The entry at the cargo door is very high off the ground. This posed a problem for entering and exiting comfortably. We had looked at electric retractable steps and permanent nerf bar types of steps and none really caught our fancy. There was one I kind of liked - it had a flat step that retracted or extended when you kicked it. But it was quite expensive and I was sure we would need some modifications to it for mounting. This is due to our grey water tank being in that location. In the end we're very happy with the folding metal step we bought online. It's very stable, has adjustable height, and folds and stores easily.

Countertop space was also a challenge on our test run. To help with that I did two things. 1) I put some rubber stops on the underside of the sink cutout/cover. That way it can sit side ways and expose about 1/3 opening of the sink while providing extra counter space near the outlet at the end of the counter. I also added an aluminum edge strip at the window opening to keep things from falling off the back of the counter into the window well. Lastly, I installed a flip up counter extension at the end of the counter at the cargo door opening. Our camping at Galiano Island was much more comfortable with all of the improvements:)

We were trying to see if an "all electric" house was possible... In in the end, we decided it wasn't. On a website that I was frequenting, people were saying that the amount of battery we had (even though it is a large bank at 618 amp-hours of lithium) wouldn't be enough to provide the heat needed unless we were really going to rough it and also run the engine to charge the batteries with the alternator. We went camping a couple of times in early March. If we had plug in shore power - no problem, the electric heater produced plenty of heat to keep us warm and comfortable. But we tried a night at a campground with no plug in and it was about -2°C that night... it was quite cold, not unbearable but it did drain the battery down to about 30%. While we don't plan on chasing snow (we don't ski or snowboard) we knew there could be times when we might be at higher altitude and experience freezing temperatures even in summer.

All along I figured this would be something we needed to make a decision on. Our choices were to install a couple more batteries (for which we had room) or have a gas (regular gas or diesel) heater installed. The cost of the two options was similar. While adding a couple of batteries would give us some heating capacity, we would still need to recharge the batteries in order to have heat for a few days. In the end we decided to have an Espar S2D2 diesel heater installed. We could have gone with a gas unit but that meant dropping the gas tank and plumbing into the tank. There were some issues with that. 1) The gas tank would have to be dropped - not so easy especially with our grey and black tanks and drain pipes under the van. 2) The Transit doesn't have huge range based on the fuel tank capacity and mileage so I was hesitant to put even more draw on the gas. 3) The gas heater unit was physically larger than the diesel (although it does have a higher heat output - but I didn't think it was necessary given the size of the van interior.) We also had a 10L fuel tank installed inside the cabinet under the sink (the heater cubby is just under that cabinet). This amount of fuel will provide heat for days. Packing one or two 5L gas cans of kerosene would provide as much heat as we wanted.) It's also easy to buy more diesel (many gas stations) but especially more kerosene (Home Depot, Walmart, Lowes, etc. all sell it.)

More money (oh well!) and a more time to re-jig the cabinet... but we're warm and happy! It will make the van much more comfortable and trips enjoyable.

Today the last of the flooring went in. We also "moved in" most of our kitchen equipment. There are a few details still to be completed but functionally, Redford is complete! I think with any RV (and boat) ownership there will always be maintenance to be carried out, repair work (some minor... some major), and ongoing improvements being carried out so it's always a work in progress. It has been a challenging but fun project and we are so looking forward to testing it out and going on some trips. Now if only the weather and pandemic would cooperate! In reality we weren't planning on true winter camping in any event. So now we have time to test Redford, make final adjustments, and also clean up the work area.

From ordering to completion it has been just about a year. We ordered our Transit cargo van back in December of 2020. During the time that it took for it to arrive on May 1, 2021, we had purchased a great deal of our supplies and components. There were a few "misses" in some pieces that didn't work out but not a lot. My original timeline was the end of October - I'm a couple of months overdue but in reality there was almost one whole month of in-van work time lost due to the master control module failure, COVID vaccine recovery time, heat wave, and more than a few other "life got in the way" events (most of them happy ones though.)

I'll make some modifications to the website in 2022 to highlight the main areas and features of Redford and then by spring we can start putting some entries into the travel section:)

Today was a shopping day. Angela and I went out and spent most of the day shopping today. Part of the trip involved trying to find window coverings for the three Motion Windows and the read cargo door windows. I had brought home some "top down/bottom up" type of pleated blinds from a local big box retailer. The concept was great, pull the shade down and you get a privacy sheer, the pull the handle back up and you get a blackout privacy covering. The only problem was that when they were folded away to the top of the window casing, the profile was over 4" in height.  In your home this might be okay because the top of the window is most likely higher up, i.e., above your head and not impeding your view. In a van the window is lower down and only 25" tall as well. That means more than 25% of the view out is blocked if you're standing.

After an early dinner (finished eating by 5:00 - we did skip lunch however...) I spent about 2.5 hours working in Redford. I made a knife holder for the top drawer and secured organizer blocks in the drawer. That way things shouldn't slide about too much when we're driving. I also prepped for installing the rest of the vinyl flooring tomorrow. That involved screwing down the floor boards and doing some vacuuming. As usual, in order to screw down the floor boards, I had to first lift them to see where the 2x4 supports ran underneath. In order to lift the boards, I has to take the cupboard doors off the fridge cabinet and also take the bottom drawer out of the kitchen cabinet. That meant emptying the drawer first, and so on. In the end, the boards are now countersunk, screwed in place, and vacuumed. Everything else has been put back in place as well so that tomorrow I can get right to flooring. It won't be as straight forward as in the dining area because the path is a bit narrower so I'll have to cut planks. Also there are a couple of corners to work around and more aluminum edge trim to install.
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There are lots of bits and pieces to finish off - and they all take time! It's been really cold and snowy around here; I have a 300W radiant heater that helps with my hands and body, but my feet freeze! Standing on the concrete floor sucks the heat out of my feet and it's been so cold, snowy, and windy that the snow actually blows in under the barn roof ridge cap, falls inside, and sticks to the cars, van, and floor inside the barn! I have to be careful because it makes the floor super slippery.

Merry Christmas - I hope everyone has a safe holiday and are able to connect with your family and friends to the degree that is comfortable and safe (FaceTime, phone, some in-person). The weather outside IS frightful... Besides COVID Omicron, we have heavy snow now and extreme cold (for this area anyways) coming this week. Working in the shop on the van is unpleasant - super cold on my hands. I discovered that if I take out our little 350W electric radiant heater, it makes things much more pleasant. I work right in front of the heater dish and things are good - it's just a pain having to move the plug and heater from place to place. 

Very exciting this past week. We took our fabric, zippers, mattress covers, foam, and Redford over to our friends Evelina and Ray's place to make our cushion covers. Evelina is a terrific seamstress and while we helped a little bit with layout and a bit of cutting, she put in 99% of the work! They turned out great and the van looks nice inside with the cushions in place. The mattress covers were necessary as our mattresses are made from poly foam (3") and latex foam (2"). The latex foam is very soft and not very durable - lots of bits coming off when it rubs against other items. So to protect it we bought mattress covers from Walmart and Evelina modified them to zip over the foam prior to putting them in the finished covers. We almost had a fabric disaster. After Evelina had worked on the covers for 11 hours Ray let us know that we were really close to needing more fabric - they would let us know the next morning... I looked at the Ikea website (we were using drapes for most of the cover material) and saw on the website there was only ONE package remaining at each of the local stores. Yup - when they made the final cuts we needed one more panel of fabric. I went out to Ikea for opening and managed to grab the very last pack on the shelf. I think that fabric and drape is now discontinued so we were very fortunate!

Now that we had extra fabric remaining from the new package, we had material to make a drape for behind the driving cabin and a cover for the large cargo door window. I had to study up on how to use the sewing machine! Everything has turned out quite well. I discovered that even though neodymium magnets are very strong, because the fabric is slippery against the van metal, you need lots of magnets to hold up the cargo door window panel (12 of them weren't enough!)
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Tomorrow we head over to our friends' place to have cushion covers made:) The timing is just right as I made good progress on the dining/sleeping area today. The Lagun table top was completed a couple of weeks ago and this week I made the extension top if there are more than just Angela and I eating. I had previously made some aluminum pieces for the key lock on the extension leg base but because the flooring vinyl we bought is so thick, those aluminum pieces wouldn't work. I ended up making a new one out of 3/16th steel which perfectly matches the vinyl plank we have. 

It continues to be busy around the house. Our new puppy takes lots of time and support, the day-to-day household needs, and getting ready for Christmas means real-life doesn't stop for anyone! Meanwhile I continue to work here and there on Redford. There have been lots of after dinner work sessions and also those times when I go down to put a layer of Varathane onto a piece at 11:00 pm before going to bed. This save lots of time as pieces can dry and cure so they can be installed the next day.

The rear shelf area has taken lots of attention and time to complete. All of the woodwork/cabinetry has been done, only the aluminum bar the goes across the front (we're still not sure if this is what we want) to keep books from flying off the shelf is still to be completed. We also came up with an idea of how to make an extended table top from our 22.5" square Lagun table for when there's 4 (or more) people in the van for eating or playing a game. It will be a 11" wide extra piece that will mount on a leg and clamp on to the side of the table. I'll post pictures of how that works when it's complete. I also got around to making the support bars that will hold the bench tops up when we want to access the storage space inside the benches. Like almost everything else, I will need to tweak (cut down) the bar lengths as I forgot to account for the fact that there will be large 5" thick cushions on top of the flaps - this will make it harder to raise the support leg into place.
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Progress on the bathroom continues (albeit slowly...) The sliding barn door was very finicky to install - it still rubs a tiny bit against the wall in behind. That serves me right for using the marine fir as the finishing boards around the mirror; the 1/4" marine fir is not a flat and uniform as the baltic birch plywood. The flexible shower curtain track has been ordered. After I installed the toilet today, I checked the shower curtain for length and I think it'll be okay, i.e., it will hang over the toilet and into the shower pan. There is also some intermittent weeping in the union between the inlet hose and the water shut off valve behind the toilet. I'll have to keep an eye on that and see if the joint settles. I continue to think about how I'm going to build the rear shelf storage area above the windows at the back of Redford. I think I have an idea that will work to give the most storage and also be "easier" to install. The vertical panel took a lot of time to make and install. A curved ceiling, and two opposite angles on the ends to fit the cabinets... Tomorrow I will continue with the build for the rest of that rear overhead storage.
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It's been extremely wet around here. The third atmospheric river to be hitting our region in BC (and the Pacific Northwest of USA). Thankfully we haven't experienced any direct damage or impact in our immediate area but Abbotsford, and many other areas in BC, have been suffering a great deal. 

Progress and lots of finicky work on doors and trim has occurred over the last few days. I'm trying to do a slider door on the bathroom and it is challenging. Finding appropriate materials to maintain as slim a depth as possible (to not eat up interior space in the aisle between the bathroom and kitchen counter) while having sufficient strength has been a puzzle. In the end I settled on 3/8" plywood with 1/4" baltic birch attached - for the wall and also for the door. After installing the door and discovering the door was warped, I had to come up with a solution to straighten the door and also to strengthen the wall (too much flex.) After a couple of different attempts I ended up using 1/8" x 3/4" aluminum angle on the wall. It still flexes a bit but with several pocket screws holding it in place and also with the slider door in the channels, it is strong enough. It's certainly no worse than a couple of wall in our house where there are pocket doors. For straightening out the door I used angle aluminum as well but it was only 1/16" thick. At first I had trouble with the aluminum rubbing against the wall (and leaving black marks the way aluminum does...) I attempted to use a 1/8" straight flat piece but that wouldn't work because there wasn't enough meat to screw into in the door (if the door was a single piece of 5/8" plywood that may have worked.) Instead I decided to run the edge of the door through the table saw and take off some wood so the re-attached angle would have clearance to the wall in behind. That seems to work (for now - hopefully the door doesn't warp any further.)

The boxes at the rear of the van serve several purposes: 1) that hold the foam mattresses in place, 2) they keep things from falling into the "black hole" space between the ends of the benches and the rear doors, 3) they'll act as end tables for when we have guests or we are watching TV (I'm making some cup holders), 4) they're great as night stands for the bed area to store odds and ends, and 5) I discovered this evening that if we want to we can store our Lagun table top in the space between the night stand box and the rear van door.
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