Keeping Warm!

Living in the Pacific Northwest, our days and nights can be rather cool (even in summer), so it is imperative to make sure the van gets well insulated from floor to ceiling.  The walls of the van posed a problem for insulating due to this van not having ribs like the old-style vans do.   Without ribs, it's difficult to "fir" out the walls to have space for insulation and to attach the paneling.  We also didn't want to cut down the interior width because our bed is laid sideways across the back.  To solve this problem we used 1/2" Styrofoam insulation purchased at Home Depot.  It was cut to shape and then glued to the wall using 3M Spray Adhesive. 

Once one pattern was made, another piece was glued to the top of it.  (Above picture shows to layers of the Styrofoam insulation.)  Spray foam was used to fill any gaps where the Styrofoam insulation could not be glued. 

To finish out the walls and ceiling we chose Luan paneling, 1/4" thick. You might choose to cover the wall with rugs, but we wanted a wood look to our walls and ceiling.  The paneling was stained and varnished before attaching to the van walls.  There are double walls in certain areas of the framework of the van and this is where we attached the paneling using decorative self-tapping screws.

The ceiling was done the same way with the screws going into the support rails across the top of the van.  For right now we're not trimming out the open area between the ceiling panels and the wall panels.

We visited our local floor covering retailers looking for a remnant large enough for the floor of the van and sturdy enough to last us awhile.  What we found was a Berber rug of fairly good quality, beige in color, with specks of color throughout.  We felt Berber would withstand use and the color would hide the dirt better. We escaped for just under $100 for the rug and the pad was given to us free.  The rug was cut to fit the floor and sloped off the side toward the side step of the van. The step off the door slide had a plastic decorative panel which was removed and after the rug and padding were put down, the panel was replaced and screwed into the floor of the van with large washers and screws which held the rug into place.

You can see in above photo that we have installed a base in the floor to hold  a post to hold a table top. The base was installed by measuring the size of the hole that needed to be drilled into the base of the flooring (through the rug, the plywood floor, and rubber mat).  A hole saw was used to cut through the plywood and rubber mat.  The base was then inserted into the hole and screwed through the rug down into the floor boards.

The table top was made by cutting our desired size out of 3/4" plywood, which was then edged with oak.  Staining and varnishing followed.  The other end of the pole base was installed on the bottom of the table top. Here is finished table in place.

A wonderful benefit of the rug and pad is how quiet the van now is when driving down the road.  We've sprayed sound proofing under the hood of the van and will eventually spray this also in the front wheel wells.  With the wheel wells under the bed filled with spray foam, the rug and padding down on the floor of the van, and sound proofing sprayed under the hood of the van, the amount of road noise has been greatly diminished and we now drive in quiet comfort.