Breaking “Ground”

Our first project with the van is complete! It seems like yesterday we were contemplating vanlife for the first time. Thomas actually laughed at me because the thought of us doing all this work ourselves seemed pretty laughable at first. After watching tons of videos and talking through the process a few…hundred times, I was struggling to get past the “laughable” and find the confidence to cut a hole in our brand new van for our Maxx Air Deluxe fan. My very skilled and hardworking husband did amazing, though. Just like back when we first decided on vanlifing, Thomas took the lead and jumped right in.

With all our supplies together, I was convinced it wouldn’t actually take too long for us to finish this project. I definitely jinxed us.

I cut a 14″X14″ square out of cardboard for our template then held it up to the ceiling inside the van to drill a single hole in the middle so we would know where to place our template on the outside. There are some structural supports we needed to make sure to avoid. Once Thomas go on the roof, he put an outline of tape where the template would go. Then, I held the template while Thomas traced it onto the tape and drilled four pilot holes. This was where we ran into our first snag. The drill bit we had chosen for the pilot holes was not large enough for the jigsaw blade. Thomas was nicely positioned on the roof, so I had to go get the drill bits. Down the ladder I went!

Snag number two came when Thomas started trying to use the jigsaw. He got a couple inches into the first cut and the blade fell right out and landed on the floor of the van. We tried to fit the blade back in a couple times with the same result (plus getting metal shavings all over which cut Thomas a tiny bit before his mom wisely brought him some gloves) before deciding we must have gotten the wrong blades. Back to the store we went!

Turns out we couldn’t get the correct blades for either jigsaw we had at home without having them delivered because they were older models. But! a new jigsaw was only $30, totally doable in our budget, and the blades we had would fit correctly. So we grabbed a new jigsaw and hurried back home so we could finish our project before we lost the light.

When we got back to work, our niece, Cammy, had some fun pretending to drive Eremos. It was safety first for her and Sparkle Dove with seatbelts and everything.

With Thomas back on the roof and me back on the ladder, we got back to work. We had a hole to cut! The new jigsaw was a breeze to use and the hole was complete in no time flat. The square of metal fell directly into the box we were using for all our supplies–almost as if we meant it to.

We had a little trouble with our butyl tape because it was so hot out. The paper took a lot of effort to get off until we got a little into the roll where it hadn’t warmed up yet. Thomas was starting to get a little too warm himself at this point. We started to have a slight breakdown of communication. It was so hot out, but we could see the finish line. Although we really should have taken a break, we just wanted to finish up. After the stubborn butyl tape was done, Thomas drilled holes for the screws since they weren’t self-tapping and screwed on the frame for the fan. We used a premium silicon sealant all around the frame and over the screws. It got a little messy, but it worked a charm. After the frame was nicely sealed, Thomas finally screwed the fan on and we were done. With our first project officially done, I still feel a little nervous about the work ahead but definitely really excited too!