the entire length so we've

got three wheels up top and then one wheel on the bottom so to prevent it

from swinging it so it has the wheel down here that it rose on to prevent the

paint from wearing off

this is one of my favorite places in the man because it has my beloved guitar I

do play guitar a little bit self-taught but we have it hooked in here with this

strap right here it just unhooked here at the top and then it's resting on the

neck it's been riding there for about a year and I haven't seen any damage to

the guitar so I'm feeling good about it I am a reader so this was imperative to

have it ready and available so this just unhooks it's got a magnet I'm sewn

inside and then the other half of the magnet right there and not just holds

the books into place with some pretty fabric reading is super important to me

so I needed a little reading light we do have lights all throughout but this

one's just great so I can lay down in bed and read this down here is a little

bit of extra book storage so we do have a little bit more these pivot up or they

can actually come all the way off as well and we have some books tucked away

in there and DVDs up here our more storage baskets and then right here is

an AC unit it was put in when we bought the van it's extremely powerful and we

really can't run it unless we're plugged in the solar will not run this AC so it

is there as like a backup it's really hot out we try to find a place to stay

that we know we can plug in and then we around the AC but other than that we

just function with fans and we're fine

so the table functions also as a workspace outside allows us to pull out

whatever we need to set it here while we're working on it

this is where we keep the tools that these are the toys we use well in the

everyday basis because we do travel around help other people and these are

the ones we use majority of the time we do you have a few more things up in the

attic up top this little add-on right here is actually my workout station and

our towels so we do shower at Planet Fitness about every other day we go by

there so we wanted some little towels and these Norwex towels are incredible