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Creative Solutions for Staying Organized: Van Life

May 22, 2022

Where do you put all your stuff? How do you stay organized in such a small space?

These are common questions we get. Our biggest focus for organization was the “garage” area which is the big open space under the bed since it was essentially a blank slate.

Read on to see what our solutions were and why we love it!

View from the inside

Oh! When I say “we” what I actually mean is some of the ideas were ours however, all the skill and talent came from some amazing friends of ours!

We truly couldn’t have done it without Nancy, George, Jim, and Lori! So here’s a huge shout out of thanks to them!!

One of the things we love about Dave and Matt Vans is that they are not overly customized when you buy them. This allows each van owner to do their own thing when it comes to organizing and designing the space according to their needs. 

Let’s be real…John has a pretty decent amount of camera gear that needs to travel with us, well, because that’s his job! 😄

Our biggest goal was to keep his gear secure. The cases are heavy and we didn’t want them sliding all around the back of the van and knocking into the mechanicals (battery, fuse box, inverter) of the van plus all of our other things. 

We also knew we wanted the space to be flexible. There may be a time we don’t have all the camera gear with us and maybe we want to haul backpacking gear or bikes so that flexibility was important to us.

Any build-out we did, we wanted it to be easily removed if needed and we for sure wanted to use the vertical space as well.

So we talked through all the possibilities with Nancy who is a master at making efficient use of space. 

We came up with the idea of using wood panels that can slide on tracks for the camera gear. The tracks are really just the vertical braces that you would use for floating shelves. We screwed those into the floor. We measured the width of the track and bought wood that slides in easily yet stays snug. We wanted the panels on both sides so that the camera gear was contained. This also protects the things on either side of it. Jim and Lori had the idea of routing in (out?) the verticle “handles.” I’m so not a woodworking person so I’m not sure what the correct term is. All I know is we can now easily grab the panels to slide them in and out!

Sliding panels
First layer of gear

My favorite part of this is the spot that we created for our printer! We have to print out documents regularly while we’re on the road and we wanted to have our printer accessible without taking up valuable space. 

So now we have a little cubby on the back end of the camera gear panels where the printer sits. It slides out if we need to make a copy or we can just use it in place if we’re just printing something off. Plus it’s right by the inverter so it stays plugged in.

P.S. We LOVE our printer! It’s an Epson EcoTank. We’ve had it since March 2020 and still haven’t had to purchase any ink at all and we use it multiple times a week. I couldn’t find the exact one we have since it’s two years old but here is a similar one.

Printer cubby

Jim and Lori came up with the idea to cut in what’s called a dado into the panels which act as a stop for the shelf the printer sits on so it doesn’t slide backward. We added a removable dowel in the front to stop it from sliding forward and it works like a charm!

On the other side of the garage, we decided on a floating shelf that is screwed into the side of the van. This holds 3 cloth bins that we keep clothes and other items in. We can access the bins from the inside or the back of the van. It also gives us space underneath to store odds and ends. I have a rolling carrying bag that holds extra supplies, a shoe bin, extra drinks, a storage tote with tools, etc. We keep our portable propane stove back there as well as our lawn chairs and our suitcases for when we have to fly somewhere.

Floating shelves with bins
Floating shelf brackets
Stored gear

The suitcases also hold extra seasonal clothes. 

One fun little feature that has turned out to be handy is the two hooks we installed on the inside edge of the bed frame.

The hooks hang down just past the brackets and act as stops.
Dual purpose hooks

They hang down just far enough that they act as stops on the inside for the sliding panels in case we have to stop suddenly, which we’ve had to do. They work amazingly well plus it gives us storage for a day pack, laundry bag, and other items we might need easy access to.

We couldn’t be happier with the way it all turned out. It makes everything super organized and pretty easy to access too.

Overall view from the outside

There is always a certain amount of shuffling of things that will have to happen in a small space no matter how organized things are but this has worked out so well for us and we definitely got the flexibility we were looking for.

Related posts:

  1. Welcome
  2. The First Month…give or take…
  3. Living with Less-Kitchen Edition
  4. Our Biggest Challenge So Far…
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