So you want to build a campervan! You’ve made the decision to make your van dreams a reality, chosen the perfect campervan base vehicle, started insulating your camper van, and have even started roadtrip planning.

Just one tiny thing you haven’t figure out yet: how to actually start a van conversion. 

Well, as my Oxford college motto goes (you know, back before I knew I was going to use my Oxford education and two degrees to live in a van), start your van conversion consulto et audacter. Purposefully and boldly. 

You’ve already done the hard part; you’ve made the decision to change your life! Now it’s time to put in the work to make it happen. 

How to start a van build, you ask? Reading on is a good first step. We’ll walk you through the major steps of planning your campervan conversion so you can get the wheels rolling and hit the open road!

And if you’re not certain about whether something is possible or not, consider consulting a van conversion specialist to answer the tough questions.

*This post contains affiliate links.

Write down your van conversion must-haves.

Before you can get to the nitty gritty of framing your camper van with studs and laying your van flooring, you need to know what you want.

Borrowing from HGTV’s house hunters, first figure out your tick list: things you won’t compromise on. Limit it to three each (if you’re building with a partner) because you’ll have to compromise on more than that.

These are the broad elements of your van build that you want more than anything else. The things most clear in your mind’s eye when you imagine the finished product. We’re not taking the color of backsplash here; having a backsplash, in general, can be on there, but save the details for your Pinterest board. This includes things like van cabinets for more storage, a raise-able bed, an electric sink pump, and other major quality of life things important to you. Don’t go crazy, especially if you’re a couple and you’ll need to factor in two people’s must-haves.

My Must-Haves:

• Double bay sink: My biggest van must-have was a double bay sink. Having lived in apartments with a single bay sink and hated every single time I had to do dishes, I knew this element was something that would make or break my satisfaction with my kitchen. Knowing I wanted a double bay sink from the beginning also meant I knew I would need to factor in more space. I also ordered our sink (this one, for those wondering) as early as possible so I could start working with it.

• Spacious kitchen countertops: Again, precious living situations left us hungry for proper (and logical) food preparation space in our camper van kitchen.

• Static bed: Slide-out beds are super space-saving and allow for a daytime seating area, but I did not want to have to make up my bed every day. The goal was to be able to drive all day, pull over, and crash immediately into bed if I wanted.

Chris’ Must-Haves:

• Ample crash pad storage: Whereas my list of van must-haves were general lifestyle elements, Chris’s of course had to do with climbing and how we would storage the gear for it. And as primarily boulderers, we needed a LOT of storage for four crash pads. This must-have was one of the core elements we designed our vanbuild around because there were only so many possibilities for its placement. We always joke that if we were rope climbers rather than boulderers, we would have absurdly more storage space. We’ll be doing a post on our gear storage in the future for those of you wondering how we managed this.

• Campervan external hangboard system: Notice the pattern here. Another element Chris wanted right from the start (but something we didn’t actually end up figuring out until we’ll after we moved into the van) as a means of training for climbing from the van.

• Bed headspace to sit up straight: We’ve lived in a minivan before and let me tell you, it sucks having to hunch over in bed while you’re hanging out and watching TV. Chris (and I) really wanted a bed high enough for spacious storage underneath but low enough for us to be able to sit up straight and move around, without fear of hitting our head on the ceiling. Thank God we’re both short.

Ask yourself: What’s the purpose of my van? Where do I want to be able to go and what do I want to do with it?

Before you can get into the meat of planning your vanbuild, you’ll need an intimate understanding of what you want from it. 

Are you building it to live in full time or just as a weekend getaway-mobile?

How many people will be living in it? Kids? Pets?

Will you be taking it off-road or sticking to the pavement?

Do you want it to be off-grid capable?

Where will you be living in it? Are you sticking to warm climates or will you be spending cold winters in it?

How important is gas mileage to you?

How much stuff do you plan on putting in it?

Does your base van have windows or not?

These are all important questions to know the answers to BEFORE you build. It will determine big layout concepts like how many beds you’ll need, how sturdy and durable everything needs to be, what types of materials to use (light vs. heavy), how much/ what type of insulation you’ll need, and if you might want a fixed heat source like a wood-burning stove.

Write out these questions, the answers, and what that means for your build and suddenly you have a pretty good guideline for how to start your camper van conversion.

Here’s ours for an example:

• Are you building it to live in full time or just as a weekend getaway-mobile? Full-time vanlife, baby! It has to be able to hold literally everything we own.

• How many people will be living in it? 2 (no kids, no pets). One full-sized bed will be sufficient, and since we’re short (5’5”) the bed can go side-to-side.

• Will you be taking it off-road or sticking to the pavement? We’re climbers so off-road for sure. Nothing too crazy but everything definitely needs to be durable enough to handle bumpy roads.

• Do you want it to be off-grid capable? YES. We want to be able to spend weeks off-grid (as long as there’s a water source to filter from). We want to avoid paying for RV parks as much as possible so we’ll need solar power and a big battery bank.

• Where will you be living in it? Are you sticking to warm climates or will you be spending cold winters in it?

• In making it a climber van with the primary intention of dirtbagging around the U.S., we’ll be chasing fringe seasons around 40-60F daytime temperatures (which is the optimal condition for hard bouldering). We don’t plan on staying in it or snowy climates for long. Moderate insulation and a backup stowaway heat source are all that’s necessary.

• How important is gas mileage to you? Moderately important but we know gas will be one of biggest vanlife expenses regardless. We won’t go to desperate lengths to be ultralight about the build, sacrificing more money upfront and potentially durability, to eke out an extra mile or two per gallon.

• How much stuff do you plan on putting in it? Not much. We moved around a lot in the years prior to vanlife so we never accumulated a ton of stuff, and that which we did we fully planned to purge almost entirely.

• Does your base van have windows or not? No windows except the front cab. We wanted stealth and privacy. No need to factor in window location into the layout.

Make a list of the campervan conversion steps.

The best way to truly wrap your head around the overwhelming vanbuild process is to put it on paper (or screen for you non-Luddites... I’m a pen and paper list gal, myself).

This is basically just a list of what you foresee as every major step of your vanbuild (i.e. bed, vent fan install, etc.) written down in the order in which you think they’ll need to be done, as best you can predict at the time.

Don’t get too hung up on the order part, because it WILL change. Constantly, in fact. There is literally no way to foresee every issue that’ll crop up and circumvent them all with your magical foresight. You will constantly be in the middle of doing something and have to stop because you realize something else needs to be done before you can finish it. 

The point isn’t to schedule out your entire build right then and there. The point of the list is to give yourself a concrete image of the work involved and the motivation to start. Making a list is taking action, meaning you’ve already started your van conversion, whether it feels like it or not. 

It’s not only a starting place but a grounding place to keep your head in the game. The enemy of the van converter is stagnation, and now you’ve got your list to spur your initial action AND reinitiate action if you lose momentum. 

Go back to it as you feel yourself stalling. Update it and remake it again and again as needed. 

Draw out a few different possible campervan floor plans.

Time to get artsy and start physically planning your van space. Can’t draw a dog from a dinosaur?

No worries. Me neither.

It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, as long as you understand what those weird squiggles and squares mean.

If you’re tech-savvy or into graphic design, you can also create templates on computer programs as basic as paint and as fancy as SketchUp. That’s what Chris did and it’s actually hilarious comparing our sketches side by side.

On that note, if you’re a van couple, you should both draw some ideas separately then compare your visions to see what’s similar and where you might need to compromise a bit.

While the possibilities are endless, here are some basic floor plans of common van layouts to jump-start your ideas. Feel free to adapt, adjust, and combine elements to fit your personal van needs.

Keep in mind the final weight distribution of your van build. Ideally, you want things more or less equal across the cargo space and with the heaviest stuff toward the floor.

A lower center of mass reduces your vehicle’s chance of rolling and improves gas mileage!

Try to take that into account when designing your campervan floor plan.

Here are some examples of common camper van floor plans:

Think about larger appliances and item storage you may need to build around.

What are the things that will take up the most room in your van? These are the things you essentially have to design your build around.

For us, it was crash pad storage, the sink, and the camper van refrigerator we wanted. We knew we wanted an electric portable fridge, specifically the Dometic CFX 65L chest compressor fridge, and we knew it would take up a lot of space. Since building compartments around alleged dimensions is risky, we straight up ordered the fridge (along with the slide-out mounting platform specially designed for it) early on so that we could actually build the kitchen counters around the physical object.

It’s a good idea to know more or less what style and size of fridge you’ll be using, too. For help with that, check out our guides on the best refrigerators for vanlife and how to choose a camper van refrigerator.

We also purchased the sink early in so we could use it to cut the countertop inset hole. The crash pads, we already owned, so we could figure out the best way to build storage for them.

Accounting for big space suckers also gives you some good places to start with your structural build.

Start getting more specific with the vanbuild details.

This is where all that Pinterest board and all the van porn pictures you’ve been meticulously saving over the years actually comes in handy.

Be creative! Consume ideas ravenously until you find your favorite flavors. The best part of this is that you can keep doing it throughout the van build. It’ll provide inspiration and ideas. When you come against problems, you’ll have a bank of alternatives to get around it.

A word of caution: Do not fall into that easy trap of comparison. But that, we mean don’t get upset or disappointed because your van isn’t looking like those pictures. Remember two things: 

1. Your van isn’t done until it’s done. Ours didn’t even start to look like the finished product until that last week of the build.

2. Most of those images come from professional van conversions, which cost thousands and thousands of dollars. Your budget campervan conversion won’t look like that because you’re not a professional. You (probably) don’t have professional carpentry skills, a perfect van template, and $100,000 to dump into the build. The images that circulate the internet are often from those who do and it’s so easy to start comparing your build to theirs. Trust me (I’ve been there) and trust yourself. Your finished van conversion may not look perfect but it will look like yours and there is so much to be said for that. We love our quirky little imperfect rustic cabin on wheels.

Ready, Set, BUILD!

You may have already started with the early steps that can be completed before you have much of a plan. This includes insulating your campervan, installing studs in the van, and laying the van floor. We have guides for all these steps in the links if you’re curious about more specific planning and how-tos for each.

After these three main steps are done, you can really start to get into the meat of your build and put those floor-plans to practical application. 

Just remember to be flexible throughout the van conversion process.  If you’re not flexible, you’ll find it’s far more likely to get completely shut down by obstacles. Just like with the step list, things will change, no matter how much as you think you’ve got it all figure out. The final product will inevitably look a bit different from your initial idea. What matters is that those must-haves are still everything. Everything else is gravy. 

Our final product looks very different from the floorplans we made up. Some things got added and others got substituted out for easier things to build. Van building is a learning process and ideas will change the more you learn.

Does that mean it’s a waste of time drawing them up in the first place? Hell no! The point of planning is to give you confidence and control over your build. It gives you a solid starting place, even if the road takes some crazy curves later.

A note for those seeking professional conversion help:

Even if you aren’t planning on building your van yourself, planning it out so you have specific ideas to give to your van conversion company helps ensure you get exactly what you want.

Companies like Custom Vanz, one of the best van conversions specialists in UK, among others the US and around the world, are happy to work with you and your ideas to ensure you’re completely satisfied with your future home, so best to go into such partnerships with a clear vision.

If you have any specific questions or recommendations (we know we’re still vanbuild amateurs, even though we’ve build one van) about the planning stages of van conversion, please reach out. We love to hear your comments and messages! 

**This post contains affiliate links to support the continued creation of these van life guides. This just means that if you purchase something from one of the links above, I get a small commission from the sale at no cost to you. Read more here or reach out with more questions.