Floor, Walls & Ceiling
Choosing how to design and install your floor, walls, and ceiling is one of the easier parts about the van build — especially compared to the electrical system! It’s a fun part of the build, because there are a lot of great material options you can choose from and progress can be made quickly while installing.
We’ll start with a section on flooring, then move to the walls and the ceiling. Let’s begin!
Table of Contents
Van Floor
Adding a floor to your van is a simple, two-step process. You’ll start by adding the sub-floor, which is a big, flat sheet of wood you’ll screw into your van’s metal flooring. Then, you’ll secure your pretty, finished material to the sub-floor for a finished product. Easy-peasy.
Before starting, you do have the option of adding sound deadener and/or insulation underneath your sub-floor. We chose to use sound deadener but not thick insulation to make sure Isak could stand up inside the van.
Installing a Sub-Floor
A sub-floor will change your van’s uneven metal floor into a nice flat, smooth floor that you can then add a finished flooring on top of. We opted for 5/8” particle board for our sub-floor, but you could also use 1/2” to 3/4” plywood. To install, simply cut it and screw it into the metal van floor for a secure, flat sub-floor.
It can be difficult to cut the sub-floor around the wheel wells and other non-straight nooks and crannies in the van. You can use cardboard or paper to create a template of these objects (relevant Youtube video on using templates). Once you have your template, you can trace the template over the particle board to mark where you need to cut it.
Choosing and Installing Your Flooring
Now that you’ve got a sub-floor, it’s time to head to your favorite home department store and choose some flooring! A lot of folks choose vinyl sheets, vinyl planks, or laminate flooring.
We opted for vinyl sheeting. It comes in one large roll that we cut to size (using our nifty templates we had already created for the sub-floor), so it’s easy to install. Vinyl planks come in rectangular slabs that you piece together like a puzzle — also very easy. Finally, laminate flooring comes in a large sheet and is a more economic option. Check out our review on the vinyl sheet we chose — and why we like it more than laminate planking.
There are a few ways to secure your visible flooring to the sub-floor. Option 1 is to use double-sided flooring tape to secure them (our choice). Option 2 is to use a trowel to thinly spread an adhesive to bond the flooring to the subfloor.
Van Walls
We don’t have too much to say about adding walls to your van, although you do have some options about when you want to install them. You can decide to entirely cover the walls of your van after installing your insulation and electrical system. Or, you can choose to install the wall after your cabinetry, which might save you some weight and money since you’ll be covering less space.
We decided to cover all of the walls in our van after insulation and electrical wiring, but in hindsight we might have saved some time and money doing it after our cabinetry (especially since we have large cabinets).
We used 1/4” plywood for the walls in our van, and we’re happy with the result. It’s relatively cheap, lightweight, easy to cut and install, and you can find it everywhere.
To secure the plywood walls to the van, we first attached 1” x 3” furring strips to the ribs of the van. These act like the studs in a house by giving you a surface to drill the plywood to. Then, you can use Bondo or a similar wood filler to hide the cracks between the different plywood sheets.
And finally, one last note about installing the walls: consider spending the extra money to buy a higher-quality, washable paint. Your van is a small space, and it’s going to get much dirtier than a house considering you’ll drive on dirt roads and inevitably spill something on it while cooking. Having a washable paint means you can clean your walls without staining or discoloring the paint. We used white paint to give the van a more airy, open atmosphere — and we’d be in trouble if we couldn’t clean it easily!
Van Ceiling
It’s time to add a ceiling! The key here is to find something lightweight. You don’t want it falling down when you hit a pothole or drive on a washboarded road!
We’ve seen two popular options for ceiling material: 1/4” plywood (like we used for the walls) and shiplap. Both are lightweight sheets that you can attach to the ceiling using furring strips just like the walls. As simple as cutting to size, having another person (or two!) hold it up to the ceiling, then screwing it to the furring strips.
If you’ve already laid wiring for overhead lights, you’ll just need to make sure to measure and mark where you want the lights to be placed, then use the appropriately-sized hole saw to create the hole for the light to sit in.
In Summary
There are a few options for what materials you decide to use for your floor, walls, and ceiling. But at the end of the day, there aren’t really “wrong” answers here; it’s not black-and-white, right/wrong like your electrical diagram is!
Just keep a few things in mind — something durable but lightweight — and you’ll have a beautiful, nomadic home in no time.
