Thank you.
So this is it.
This is the van, guys.
In the last episode of Borderless.
I spent my life savings on this thing so I could have a sustainable way to make my dreams of traveling a reality.
I officially own this.
This is officially mine.
This is insane.
I mean, I'm gonna be living out of it.
It's a 1990 Dodge B250 camper van and I'm naming it Spiffy because well, I met the guy that I bought it from in the parking lot of this restaurant called Spiffy's, and the name is just kind of ironic because I think the word Spiffy means like fancy or luxurious, and clearly it's not the fanciest thing.
It's from 1990s, so but in the last episode i kind of forgot to mention spiffy actually looks like this when i first got it ew holy, that is So fucking disgusting.
Well um, gonna just state the obvious here, based off of the looks of it.
Um, this van needs a lot of work.
Thankfully, as of right now, most of the mechanic aspects of everything have already been checked out, and that is in the clear, as of right now at least.
So the main thing i'm going to be focusing on is just the interior and actually making the inside a livable situation, because right now it's not looking too good.
So yeah, before I can actually travel around living out of my van, I need to actually make it livable.
Okay, so long story short.
I have to wear this because the van is infested with bugs and it needs to be cleaned out.
Now thankfully, I had tried to save a little extra money for gas, potential breakdowns and the inside renovations.
But I think when I first imagined preparing the inside of whatever van I ended up with, I kind of just thought it'd be some cute fun decorations you see on Pinterest or something.
There's a whole ass swing in this one.
The layout of this one is really cool, but I have to say the plants have to be my favorite.
There's a bunch of little trendy lights around the top of this van.
This one has like house plants all around it.
It's like a whole ass garden in there.
This one is so cool actually.
Come to find out though, my van actually needed a lot more work than just some aesthetic trendy decorations here and there.
Literally, who the fuck put this in?
It was around this point where I think, I started to realize this was going to be a lot harder than I originally expected.
Every day I keep doing this van build.
I keep questioning more and more what I've gotten myself into.
Which is why I really just had to try to take things one step at a time each day.
Day number two.
Day three.
Day number four.
Day number five.
Day six.
Day seven.
Day eight.
Day nine.
So today is the day that I start doing the vinyl on not only the walls, but the flooring as well.
I'm not gonna lie, I have little to no idea what I'm doing, but I'm hoping I'm kinda just gonna like figure it out as I go.
From scraping the mold off the top of the van to replacing the walls and the flooring, and then even trying to learn how to do upholstery, along with an entire new paint job, I felt like I was slowly but surely starting to make progress.
I think the first coat is kind of done.
It's far from perfect, but it's going to have to work.
I feel like anything I do at this point will look better than how it looked before.
So that's what I just have to keep telling myself.
It's not going to be perfect, but it's definitely going to look better than it did before.
I'm trying to get all these little button things off of this so I can take it off and replace the upholstery.
So I feel like the hardest part about this whole van build so far is just the fact that it feels like and looks like I'm not making any progress whatsoever, even though I'm working really hard.
Like literally, the van right now looks worse than it did when I first got it, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of me like doing all this hard work.
I haven't even painted the outside yet.
So just like the primer, that's the primer on the outside.
I've been waiting for it to like dry so I can sand it down and It just looks dumb.
One of the lessons I started to learn working on this project is that, even if things are seemingly not progressing to an end goal, not all progress has to look or feel linear.
Before I can actually start seeing things come together like visibly, I kind of have to strip everything out that I don't want because I have to make room for all the new stuff that I want to put in.
So that's kind of been.
The hard part is just like watching it slowly turn into more of a shit box, basically.
I know it's probably going to be worth it in the end.
But I also don't want to like focus too much on the end goal and the big picture because that will just like stress me out.
And I want to actually be able to enjoy every moment of this project and not just like rush through it.
I knew I was working as hard as I possibly could, and even if that hadn't yet amounted to anything rewarding, I knew it was eventually going to if I just kept working.
And the more and more I kept working, the more of a symbol the van and the entire van build started to become to me.
So I'm rewatching, like all this footage of the whole van build right now, and just like seeing this story come together is making me realize that to me, like in my head, this was so much more than like just a van build.
Not only was this one of the most self-empowering, liberating experiences of my life, but I also feel like it was the most isolated I've ever been or felt.
Because of this path, currently taking in life is just very untraditional.
I think it makes it really hard to relate to people or have other people understand.
That feeling of just being so isolated and alone really forced me to embrace it and kind of like be independent and channel it into something constructive, which was the van, and like building the rest of the van and like finding the motivation to keep going with the whole build, because it got really fucking hard at times.
And now I'm kind of having like this epiphany that it's always really been hard for me to open up to people and trust people.
So this project and this whole experience to me was almost like this tangible embodiment of how I've felt a lot of my life feeling like I have to just do everything on my own and not trust people.
And I'm still trying to figure out if that's a bad thing or if it's a good thing or if there needs to be a balance.
Because on one hand, it is good to be independent and not depend too much on other people.
But then, on the other hand, maybe I just have like really bad, like trust issues or like abandonment issues or something, I don't know.
But yeah, I don't even know if that made any sense to anyone.
I just thought it might be an interesting storyline to include, because I've just really felt very disconnected from people in this past year of my life and feel like the van build was kind of just like my way of accepting that all I'm gonna have is myself at the end of the day.
This whole project just overall taught me a lot about myself as well.
I learned how stubborn and impatient I can be at times.
Come on, you little fuck.
Oh God, this is really annoying.
I have to get every little one of these, like nail things, out of the wood of the upholstery.
I also learned how toxic being a perfectionist can be when really doing anything creative, but especially when renovating a 30 year old vehicle.
That's obviously bound to have imperfections, regardless of how perfect i was trying to make everything turn out.
So there just so happens to be a bunch of chips in the original white paint on the van, So I think I'm gonna have to go around it and just fix all those little imperfections.
And mainly just how my anxiety makes me take things a little bit too seriously sometimes.
Who knew putting in fucking knobs on cabinets would be this damn hard?
Considering I was doing basically everything on my own, with no prior experience.
There was quite a few really overwhelming moments throughout the build where I felt pretty discouraged.
I ran out of paint in the middle of painting the van.
And so I went back to the store to go get the paint, and the store apparently discontinued the paint in the shade that I need.
So there is a chance now I might have to start over the whole fucking painting process.
But this taught me no matter how terrible something can feel in the moment, ultimately everything works out one way or another.
I just had to drive to a completely different city to get one of the last containers of this paint.
So let's hope it's going to be enough this time.
Don't you know that I'll be around today?
Through your weakest moments.
To me, This is definitely the most challenging and difficult project I've ever taken on, but I think it was all worth it when I eventually actually started seeing things come together.
Today I am taking off all the masking on the van.
That's the plan.
So it's kind of going to be a moment of truth to see if this really turned out or not.
And finally seeing everything come together was probably one of the most rewarding feelings I've ever experienced.
Dude, I love this.
Oh my gosh.
I just can't believe this is finally coming together.
I did it.
I just put in the new upholstered couch and it looks so good.
This is it.
The curtains are looking good so far.
I got these little baskets that will mount on the wall right here and I got spice rack and stuff.
This is the bed area.
Very cozy as you can see.
Today's a really exciting day because I finally get to start moving into the van and putting all the living stuff in the van and mounting everything.
All the kitchen supplies are going in the cabinets today.
Let's hope everything fits.
Okay, I think this is about done.
So yeah, after almost a four month renovation, I'm proud to say the van is officially finished and this is what I'll be living out of.
Come on in guys.
Starting off from the back of the van, we have my favorite part of the van, the coffee bar.
This is the espresso maker machine.
We had to like bungee cord it in so it doesn't fly off when the van is driving.
Then we have the kitchen area over here.
We got a sink, got a stove i had to have someone install this for me, though like a new one, because i don't know how to do that.
Uh, we got a spice rack, a little fruit, avocado basket right here and then a nice mirror, so like when i want to get ready in the morning, or like wash my face or whatever.
The mirror is conveniently right here above the sink.
All the kitchen storage and everything like utensils and dishes and stuff and just kitchen necessities go down here.
And then conveniently from the kitchen area, we got the pantry and the fridge.
It's kind of nice because everything in this van just has its own like designated spot where i can organize stuff.
Plenty of closet space in the back, on both sides and then also up top.
It's really cool because there's like toiletry space up here, even though the bed situation looks a bit inconvenient.
It's actually more convenient not having the bed down below, because it just like allows so much extra space to to be down here.
In its own special way.
It's kind of like an actual bedroom to go to sleep in, just a very small, compressed bedroom.
The idea was to have a ladder like this by the bed and then just crawl up it casually but um, I've discovered it's a bit easier to just hop up on the counter or the couch.
The storage below the couch is a little bit hard to open, but it's still very nice.
Shoes can fit in here and a bunch of stuff underneath the couch too.
The couch even pulls out into another bed.
And then i wanted to have a little area for the patreon board.
Everyone on the patreon has helped make this entire van build possible, so it only felt right to have a little spot for everyone on the wall right here.
These are the curtains.
They're actually homemade from the sewing machine i bought and then returned when we were done, making them innovative.
And then on to the front of the van.
It's mainly just for driving, obviously.
Jackery was actually nice enough to send me this big battery and it's gonna be my main power source in this van, living off grid most of the time.
So thank you so much Jackery for sending me that.
I got these pins for the map up front and each time we're at like a new location and stuff, i'm gonna mark the place we're at, if that makes any sense.
The map just honestly looks really cool too, and it'll probably even look cooler when all the pins are in there.
In the back of the van we have the bathroom, aka just like a toilet.
I got off amazon that i don't know how to work yet There's still like instructions in here.
My feet kind of go off the ground.
It's kind of funny actually, I feel like I'm on like a swing.
For privacy purposes, this door works really, really great.
Just one second.
I tried to put Velcro on the door and the Velcro, for some reason, doesn't really work now.
Fuck!
Just old vehicle vibes, you know, just gotta replace things from time to time.
Good as new.
And then this right here is the Polaroid wall.
Obviously there's gonna be more on it eventually, but this is like me working on the van.
This is the van when I first got it and this is it almost finished.
This is me driving it to its first tune up.
Oh shit, ignore these.
So yeah, i hope you all like the way that it turned out.
I think i'm pretty happy with it.
It's obviously not perfect by any means, but it has all the basic like living needs in.
It has everything that i need to live out of it, so that's super exciting.
This has definitely been quite the project, but i definitely think it's been worth it and i could not be more excited to show you all the content and bring you guys along for this journey.
Just be patient because editing takes forever, but stay tuned.
I hope it will be worth the wait and yeah, thank you so much for watching.
Also, in honor of finally finishing the van build, I decided to make some apparel.
I'm wearing the hoodie right now but it also comes in t-shirts.
The concept is like a blueprint of the van, like under construction kind of on the front and the back.
This drop is actually also a collaboration with my friend Simon's clothing brand, Keep It Wholesome, and his Nature Heels collection.
We wanted to do a drop together that promotes getting out in nature and how like important it is for your mental health to go on adventures and stuff.
This area is for where we store everything and I'm gonna store my half of the collab here.
When Natalie's stuff comes in, we're going to put her stuff over here.
But yeah, my friend simon is going to be helping me package these orders.
He knows what he's doing.
Last time i tried to like do apparel on my own.
It didn't, you know, let's just not talk about it um, but yeah, if anyone is interested in checking it out, the link will be in the description.
Um, it really helps support these videos and my channel and stuff, and i also just think it's really cool to get to wear like a little actual, tangible memento of the video itself.
So in the last episode of Borderless I tried to prank everyone.
With the smoke effect I got off Storyblocks and I think I got some of you guys pretty good.
So again, this video is sponsored by Storyblocks, because I love all their different demand-driven royalty-free video assets, including over a million different 4K or HD video and audio effects, but also their stock footage is very diverse and inclusive.
As a content creator myself, I sometimes struggle to find video effects that are royalty free, but thanks to their all access plan, I not only don't have to worry about copyright, but I also get an unlimited amount of downloads.
So yeah, the link will be in my description for any other fellow content creators who are interested in checking them out.
Thank you again Storyblocks for sponsoring this video.
I low-key look like a little astronaut ready to take off to the moon.
Me when I got the van.
Alright, you know, I'm gonna take some pride in this shit.
Nevermind.
Ew, the snow crunching.
Come on in for the tour.
Like, I'm not, like, trying to flex my fucking van bathroom, though.
Oh shit, not the carbon monoxide detector.
So this would be a great time to show the carbon monoxide detector.
It sometimes goes off when this door is shutting because we had to put it right here.
Why do I feel like I'm laying on nails, dude?
It's my keys, okay?
