Vent and benches

Yay! A successful day:) After the awning disaster on the weekend, I had yet another mishap yesterday. I had come home with some pastries in a box and a bottle of whiskey (not an expensive one but still) in a box. As I was crouching down to do something, the box opened and the bottle slipped out. It was definitely one of those "slow motion - ohhh noooo" moments. I kind of caught the bottle with my foot and had it directed to the mat next to the garage door. It did land on the mat but in its final moment in existence it twisted off my foot and just lightly made contact with the concrete floor. AAaacckkk! The garage smelled nice though (it was a Highland single malt whiskey - sniff, sob.)

As for Redford - the vent for the grey and black tank is now connected and complete. The installation went quite well and is as close to the wall as it can be. It will still need a small box around it to cover it up but the layout for the bathroom is coming along.

Today I also managed to get the Victron electrical system components (solar charge controller, DC-DC alternator charge controller, and battery monitor) to connect and communicate with my phone. I was having no success the last couple of days but then thought to try my iPad to connect. That worked which allowed me to update the firmware in the components and then they connected to my phone. I'll keep an eye on how the system works as there is a ton to learn. 

We decided to change how the bed system will work. Redford will have two single beds which can be joined to make a queen sized bed. We want the system to be simple and not fussy. So all we'll have to do is take the back cushion from each bench and put them in the front driving area and the beds will be ready for sleeping - no sliding out or adjusting needed. Each bed will be 23" wide which will be fine for us. When we want to join to a queen bed, the panels will slide together and the 11" high back cushions will lay down to complete the 68" wide mattress surface.

As I want to run electrical wiring and plumbing soon, I needed to get the framing down for the floor. The final decision was to use 2x6 spacers in the bench/dining area and 2x4 spacers in the front area. Using the 2x4s as spacers will sacrifice a bit of storage but will make the interior feel bigger as there will be 75" of headroom in the front part (bathroom, kitchen, in front of the fridge) of the van. Barr Plastics in Abbotsford made the custom grey and black tanks but for the fresh water tank we're going with a stock 39 gallon tank so it will be less than half the price of a custom tank. Hopefully I can pick that up in a day or two and start the plumbing installation inside the passenger side bench.
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