Background and final design

I should probably explain a little more about myself and Pod boy, most especially how we ended up in the pod.

I'm a 25 year old Kiwi, I'm in my last semester of nursing school. I sit my State exam on the 20th of July, and then 11 days later I have a one way ticket over to the pod. I spent a few years at University working on my BA in English and History with the intention of becoming a secondary school teacher; however, towards the end of that I had a wee crisis and couldn't face the thought of actually teaching. I don't think I'm really assertive enough, I would love teaching much more if there were no teenagers in the room who didn't want to learn. So I enrolled in the nursing program and have loved it ever since. This last semester is when we get to choose the speciality we want to focus on, I'm doing my elective placement at Psych Emergency.

Pod boy is 33 and (unfortunately) Australian. He's a residential carpenter. I can explain a little of what he does because I spent a few weeks as his pseudo apprentice. Basically, from my understanding, he does a lot of driving around in the pod to various job sites, when there he makes coffee, eats lunch and then goes to the beach for the night. I kid, he actually puts in very long hours with various electrical tools, compressors and dust.

I'll never forget the day that Pod boy first told me he was considering moving into the pod. Until 10 months ago, when it underwent a small transformation, the pod had been used to transport the tools of carpentry. It had (reportedly) a timber floor with various shelving units. I couldn't imagine how that particular van could ever be a "home". When Pod boy moved into the pod he bought a tradesman trailer for his tools and put some click-lock foam on the floor. Slowly he put a cupboard along the driver's side of the van and a small cupboard over the wheel arch on the passenger side. He put a big shelf between the two cupboards in front of the back window.

When I first visited him in the pod we found that the small sleeping space was very cosy, I liked it but Pod boy found it too cosy. We managed with the space as it was for 3 weeks as we travelled down the East coast of Australia but when we decided that I would move over permanently we realised the pod would have to undergo a big change. We talked over various designs for 6 weeks but hadn't finalised anything. I went back for a couple of weeks and Pod boy removed the smaller cupboard which made the sleeping space slightly bigger but limited the storage space. We decided then that we would completely change the interior before August.

These were the design specifications that we came up with:

Pod boy's wants:

• Bed space to take up the entire available floor space - therefore have to have a raised platform.
• Have to have decent headroom when kneeling (for various reasons!)
• During the day the design has to be easily packed away with nothing moving around. It also has to be dog friendly.

Crickle's wants:

• Red, charcoal and black colouring with hints of white.
• Photo boards that I can stick my memories to.
  
• Bed has to have a softish mattress.
• Pod boy has to snuggle when it's chilly.

We came up with a few designs we thought would work and settled on one. I was all gung ho for the rebuild to start, but Pod boy wanted to think some more. I'm glad he did because I got inspired and we totally redesigned the pod in our heads. This time I drew plans and we think we've finally settled on this design. We've found that vandwelling is dynamic and it is important to be willing to change and compromise.

This is the floor plan of our current design:


I fell in love with Pod boy even more when I realised that he could understand my cryptic drawings. They're not to scale and he has to do a lot more work than these basic drawings make it look like, but this will give you a rough idea of the final design.

I'm hoping that Pod boy has bought a camera today, we talked about it this morning but he has a notoriously bad memory. His other camera is broken, but I'm pretty sure it's still in the glovebox. I've been given strict instructions about the number of shoes and the amount of clothes that I'm allowed to bring over with me, I'll post tomorrow and remind Pod boy of the necessity of throwing stuff away when living as vandwellers.