In a recent post I talked about the tiny house movement and my reasons for wanting to live a 'tiny' life. Since then I have spent a lot of time researching and thinking about the type of house I want to build, as well as thinking ahead about the kind of life I want to be working towards.
Ever since I seriously considered this journey I knew I wanted to buy plans for the house, as apposed to designing and building it myself. Having done nothing like this before, building my own house is going to be plenty to keep my busy. At the end of the day I want a house that is safe, structurally sound Continue reading →
For as long as I remember I have been interested in small spaces, from making dens as a child to living in van on extended road trips. As an adult this interest transformed into an interest in cabins and small living structures, with dreams of one day having my own. Around a year ago I saw an online news article about a couple who built their own little house on wheels, this was my introduction to the tiny house movement.
Tiny house what?
Living in small spaces isn't anything new, but with average house sizes getting bigger and bigger, living in spaces which shun excess certainly isn't Continue reading →
I recently hiked a 100km section of the Dawson Overland Trail, an old wilderness road from Whitehorse to Dawson City. The trail was created in 1902 as the first land connection between the two cities in the gold rush era. It allowed for year-round access to Dawson when the river was too frozen for boats, but not frozen enough for travel on the ice.
The trail is maintained and is part of the Trans Canada Trail, popular by snowmobile in winter and cyclists in summer, but I found very little information about hiking the trail. Wanting a bit of a challenge, and to experience true wilderness Continue reading →
We left Victoria early in the morning to head 'up island' to Nanaimo to visit some of Carly's family. From there we took the ferry back to Vancouver on the mainland. Let the first road trip in the new van begin!
In Vancouver we had a quick catch up with some friends, did a little shopping (Whitehorse is a little limited on that front) and saw some more of Carly's family who also put us up for the night. They were out when we arrived but gave instructions on how we could let ourselves in. Unfortunately we managed to set off the burglar alarm, which in a heist film style moment automatically Continue reading →
With the bed and storage complete I could now move on to all of the smaller jobs required to make the van habitable. You can read part one of the conversion here.
First up was cutting the insulation to size so it could be pushed into the windows to make blinds. This worked well in the last conversion so I decided to stick with the same technique.
I used some left over material as extra insulation for the cool box. Every little helps after all.
I used some cord to create a curtain rail and Hilary very kindly sewed a loop in the top of some back out material to form a curtain. Continue reading →
After nearly three months of thinking about the van and coming up with a design, it was time to fly down to Victoria, British Columbia to start work. I had a week to transform the van into a camper for my and Carly's week long road trip back up to Whitehorse, Yukon, where I plan on living in the van all summer and exploring the Yukon and Alaska. Here is part one of the conversion.
I wasn't originally going to remove any of the van's panelling from fear of messing up, but as soon as I was reunited with the van I changed my mind. So my first move was to get destructive and remove all of Continue reading →
morehawes
