When Tim bought Chimera (then Vanyan), it had a stock Vanagon interior, with one bench seat that folded down into the bed and old carpet on the floor. This was a comfortable set-up for short trips, and even our Canada road trip, but we knew that we wanted more of a camper interior for our Pan American travels. The common conversion for Vanagons is the Westfalia or Westy style, with a pop-up roof that becomes the bed and cabinets along the driver’s side. We decided against doing the standard Westy conversion and decided to make our own custom camper interior, following a similar design with cabinets along the driver’s side and a taller cabinet in the rear. Going into the project we had little experience with cabinetry, but we figured it out as we went along, making plenty of mistakes and then fixing them. What we ended up with far exceeded our expectations and makes for a very comfortable and lovely little home. It was a particularly cold and snowy winter in Boulder, so much of our cabinet work was done inside in the kitchen and hallway.

Working on cabinet framing inside on a freezing winter day.

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