It's time to add the colour into my dream van conversion!

And the time finally came to put some colour into baby!

Prior to getting this paintbrush in my hand, I’d been staring for months at the green-y moisture resistant MDF which makes up the interior woodwork in my van. Whilst I could see the shape of the conversion coming to life before my eyes, there was no warmth to it and it certainly didn’t feel like home yet. But oh boy, as soon as the first coat of white primer went down, everything suddenly became so real.

This van conversion is more than just me desiring a vehicle for road tripping in, it’s been a creative dream of mine for years. I sat and sketched out interior design ideas and took them to multiple ‘conversion’ guys before I found someone willing to work closely with me to bring my vision to life – Ian.

For the majority of the manual work, I simply over saw it and contributed to the visual specifics. I left Ian to his crafts and then the moment I could help with something (and not completely mess it up) I was ready in my overalls.

I took the sanding, priming and painting job on myself. Though it wasn’t ‘technical’, it was very laborious and I spent days on end layering on the coats. I think in the end I did:

Sand, fill, sand, fill, sand.
Primer X 2 coats
Paint X 3 coats
An additional coat (different colour) on the kitchen area

Trust me, if I knew how much labour would go into this stage of the woodwork – I may have reconsidered my woodwork choices lol. My van is pretty much 90% bespoke woodwork and though it was definitely worth it, it was hard work getting it ready for adventure!

Products I used:

Primer – ZINSSER B-I-N SHELLAC-BASED PRIMER SEALER shop here
Paint – DULUX TRADE DIAMOND QUICK-DRYING EGGSHELL PAINT PURE BRILLIANT WHITE shop here
Kitchen colour – FARROW AND BALL EGGSHELL (Elephants Breath)