Sprinter van: Walls and ceiling
There’s nothing quite like building walls for something that has absolutely no square corners and is, in fact, curved. This part of our build would take more templates, some trial and error, and a little dumb luck.
First, we had to finish installing the insulation. We used 2” rigid insulation in the walls and doors, and 1-1/2” rigid insulation in the ceiling. Once it was in place and cut for the lights and electrical components above the to-be galley countertop, we used a combination of expanding spray foam and HVAC tape to hold it all in place. Oh, and some scrap 2x4s while the foam set. Pro tip: Spraying the foam with water helps it cure significantly faster.
Once that was complete, we could finally start on the walls and ceiling.
For starters, we chose 1/4” plywood for both. It was relatively inexpensive ($16 per 4x8’ sheet) as well as flexible so it would bend to fit the shape of the curved van walls. Once we picked up eight sheets of it, it was go time. As in, making templates and cutting. We used our table saw and a jigsaw.
K has gotten skilled with the latter and is necessary to help with the former. She then rolled on the paint while I was busy with who-knows-what.
We’ve seen a lot of builds with lots of cedar or some kind of wood planks for walls and ceilings. Yes, that gives them a nice cabin-y feel. We were afraid it would also be dark. We wanted our van to feel bigger than it was, so we went with a light color scheme. For the walls and ceiling, we chose Valspar Tempered Gray 4004-1a.
Oh that’s what I was doing while she was painting: Drilling holes for the rivnuts. Lots of holes for lots of rivnuts.
We didn’t want to just drive sheet metal screws into the van so we opted for drilling, filing, and painting about a hundred holes. Why? Because it was the right thing to do. K finished painting and came in behind me with the ol’ Bonrob rivnut tool.
She had a clever way of securing the nuts tighter than I had: By pressing them once, then tightening the attachment screw again before pressing each nut a second time. Solid. We used existing holes where we could, which meant lining up the holes in the panels for the bolts just right. A little tedious, but doable.
For the ceiling, we had to measure and cut holes for the six lights (two over our bed and four in the galley) and the fan. Along with all the holes for the bolts.
For the transition between our ceiling and the van’s headliner, I used a hole saw to cut 2-1/2” holes around each of the plastic retainer clips so I could sandwich the 1/4” plywood between the ceiling rib and headliner. It worked perfectly.
Then we got to hang the panels! Everything lined up. We made the electrical connections for our LED lights, wired up the switch, and tested.
Boom. No more working by shop light at night.
The most challenging part of the wall panels was the windows. There was about a 1-1/2” gap between the panels and the windows we installed that we had to fill. We chose to go with the raw, layered plywood look. I measured and cut a bunch of scrap plywood before K glued everything together.
It then was a matter of creating another template to use for cutting out the window shapes on the wall panels and the plywood extensions. The panels were easy. They were a quarter-inch thick. The extensions were much harder. Frustrated and learning as I went, I ended up using a router to rough cut the holes followed by a jig saw running counterclockwise to finish the job. It was lousy at best, but from a distance they look okay. K has reminded me all along that this is a camper and doesn’t need to look perfect. I’ve slowly gotten onboard with that thinking. Slowly. Not completely.
From a distance, yes, the windows looked good. Time to move on. There was still a lot to do. Like installing our galley cabinets.
