In reality, it’s a lot more complicated than that. Converting a van can be a costly process, and hiring professionals to do it for you isn’t cheap. Standard camper vans easily cost over $80,000, while luxury models can cost as much as $200,000. If you opt to go the DIY camper van conversion route, you’re looking at a ton of labor, and even doing almost everything yourself adds up fast. But if you’re determined to make it work, there are ways.

Check out this $1,000 camper van build by Grace and Marlon of “The Sweet Savory Life.” Nicknamed “Flippie,” this 2017 Ram Promster 1500 cargo van started out as bare as vans get. Now, it’s a comfortable abode, thanks almost entirely to products purchased at IKEA. And this isn’t a recreational vehicle that gets occasional weekend use and sits in a driveway the rest of the time. This is the couple’s full-time home.

Grace explains: “We had to figure out what we wanted to have in the van based on the lifestyle we plan on living. Aside from the obvious things like the kitchen and bed, we added a desk, shower, cabinets, and drawers to our must-have list. We had to assess what things we’re bringing in the van and how much storage we really needed. At this point, we had already been living minimally in our backpacks for over a year and camping out on my in-law’s couch. We needed some storage but not that much! Also, I wanted a rear kitchen (very uncommon) and a desk (considered a luxury for many van design) in the van. Trying to figure out the layout was not at all fun, poor husband! He’s the one who tirelessly took measurements and laid out our floor plan over and over again!”

“After an exhaustive few months of trying to figure out our floor plan, we figured how little we knew about how this new living situation would look like for us. The best decision we’ve made was to move in with only our backpacks and two gaming chairs that reclined flat and served as our bed. We started living in our bare cargo van part-time in the middle of winter without insulation! This really helped us finally create our final floor plan! Most especially the need to insulate! Though our floor plan was set, we still wanted our build to be open-ended! Meaning… we want to be able to easily take it apart or switch it around if needed. And this is where the versatility of our build comes to place. We can easily gut it out and take everything apart if we want a completely different layout down the road.”

That’s where IKEA comes in. While most van conversions rely heavily on custom built-in elements, Grace and Marlon didn’t have carpentry skills, didn’t want to buy tools, and had to keep their budget low. As it turns out, all of the stuff they bought was pretty easy to mount to the IKEA SKADIS pegboard walls for safety — not to mention the fact that they’re lightweight and easily replaceable. Going off of that, they chose furnishings that wouldn’t be damaged by road vibration.

The couple uses the BALKARP full-size sleeper sofa as a convertible bed, placing it just behind the cab to free up the rest of the space for a kitchen and workspace. On their blog, they lay out every single element they purchased and how much it cost (though that total does not include items like their Eco power bank station and refrigerator).

All in all, this DIY van conversion would be impressive even if the couple were only using it for fun. The fact that they’re able to live in it just shows how successful their plan turned out to be.

The post DIY Van Life: Camper Conversion Completed with IKEA Products first appeared on Dornob.

Photographer John Margolies (1940-2016), was known for capturing images of the quirky, unique, and offbeat architecture along America’s roads. His Roadside America Photograph Archive contains thousands of images, cataloging the changing landscape of America over four transformative decades. Following his death, the Library of Congress purchased his collection for posterity, and they recently released it to the public domain without restrictions.

The collection of 11,710 pictures is far more than a trove of random images. It’s one of the most comprehensive chronicles of vernacular architecture, quirky businesses, and weird sculptures ever assembled.

Many of the slides were published in books with personal annotations from Margolies. Now, for the first time, everyone can access every image in the collection on the Library of Congress site.

Compiled over countless back road journeys from 1969 to 2008, this treasure trove delivers a time capsule in each frame. Margolies chronicled the changes happening to his country with loving precision and a playful eye.

In the early days of automotive travel, roadside architecture started popping up everywhere as a draw for tourists. Gas stations were no longer simply a pump—to attract expanding business, entrepreneurial owners started incorporating whimsical eye-catchers like pagodas, bomber planes, teepees, or giant cowboy gear into their designs.

In the era of Sunday drives and road trip vacations, car journeys often included pit stops at one-of-a-kind attractions like the world’s largest buffalo, pecan, or bureau.

Margolies spent most of his shutter time in California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, and Texas. About half the photos in this collection were taken in one of those areas, but all 48 contiguous American states make an appearance.

Margolies saw these roadside treats for what they were—part of a passing trend that would one day vanish from cultural memory unless lovingly preserved. With his trusty Canons, he chronicled the development and eventual demise of the early routes and roads that spread across the country, bringing industry and opportunity to post-WWII America.

With the continued advancement of the automobile, infrastructure evolved, creating highways to cater to the increasing number of cars. Along with that development came a faster pace of travel, and the decline of roadside extravagance.

People began zipping between cities rather than tootling the back roads, largely abandoning the curios of Roadside America. Many of the kooky attractions at gas stations, concept restaurants, and wacky businesses signs that Margolies photographed live on solely through his visionary work.

Each of the 11,710 original 33 mm slides have been digitized in high definition, and the originals are kept in cold storage for preservation. The title, date, and subject attached were provided by Margolies, but the subject and geographical headings were added by staff at the Library of Congress.

This treasured collection tells the story of a country transforming in pace, scope, and social focus. It’s also the story of a man with a rambling, adventurous spirit, a healthy respect for whimsy and kitsch, and a historian’s impulse to chronicle a rapidly changing world.

The post Library of Congress Releases John Margolies’ “Roadside America Series” first appeared on Dornob.

It wasn’t too long ago that Southampton born Aaron Goodfellow, 27, and Australian girlfriend Sophie Taylor, 24, decided to buy a van, convert it into a reliable motor home, and travel across Europe in it for as long as their budgets allowed for. The innovative couple has already racked up thousands of miles in their transformed 2004 Ford Transit “Stella,” and both of them have been embracing the rich European cultures they’ve stumbled upon since they left England nearly three months ago.

Converting the Van

Since it needed a lot of refurbishment, the pair managed to nab the old transit van for a mere £900. With the help of a few DIY hacks and some clever interior planning, they managed to complete the interior conversion for £1000, with an additional £450 needed to make it roadworthy. After a couple of weeks of gluing, hammering, painting, and fitting, the van was ready to move into and move around in.

Featuring fairy lights, a highly commended toastie machine, and a makeshift outdoor shower, this knackered old van seems to have undergone the fairy godmother’s “bibbety-bobbety-boo” treatment and is now the envy of all on social media. Other features include fitted carpet, spotlights, wood paneling, a double bed, a cozy kitchen area, and a few shelving units for storage. The couple even installed additional ceiling and back door windows to let natural light in and facilitate stargazing!

Life on the Road

Stella is about one-20th of the size of an ordinary house, yet the couple still lives and operates on a seemingly normal daily routine — with the one exception of having to be very conservative when it comes to using water for washing up and showering. Although they strived to save up enough to not have to work for a little while while they traveled, the couple are still cautious when it comes to spending money and trying to live frugally.

Sophie and Aaron have a minimum of two cooked meals a day, after which they spend their free time relaxing, hiking, going for long strolls, and exercising. Their minimal lifestyle has brought about a new sense of living: one characterized by planned meals, the cautious use of resources, talking, and spending quality time together over movies and Netflix series.

Travel Itinerary

Sophie and Aaron plan to drive along the coast around continental Europe, beginning in France and moving down into Spain, Portugal, and then over to Morocco, where they eventually hope to reach the Sahara desert. After that, they have plans to hit Italy (they’re especially determined to do some wine tasting in Tuscany), Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria, after which they’ll head up to Germany and visit Belguim, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden.

Aaron says of the journey: “Every day is completely different despite living out of the same van, the views in the morning and evenings are stunning…the freedom to drive almost anywhere at any time and choose to stay another day or move on. It’s very versatile.” 

The spontaneous decision to do this was reached over a bottle of red in a Clapham pub, with the couple leaving only a month after they set their minds on achieving the conversion goal. If nothing else, this story proves that when you’re passionate and dedicated to a movement or an idea, anything is possible.

The post Adventure Couple Turns Old Van into Traveling Home first appeared on Dornob.

Over the past year or so, design magazines have been awash with retro motel overhauls, showcasing buildings that have been brought into the 21st century and regained their long-lost appeal. This has in large part been facilitated by social media, where influencers are able to spread images of the motels they stay in at a viral level. It has also been spurred on by a resurgence in the popularity of “Americana” culture and the undertaking of lengthy journeys in vans (usually accompanied on Instagram by the hashtag #vanlife).

At the AHEAD Americas Awards in June 2018 — an event that honors excellence in the fields of hospitality experience and design — motels were celebrated as the hottest new trend in the industry. At this year’s ceremony, one of the biggest winners in the judges’ eyes was the Calistoga Motor Lodge and Spa in California, which was deemed to have “shown restraint” and “done more with less.” The judges also said that the motel was “young and fresh,” highlighting the success of the spa area’s design in particular. The project went on to win the Hotel of the Year, Visual Identity of the Year, Hotel Renovation and Restoration, and Spa and Wellness awards.

A few other motel renovations have been making headlines over the last couple of years, including The Drifter Hotel in New Orleans and The Anvil Hotel in Jackson, Wyoming. The Drifter draws inspiration from the Beat generation and the spirit of post-war America, employing bold floral murals, retro modernism, and contrasting materials like rough-troweled concrete, decorative tiles, and wood paneling to create a contemporary yet nostalgic tone.

The Anvil Hotel, set against the backdrop of Wyoming’s stunning mountain ranges, invokes the rustic chic of mountain life, consisting of equal parts brawn and brilliance and taking its cues from the old-timey general stores that were once scattered around the more rural parts of the US. The lobby serves as the motel’s focal point, inviting tourists and residents alike to come and sit around the cast-iron stove and warm themselves in the evening before heading to a bar run by New York’s Death & Company.

The colors inside The Anvil are sometimes dark and moody, sometimes deep and lively, with a complementary palette of dark greens, burnt oranges, and midnight blues being used throughout. Wood paneling gives the motel a saloon-like feel, while patterned glass, parquet flooring, and painted timber siding all work to complement simple furnishings like wrought-iron beds and classic orb light fixtures.

Which motels are on your summer road trip list?

The post New Trends in Renovated US Motels first appeared on Dornob.

A typical Winnebago gets parked out the outskirts of a town or, at best, in a large parking lot that can accommodate its bulk. While larger such caravans are great for wide-open road trips, this set of small capsules is designed for maneuverability in a modern city setting.

Designer David Tonkinson pursued a number of creative design variants, but ultimately engineered these futuristic camper pod modules to include linear actuators that, in turn, allow for an open configuration when the travel pods are set up and opened in a static location.

A wrap-around side-and-skylight system – stretched between and wrapping around the seam separating the two halves of each shell – can be turned opaque for privacy purposes at the flick of a switch. Part of it slides sideways, acting as a door when the sides are extended.

At the same time, splitting the design into two pods helps keep down the size of each overall egg-shaped trailer unit, which are individually small enough to park in a normal-sized car space. Think of it as your very own, home-storable boutique hotel.

While they work best in combination and can each be towed by a single small-sized vehicle, the two units are structured to work in functional unison. One, the so-called ‘comfort pod’, contains living/sleeping accommodations (a two-person bed, seating, audio and visual outlets). The other ‘service pod’ features supplies and storage as well as power and water (with toilet and sink).

The post Futuristic Egg-Shaped Camper Pod first appeared on Dornob.