Having finished fitting the crankup I moved onto the 240v connection to the water heater. We are going to start lining the bathroom with plastic this week so the wiring needed to be done. All went well and after switching on 20 minutes later piping hot water was available, this time from electric heating rather than gas
In my wisdom I decided this morning that I would fit a maxview crankup to the van. After building the van in January and February on the driveway in the ice, wind, rain and freezing weather I welcomed the prospect of working in the sun.
That is until at the top of the ladder under the sweltering sun, reflected nicely back into my face by the silver of the van I decided too much sun was just as bad as too little. At least I was not up there too long since the mastic and glue was setting within seconds so there was no chance to work slowly 
Now sat with a nice cup of tea 
stew
A week has gone by since the last post, sorry and thanks for the emails asking where we were…..
We headed off to Newark and slept our first night in the camper. It worked superbly. It was a cold night outside but the insulation kept us warm. I wold estimate we had the propex heater on for an hour max. One of the blinds decided to give up, unfortunately the largest. After a lot of messing about and trying to repair we have decided it is past it and so will have to be replaced.
We attended the spring fair at Newark, an annual event which is to be held twice yearly from now on. It was interesting viewing panel vans on sale there. Norm, who was also there reported that he had a new interest in them as well. What was interesting was the price of them, on average £38000!! wow.
After Newark we travelled to Mablethorpe with rest of the MHF crowd. The Haven site had a special offer, £17 for four nights including electricity. Again all worked in the van perfectly. Sadly though the weather was awful. We had, I think one good afternoon. We found a great place by the beach
which I am sure we will return to. It happens to be next to a very nice looking links golf course so another attraction lol.
Norm and Sandra are motorhoming for April so I am pushing on with the conversion on my todd. Currently I am working on the gas locker at the rear of the van. This is how it was when I started
It is changing considerably and I will post some update pics over the next day or so
We have our camper working and once I fit the foam this morning it is ready for camping. Its taken us 25 days.
Until we learn how to do upholstery I am going to buy three king size duvet sets and cut them to cover the foam. No idea if it will work but it sounds logical as we will have at least two sewn edges at least for each piece of foam.
We have fitted 240v hook up, 12v lighting and sockets, truma gas/electric water heater, propex 2000 blow heating, gas hob/sink and a shurflo water pump. The shower room is built, just needs the internal walls fitting and a shower hose but meanwhile will be a privacy room for the toilet.
The design has really worked. She can sleep four adults and seat nine. We have cosy double berths front and back which will seat three comfortably or four with a inch. We left the three cab seats as they are, having a little girl we wanted all three of us to be able to sit up there when travelling.
Norm, who has helped with the build and supplied the workshop has proven a fantastic asset, his carpentry is legendry.
We are now going to enjoy her for a few weeks whilst I earn some money (darn it lol) and then we will get to it again and fit lockers and the internal shower room and the final upholstery. We are at Newark staying with motorhomefacts so if you are there pop along and say hello, ask for Artona.
When we started this project all I had done in the past was general DIY. I wanted to do a self build and by that I mean a self build, not turn to professionals to get work done when the going got tough. I am extremely proud of the job and I know Norm quietly is as well.
Can’t wait until we start the next one. Love the citroen relay we have here but I fancy a monster Iveco, extra long wheelbase 
stew
We fitted the 240v mains electric hookup system yesterday and the gas hob. After testing we rechecked the propex heater and truma heater and I can report its all OK, fully working. We started the project on Feb 1st and with 25 working days we have fully insulated her, fitted a ceiling, fitted a full gas system and electric system and created 4 berths, fantastic
I know I might be biased but I think we have hit on the best layout for an 11 foot by 6 foot space ever. All the furniture is in now with just a morning’s work doing a final bit of cladding in the rear lounge. Did you notice I wrote “rear” lounge, yep we have the front lounge and the rear lounge and with the shower room and kitchen mid ships they both have privacy from each other. You could easily sit three in each very comfortably but four in each could fit with a squeeze and remember that does not include the 3 seats in the front driving area – wow.
We got caught out by the rain yesterday, it literally poured. Norm finished the kitchen, which looks magnificent, have I mentioned that before? We also cut down the bathroom door. Norm carefully trimmed it and then removed the infill from the cut piece and refitted it giving us a perfect door again.
I meanwhile dodged the rain cutting ply and cladding the seat boxes
It looks like its all going to plan – where is there some wood to touch lol. We commissioned the Power Control Unit yesterday morning. This unit will control the battery charging and give fuse protection to all the lights and sockets, both 12v and 240v.
Meanwhile the wheels arches were fitted complete with loads of insulation. We used a new (to us) insulation from B&Q. At £5 for three rolls it was a bargain but it was also really nice to both look at and handle. Insulation material can often be very irritating to use with little bits of fibre going everywhere. This latest type looks more like soft lambs wool but on checking I discovered it was made of recycled glass bottles. Anyway its nice to know that beneath our heads when we sleep there will be no room for any little drafts.
After the wheel arches the seats were fixed in and today the kitchen will make the furniture complete. Before the kitchen goes in though we need to hang the bathroom door. Although we will be able to swing the bathroom door open almost all the way it will not fully open due to the kitchen. So we have to fit the hinges first. We purchased a set of 10 continuous hinges for just £20 from screwfix. Each hinge is 1000mm long so they will come in very handy.
Before we started building we had the van weighed. These were the weigh bridge figures
Total 2020
Front 1240
Rear 0780
Yesterday we fitted the shower room. Clad in our maple finish it looks amazing. After all the very careful construction over the last few weeks it took the smallest amount of tweaking to get it all to fit perfectly, I can tell you, this will be one of the best built motorhomes in the world………
Earlier we had clad the front seating in the same maple
You can see the Propex blow heating system outlet and a double socket. We have used a classy domestic socket. There is no problem using these compared to over priced caravan ones