Oscar. That's the name of the van. Jen's choice that one, but with its cute baby blue paint job, it kinda works.
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| Oscar @ Germany's favorite DIY store |
So, we bought a van. Long overdue - I've been pretty much dreaming of van life since Chavwin and I sold the transit in 2009. Buying a van in Germany is not easy, I'll spare you the details, but there is a really good reason that number plates stay with the car (in the UK), it makes things easy... don't take it for granted!
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| Starting to dream before the purchase has even been made..... |
Anyway, after re-hiring our German relocation agent to help out, we finally handed over the best part of 6,000 EUR to a guy who spoke no English, and signed a big stack of paperwork we didn't understand. What could go wrong?!
Oscar is however, great, and attentions quickly turned to getting it kitted out. Main challenges as follows:
- Make wooden beds & storage
- Lighting and potential 2nd battery
- Carpets and soft stuff
- Respray
- Service
- GO!
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| Prelim sketches. Climb. Food. Drink. Sleep. This fits the bill.... |
Predictably, I have been spending my evenings on CAD. I got properly in to this one, and in the end we settled on a pull out double bed with under bed storage and fold-out cooking facilities.
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| Single bed / sofa, collapsed |
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| Double bed and cooking drawer folded out |
Buying wood in Berlin is pretty easy. Berliners love DIY it seems, BAUHAUS definitely puts B&Q to shame. We also got them to do most of the cutting (about 100 cuts in total!) which is much easier for both me, Jen, and also the neighbours!
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| Full of wood, now all it needs to do is point in the right direction! |
The thing with having a really unique coloured van is that when it comes to spraying it, finding the colour is... errrm difficult. However after a rather entertaining morning at the mix-centre (think pretty much zero common language and 9,800 colours to choose from) we got our cans.
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| Jen comes in to her own in her skills as a vice, for the 2nd time in as many years.... |
We haven't exactly got the space of Worthybrook, however with a decent basement room and plenty of industrial estates not used at weekends, finding space to work isn't a problem. Let the assembly begin!
That's all for now folks. But with all moving in the right direction, watch this space for more van-action!
