The last few months have really been a whirlwind of steps forward, backward, sideways, and upside-down. Carleen first purchased this 1986 Ford Econoline around June/July of 2015. Previously, it had just been used by some good ol’ country boys to haul around their dirt bikes and ATVs.

From her humble beginnings, we soon dubbed the van, “Jean-Claude Van Van” aka “Van Morrison” aka “Lieutenant Van.” It was in this state that she remained until November, when we began to gut everything out and give her a Joan Rivers dosage of plastic surgery.

Below we see a picture of Carleen doing her best ferocious Bobcat impersonation during the early stages. You can see that on the right, the metal floor was rusted and barren after we had torn up the previous owner’s flooring. We cleaned up the rust with a protective chemical cocktail, and then began to lay down reflective insulation on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Afterwards, we laid down a birch floor.

I was happy to be done with the floor.

Once the floor was set and flush, we continued to add more reflective insulation on the walls/ceilings, and then we added some reflective foam board for EVEN MORE INSULATION!!!!! Muwahahaha!!!!!

Insulation was obviously key in helping to shield us from any kind of extreme temperature, but we still needed some place to sleep and store our belongings…

KAPOW!!! Bed Frame!

Building the bed frame definitely took a while to get just right, but once we did we were able to add planks to the side walls, which gave us the perfect foundation for our cedar panels. MMM MMM!!! You can smell the cedar goodness! Filling your nose with an aromatic forest of bliss!!! #noseforest

After the paneling was complete we were finally able to lay down a futon mattress and add a white canvas upholstery to the ceiling. It was certainly a journey in itself. Since neither Carleen nor I had any previous experience doing something like this, we were honestly just happy to rely upon the fruits of knowledge from others on the internet.

The van is finally complete! We leave in 3 days, and will spend the remainder of our time here in Dallas finishing up our EP, rehearsing, and spending time with our friends and family. We hope to see you somewhere along the way! Here is our list of January shows that we have lined up. – Josh

