When I bought my van last March, I planned on building it out to be a mini camper. I will be moving into my van March 20, 2020 and I’m so excited. My minivan Camper Conversion took me just about a year, and I still find myself changing things and making small adjustments to really make it feel like home. I thought I could take you guys step-by-step through the building process. Actually, I made an entire series on YouTube if you want to check that out, but I included the videos below so you can follow along. If I can do it, as a single female with no carpentry skills whatsoever, then you can too.

The first step was to take out the back seats.

This was actually super easy, and my specific model of minivan (2001 Dodge Grand Caravan) just had levers that you pushed and pulled to get the seats out. I took the seats down to the local wreck yard, though you could try and sell them on Craigslist or something. They even helped me pull out the middle seat because they were nice guys. They don’t pay you for them, but it was an easy way to discard them, and know that they might be able to reuse them. That’s why I didn’t bring them to the junk yard.

Once I had the seats out, I added flooring.

This is something that can be very expensive. I see a lot of vanlifers during their camper conversion actually insulate the floor and put sub-flooring down. Then they’ll add super nice and expensive flooring on top. However, I’m broke and thought that would be too much work for someone who has no idea what they’re doing.

I decided to go the extremely easy route. First, I made sure the floor was level. To do this I simply filled in the holes (where the seat hardware was) with foam insulation. Evening it out was a bit trickier, but all i had to do was use a knife, some scissors and sandpaper. It cost more time than money, in my opinion. I bought a simple roll of vinyl flooring that, once the floor was even, was just rolled out and cut to size. This was the option that I went with because it looks good, but was extremely easy and affordable.

After the flooring was in, I was ready to build a bed.

Yes, there was an option to buy a bed. (Cots like this are a great option for simplicity and easy install.) However, when you buy a cot, you don’t have the ability to adjust height and length to make it perfect for you van. I opted to build my own bed using wood I bought from Jerry’s (Like Home Depot) and plywood. I used nails and screws to put everything together and used only a hammer. Respectively, I didn’t have any power tools and didn’t want to spend the money to rent them out.

For the design of the bed for my camper conversion, I simply measured (Like a million times) the dimensions I wanted it to be. I drew out how I would need to put the bed together. After I had a plan and measurements, I got the wood cut at the Jerry’s I bought it from. Then, without a clue in the world, just started hammering the wood together. Even with no experience at all, the bed came out great, sturdy and the perfect size.

Building a bed was probably the most technically difficult thing I had to do, so making window covers was a breeze.

There are definitely options for buying premade window covers (These or These are great options), but I went for a DIY option.

These window covers are removable and were really easy to make. I simply used reflectix (Find here.), cut them to size, and covered them with fabric. The outside was covered with black fabric to black out my windows. That way, in the dark, you won’t be able to tell that I’m in there, and it just looks like dark windows. I used a shimmery, iridescent fabric for the inside to keep it nice, light and bright in there. Securing the fabric was done with spray adhesive and then tying the two fabrics together around the edges. When I was a kid, we used to make throw blankets this way and I figured I could just do that with my window covers. They worked out really well.

After I was done with the window covers, I worked on making the van feel a little more like home by adding bedding and a personalized tie dye sheet.

When my bed was officially finished, I was ready to start adding storage into my van.

I up-cycled a vanity I already owned, and used that as my storage in the back. It was fairly simple to do this for my camper conversion. I used a piece of plywood I had left over from the bed build and put that across the back of my van. Doing this allowed me to secure the vanity to the floor so I wouldn’t have a vanity flying to the front of the van if I had to have an emergency stop (or a wreck). Before I secured it down, I spray painted the vanity white, once again trying to make it feel as light and bright in there as possible.

Securing it was rather easy as I just used L brackets and screwed them in using a Phillip screwdriver. Once it was set in there nicely, I added a filing cabinet under the vanity (where your legs would go) that I also already previously owned. It just happened to fit in there perfectly. I will also add a simple wood book shelf that i only used bungee cords to secure. The shelf holds all of my kitchen ware and food.

I still needed somewhere to store my clothing, and I really wanted to have a “hanging closet.”

It took a bit of planning and researching options, and also talking to a few different Jerry’s employees for recommendations to come up with a PVC pipe plan. I used one of the stronger PVC pipes, PVC pipe glue and came up with, in my opinion, a very clever plan that allows me to have a “closet.” Without having any experience with PVC piping, I had to have a couple people help me pick the best option, but I feel like most places will have someone there to help you too.

This was super cheap to do, as PVC piping is not expensive at all. The most expensive item I had was the steel socket I used to screw to my floor and the vanity. (Like this one.) This project took a lot of measuring and multiple trips to Jerry’s to re-cut my piping to get the perfect fit. My only advice is to measure a million times. Once they were measured correctly, all I had to do is glue them together and add them to the floor flangs that were screwed in. Now I have a functional hanging closet and it actually worked out really well when I used it.

When the closet was finished, my build was pretty much done. All that was left was to buy the last bits and bobs.

I really took my time building out my van. I wanted it to be exactly the way I wanted, and I didn’t want to rush through it. Luckily, I had the time to do so. Also, I don’t have a lot of cash laying around, so I really had to take my time to be able to financially afford it. Sure, my DIY camper conversion is on the cheap side of van builds, but I still needed to complete it in multiple trips to Jerry’s.

There’s a video of the entire build from start to finish that doesn’t go into as much detail of every step.

Hopefully, in reading this, you realize that building your own camper conversion can be done. You don’t need fancy tools, a lot of money, or carpentry skills in order to create something that works for you. Thank you so much for being here. If you have any questions at all, please reach out to me. You can comment below of contact me personally using the contact page. I love you all and really appreciate all of the support I’ve been receiving.

xoxo