Today we did a lot in the Land Rover. I was thinking about @trucklife-family and what she said about physical labour and problem solving being good for mental health. It's part of the reason why we create these projects for ourselves. If we lived in a time where we needed to hunter gather I don't think building a tiny home and wheels would be our priority.

In the photo above, the bed is down. You'll see it up in a later photo. Still, there's room to stand and get dressed, and make a cuppa.

It's absolutely creatively satisfying to see a project come to life. In many ways you could say 'well, that's quite functional - it serves a solid purpose. It's our accomodation as we travel Europe (and hopefully to Africa), and it will house our clothes and food. It doesn't need to be pretty. Yet for us, aesthetics are important. The space needs to look good, and it needs to work well. Because we do have to live in it, and we like a place of beauty.

Can you see our elastic wall? Here we can put jackets and other things behind the elastic. It's a good use of space. You can see the boards in place on the lower left - that's to make up the downstairs bed if we can't put the pop top up. You can also see where we decided to store the cooker, and the black board makes up the bed when we move the jerry can (you'll see that in another photo, which will make more sense).

Now, this is bed UP mode. Look how much ROOM there is! IT's just incredible how much space we have made. It honestly does NOT feel like a tiny space at ALL.

Can you see how we prop it up? With a piece of bamboo. That was in our old build so it's nice it's made it into this one. It's a very simple solution and I assure you is super strong.

In this photo you can see the Life Saver jerry can. It can filter out all kinds of nasties and is an essential bit of kit. If we want to make the bed longer (which I won't generally as I can sleep downstairs on the diagonal and jamie can sleep upstairs) we put the board I showed you above next to the cooker, and make the full downstairs bed. You can also see the glory of our cupboards here! That should fit heaps of clothes, a washing up bucket, our pee bucket, pots and pans, coffee making things, sauces and so on. The larder is on the left hand side under the bed, and the fridge is right in front of you!

Yep, that's a 30L drawer fridge. I'm not convinced it's enough, but we'll also have a small icebox between the seats. I guess I'll just do some clever packing.

I'm so happy with how elegant and streamlined and GORGEOUS it all looks.

There's still heaps of work to be done, but we have reached a turning point now. Jamie's getting the 12 V done soon, and the diesel heater. Woo hoo!

What do you think of our DIY camper?

With Love,

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