With the vessel to adventure sat firmly on our driveway, it was time to get building! Not before one small trip to a local favourite of ours, Aldeburgh.
To start with, the build was set around getting the most from the van, as quickly as possible and on a fairly tight budget. It began with the idea of having some fixed units which I would likely make or assemble myself to save money, preferably a second hand rock and roll bed and to lightly carpet the entirety of the inside living space. This quickly changed when the reality of such a small living space became apparent and a new plan was born. We opted instead to focus on a modular, removable approach so that if required, Dougal could still be used as a van (ironic).
Melissa and I are lucky enough to both work for the same organisation which operates a small ads email system, where one day a very good condition IKEA bed frame became available.. FOR FREE! What an absolute result for us! A few emails later between the three of us and the bed was ours! Though this wasn’t to be a forever solution, it was one that would save us hundreds of pounds in the short term, so we went for it, knowing that a fair amount of work would still be required to make it fit and usable, it really was the helping hand we needed.
As the list of interior upgrades grew, we found ourselves making lists for various designs and layouts, all with their pros and cons. We opted to take the recurring elements on these lists and tackle these first, as they would form the bones of our build and ultimately bring some elements of home comforts to our impending adventures! These included things like the introduction of a leisure battery under the passenger seat, along with a split charge relay to ensure it was always topped up, auxiliary wiring to accommodate lighting in the rear living space, along with USB outlets and sockets to ensure we would have a way to charge all of our devices whilst remaining off grid.
We realised that some elements of this van, despite its overall good condition, we’re going to require replacement, such as the floor of the living space, this was old, very weathered and showing signs of its former life as a plumbers van and miniature horse transporter… it was time for you to go! With this replaced and the wiring systems all installed, the exciting day of carpet lining was upon us! This was the bit we’d both been most looking forward to, as this shows the most amount of progress in a relatively quick space of time. Van build tip – this process requires patience, as exciting as it is, it can all go wrong quickly and change from a potentially sleek looking interior, to one that looks a bit rubbish!
We got to this point and we decided to give ourselves a not unrealistic deadline, by booking our first trip away to Norfolk, giving us just over 2 weeks to get the build finished to a point where we could stay in Dougal for the first time. An exciting and equally daunting thought, we ramped it up a gear and got after it.. big style! We clocked up 4, 14 hour days and around 5 hours per evening after work to get it ready – looking back this was actually one of the most fun parts about the build and the buzz of working after work was much the same to the renovation of our house, with the prospect of being able to relax in the fruits of our labour, very soon.
We finalised the modifications with some inner curtains for privacy, some small baskets for storage of kit etc and that was about it! From this point on, we knew that we would be installing everything else on a trial and error basis until we found what we liked the most. With nothing else for it, we set off towards Norfolk on our first mini adventure!
Dougals Adventures 
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