[cycle61]

Kitchenette v0.9 is in place and ready for the weekend. It's bolted to the wall plate with six M8 bolts, screwed to the electrical cabinet, and angle braces on all corners to hold the front corner steady and the top in place. Fridge is connected and running happily on 12v power, and the ever-useful milk crates fit better than expected!

Countertop is a big box premade acacia butcher block, measures 25x50". I was expecting to have to cut it down substantially, but it fits nicely at full size.

The fridge has been unpowered for weeks, it cooled off nicely and seems to have stabilized overnight, I'll make a small adjustment to the temperature and see how it does today.

As mentioned previously, we almost went with a 44" overall length to keep from crowding the sliding door, but we're glad we ended up making the cabinet 48" long overall. It's given us plenty of cabinet and counter space, and doesn't block the sliding door entrance nearly as much as I feared it would.

 

[cycle61]

Picked up a stack of snap-together laminate flooring from FB marketplace. $100 for about 300 square feet, has a nice MCM (mid-century mobile home) look to it. The pseudo-carpet fabric that the wife put in the van several months ago is falling apart rapidly, and shedding tons of black grit/dust/etc. This plus a runner carpet will move it another step towards tiny home, instead of plywood-floored construction zone.

 

[wayneIII]

really enjoyed reading this, and wondered what your final flooring choice was going to be. Cheers for posting!

 

[bdosborn]

I'm thinking I'll do the same thing for our floor - laminate over a Bedrug. Are you going to run them north-south or east-west? Everyone seems to run them north-south but east-west makes more sense to me.
Bruce

 

[cycle61]

Not sure which direction we're going to run them.

And...it's not going to be those. Started installing yesterday afternoon, and was informed by the inspector that they smelled strongly of mold.

She's much more sensitive to that than I am, obviously. Not gonna argue. We headed to the big box store and found some 5mm snap-together vinyl plank in a color we like better, and the sales dude gave us 50% off since the boxes were damaged. Ended up being almost the same cost as the low quality used stuff.

 

[cycle61]

Great success with the floor! Snapshot so I remember what we bought in case I ever need to match or replace it. LOL

Cutting to length is easy, score with a razor knife, snap, and trim the rubber pad on the back. Did a 1/3 offset per row as standard, and it went fairly quickly.

Ripping was significantly messier. And I probably need a new saw blade now. Half melted rubber boogers for days.

And complete!. We also added a grab handle to the kitchenette, since the bugwall screen hides the handles on the b-pillar, and found they sell a backsplash of the same acacia material as the countertop, so that was an easy choice rather than fabricating and finishing something myself.

Next up is rewiring the kitchen side outlet, and then start framing in for the shower/bathroom enclosure.

 

[gregoryx]

...
Countertop is a big box premade acacia butcher block, measures 25x50". I was expecting to have to cut it down substantially, but it fits nicely at full size.
...

Looks like the same one we used. Heads up on how soft it is: dents easily. With that in mind, we oiled and waxed it - since any harder finish would crack. It looks super nice with a good finish; but it won't look nice for long, I'm pretty sure.

We stained it a bit darker than I'd expected - used an "espresso" finish.

 

[bdosborn]

Looks great! How many boxes of planks did you use?

 

[cycle61]

Thanks guys! @gregoryx I'm probably going to pull the block inside the house to oil/wax it this week. Definitely don't want a hard finish that's a pain to refresh. Acacia isn't a true hardwood and I'm willing to have a bit of maintenance on this rather than heirloom quality. That stain looks great!

@bdosborn we used three boxes. Worked fairly efficiently, minimal scrap and careful cuts and did it with two full boxes and a couple pieces from the third.

 

[Rolf]

Looking goods….
I also went propex heater and just going trough the installation steps and got the the holes hole sawed out
today , will be going with vented locker for the 20 pound propane tank, what are your plans for locker ?
or are you not doing a vented locker?

 

[ratherberiding]

Not gonna argue.

Good choice!

Floor looks great, no adhesive just floating?

 

[cycle61]

Good choice!

Floor looks great, no adhesive just floating?

Yep, floating 👍🏻

 

[cycle61]

Looking goods….
I also went propex heater and just going trough the installation steps and got the the holes hole sawed out
today , will be going with vented locker for the 20 pound propane tank, what are your plans for locker ?
or are you not doing a vented locker?

Eventually going to install a tank under the chassis. Gowesty sells one that's supposed to fit nicely. For now, propane sits in a milk crate strapped to the frame.

Make sure to pay attention to the clearance required between the exhaust and any flammable materials. Had to open our cutout considerably. Pics a few pages back.

 

[cycle61]

Got a cold snap last night. The thermal mass of the batteries takes some time to cool off but they're below 20f this morning. I have a pair of self-regulating heat pads to install, which will be kind of a pain, or I could go with the easier option of a 120v bilge heater that keeps the enclosure a bit warmer when we're leaving the van parked and on shore power.

 

[bdosborn]

We had a cold snap too, the news predicted -10F overight so I clicked on the battery heaters before I went to bed. It took all night to warm the battery from 17F to 35F but it got there.

 

[cycle61]

Thanks to this older post I did some testing today with the Propex heater. Ours has the digital thermostat which works okay, other than trying to find a microscopic reset button to clear a fault after running out of fuel, etc. I'd really like the ability to control it remotely based on cabin temperatures, home/away, etc. Initial thought is to wire the inputs and outputs back into the CerboGX digital points and program accordingly, but that may evolve. Easiest application would be tying heater on signal to Relay 1 and programming it to one of the temperature sensors.

Step one was verifying the pinout. The simplest combination is a jumper from white to blue. Heater started up as normal, ran while I held the wire in place, and did a normal shutdown cycle once I removed the wire. Good to know the startup and shutdown sequence lives in the furnace rather than the thermostat, that makes things much simpler.

 

[wayneIII]

you figured out what your doing for your walls yet?

 

[cycle61]

you figured out what your doing for your walls yet?

Probably going to save them for almost the end, since any cabinets/etc have to be built and installed first. In terms of finish, I have no idea. We're moving towards a visual theme as things start to come together. It won't be standard RV gray padded upholstery walls.

 

[cycle61]

Working on the kitchen countertop today. We did a test piece of the acacia in two coats of Watco carbon gray butcher block oil/stain, and a coat of wax conditioner. Really like how it looks after that treatment.

So out comes the raw countertop for some irreversible modification. It's what I do. Rounding the corner with my super high tech router jig.

Alignment tenons for the backsplash. I don't use the domino nearly as much as I should. It's a great tool.

Everything sanded to 220, micro-flaws and knots patched with CA glue, and the backsplash glued and screwed in place. Letting it set overnight, will wipe down and apply the first coat of stain tomorrow morning.

 

[cycle61]

Two coats of oil/stain and a coat of wax later, the countertop is ready to go back in. We love how it looks, and hopefully it'll hold up decently.

While the countertop was off, took care of a few details underneath the cabinet. I printed some screw-in cable clips, these are much more sturdy than the stick-on ones and the color matches all the victron equipment, which is obviously the most important factor.

New hole to send the 120v circuit back up the wall for a kitchen outlet, and then will probably continue to the upper cabinets...TBD. Everything else secured to a couple of clips.

Channel routered into the underside of the counter overhang, this will receive an LED strip for some ambient downlighting.

And in place, ready to go!