Van Build Update: The Kitchen, pt 2
I am very, very happy with how the kitchen has turned out so far. It's been years since I first envisioned this, and it's extremely surreal to see it coming to life. Details under the cut.
To conceal the heater and the water jugs, I re-used some skirting that I had made for my old hedgehog's cage. I washed it, shortened it, freshened up the gather, and stapled it to the base of the kitchen. (kitchen injury #1: I pinched my finger in the staple gun handle pretty badly) This is fabric that I'd thrifted years ago, and I'm very glad to be getting a lot of mileage out of it.
On the left side of the kitchen is a space that will eventually be a cabinet. For now, I just needed to get this framed out in order to prepare the countertop.
For the counter, I used 3 pieces of 1x8 common board, which I glued and clamped together with pocket screws. I made a template out of cardboard and then cut the countertop accordingly.
To prepare a template for the sink, I taped along the outer edge of the sink, centering it over the sink cabinet. Then I measured out a line 7mm inside of that edge, which is where I cut along. (When I finished cutting out the hole, the inner portion fell loose and scraped my knee. Kitchen injury #2) Then I sanded, stained, sealed, etc to finish prepping the countertop. This was a first attempt, so it's not perfect, but I think it turned out really nice nonetheless.
I am really happy with the sink. The color is a near-perfect match to the cabinets, which I could not tell would be the case when I was looking at it online. I installed it sideways so I could get away with a relatively bigger sink, considering that my cabinetry is rather shallow. I opted for a drop-in sink for ease of installation, since I knew I could not manage a clean plunge-cut lol.
I'm also super excited about my faucet bc it's a 450 USD faucet that I got for 90 bucks off ebay. It needed a new weight for the sprayer, but that was a 7 dollar, one minute fix for a faucet that was way nicer than what I could afford to buy new. I haven't yet finished up the plumbing as of writing this post, so if for some reason this faucet doesn't actually work, I'm going to be devasted lmfao.
I replaced the original cabinet door hinges (left) with a sturdier, more functional set (right), since the old hinges barely held up under regular household use. I do plan to build doors for the sink cabinet, but I'm pushing that down on the to-do list for now.
Currently I'm working on the plumbing, and there's still quite a lot of little tasks to be done to make things more secure and functional. But even just having a countertop in the van has been a big gamechanger since I no longer have to do all my work on the floor.
