Before we even bought our van I spent months looking at layouts.  From customs to factory builds, Sprinters to Transits I really wanted to know what was out there before I started.  We shopped for several months to find the right van. Your floor plan will differ on the length and height of your van. 

Our van conversion started with a 148” wheelbase Ford Transit high roof. While it would have been nice to have the extra length our driveway would not really allow us to go much longer.  The high roof is very nice in that we can stand up with our bike helmets on and not hit the roof. We are not really tall people but the ceiling height is 75.5” (this is with our ceiling installed. We will post this in an upcoming blog.) 

One of the big elements I wanted in our van was the garage area.  This would be an area under the bed that would have two slide-out drawers.  One for our bikes and the other for storage bins and camping gear. The high roof gives us that extra space above the bed ( we have 35”) to sit up and not have the ceiling directly in our face and our bikes both fit below in the garage area ( I would recommend having dropper posts on your bikes.) The garage also hides all the stuff we are carrying which is a benefit.  

While we looked at having a bathroom and a place to shower, the standard 148” just does not have the room for this.  We have opted for a cassette toilet that pulls out from the cabinet and then we have a bench seat that houses our electronics along with a place to eat.  We liked having the area behind the seats open so we are going with a kitchen on the passenger side that will also house our grey water tank and Dometic refrigerator.

We built storage into both areas under the bed and this also gave us room to install a 21-gallon water tank from Amazon.  Our shower will be an outdoor set up so we will need warm weather to make this comfortable. Because we are not going to live in this we felt we could make some of these decisions and realize that other people may need other features that we do not have.  I think what really makes these vans so much fun to travel in and build is that you are able to put a little of your own personality into them.   

Here is our floor plan and I have shared some early photos of our testing and getting measurements.  Nothing about these vans is square so be prepared to measure a lot. As we keep uploading new blogs you will see how all this comes together.  But having a plan is really the first step.

After I started my build I came across this program called VanSpace. While I do not own it, this seems to be a fun way to design your van layout.  Let me know in the comments what you think of this program and share your layouts.  I’m afraid that if I purchase the program I might want to rip out what I have already completed.