Van Build: Framing

Updated on February 15th, 2021

We are starting to get to the fun stuff now, framing the cabinets and bed! Good thing because the van mattress arrived last week and it’s taking up a lot of space in our living room!  We have decided for safety reasons to anchor the bed and cabinets to the walls and this requires us to place framing for everything to screw into.  We decided to do this before wall paneling so that we knew where the paneling would need to abut the railings.

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Tools Needed:

• Chop Saw or Jig-Saw or Circular Saw, dealers choice.  Our chop saw worked wonders.
• Rivnut Installation Tool (this is not exactly the same as the version we have but it comes with Rivnuts!)
• Marker
• Drill
• Drill Bits (A good set of drill bits will help, a lot, especially when drilling into metal!)
• Wrenches

Supplies Needed:

• 4–8’ lengths of 2×4 (we opted for premium)
• Around 20– ⅜”x2” coarse thread bolts, nuts, and washers
• 6–6mm Steel Rivnuts (Inch sizes work as well)
• 6–6mm x 20mm Socket Head Cap Screws (SHCS)
• Zip-ties

Bed Frame

It is worth your time to do a little math before deciding on the height of your bed.  We measured how tall Andy is sitting down, added the thickness of the mattress (including a 50% “squish factor”) and worked down from the ceiling.  This left our bed about 18 inches off the ground. Plenty of space for storage underneath no matter what the folks on reddit seem to think. Remember, we are building an adventure van, not a van to live in.

Using painters tape and a marker, measure from the floor to the height of your bed in several spots.  You won’t be able to use a level so this is important for making the bed at least appear straight.

Due to the curve at the back of our van we had to scribe the rear piece in order for it to sit flush.  This can be done with a simple scrap of wood fashioned to a point (see 2:10 in the video). We used a jigsaw with a long blade to cut the angle.

Once everything is sitting flush, clamp board in place.  If you have finger clearance, you will be able to use bolts to hold the board in place.  If you would not be able to reach to place a nut on the back of the bolt, you should switch to Rivnuts.

Drill pilot holes through the board and sheet metal.  It is not a good idea to drill through your van.  Measure. Follow up by drilling with the size appropriate for your bolt/rivnut.  Don’t mind a little smoke when you’re drilling in the metal, that’s normal. You’ll install the bolt or rivnut and tighten.  Andy, being the clever chap he is, figured out that in those tiny spaces his man hands wouldn’t fit, he could attach a zip-tie to the nut to tread it on the bolt.  See 3:20 in the video.

Cabinet Frame

The cabinet frame is the same process, but set at what we decided would be countertop height.   This happens to be 28”, I have no idea why. It might have to do with where fingers would be able to reach bolts?  It might just be that Andy likes multiples of 7? Your guess is as good as mine. Oh wait, Andy just informed me that it actually the height of the refrigerator we bought.  There might be a method to his madness after all.

Estimated Active Time:  3 hours

Estimated Total Time:  3 hours

We’d love to answer your questions!  Comment below and we’ll help!

Previous step: Van Insulation

Next step: Van Cabinets

For more posts related to the van build check out our Van Build Page.