One Room, For Now

An hour after work, one big panel less, and a look at a layout the van is not allowed to keep.

I put the drill down, stepped back to the rear doors, and could see straight through to the windscreen. One room, front to back. I already know I do not get to keep it.

Last time I said the metal would not stay bare for long, and that cork was next. It got at least one more evening. The partition between the cab and the load area was still standing, and as long as it was there the van was two separate spaces. I wanted to see what it looks like without it, so after work I gave it an hour.

The wall itself is one full width black panel with a grab handle on it and a row of vent slots. It looks like furniture until you have to carry it. It came out in one piece and went onto the lawn, under the edge of the tent, and that is where it stayed for the evening.

Before any of that I rigged light. Two LED strips clipped onto the ceiling ribs and a battery work light hanging in the middle of the van. It sounds like a detail. It is not. You cannot drive a screw you cannot see, and the back of a stripped van is darker than you expect at six in the evening.

Then the boring part. With the partition gone, the area behind the seats was suddenly reachable, and it turned out to be where all that drilling had been sending its dust. Seat bases exposed, grey film over everything. I got the vacuum in there and cleaned it out before it could travel any further into the van.

Here is the catch. The van gets registered as a cargo van, and for that it needs a divider between the cab and the load area to pass technical inspection. So something has to go back in. It does not have to be this panel, and it probably will not be, but the fully open van I was looking at this evening is not the version that ends up on the road. Which is exactly why I wanted the hour: to see the empty shell once, and to know what I am designing around before I start building.

The sliding door is the odd one out now. Everything else is metal and ribs, and that door is still sitting there in its three light grey factory panels, looking finished.

Lessons learned: hang your lights before you start, not when you get annoyed. Every panel you take off sends dust somewhere you cannot see yet, so open up the hidden corners and vacuum as you go instead of finding it all at the end. And check what the paperwork demands before you fall in love with a layout, because the inspection has opinions about your floor plan.

Next up: the last lining in the van. The sliding door.