In the spring of my junior year of college, my girlfriend and I moved into a little construction van, purchased for $1200 on Craigslist. We built it out over the course of three days and then lived in it from late January until mid May.

 

We had three days to complete the van build, which included a full sized bed platform, a table, a chair that folded down from the wall, and two sets of shelves: one going along one side of the van, and the other in the location where the passenger's seat would be. The longest build task we completed was insulating the van to protect us from winter in Washington state, which involved stuffing the walls with llama fur left over from a recent shearing on the farm I worked on and covering the walls and ceiling with closed cell foam insulation. The walls and ceiling were then covered with wood themed wallpaper and fairy lights, for ambiance.

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Despite the quick, low-budget build, we were impressed that we were able to create a habitable living space in such a short amount of time, which we then attended classes in and lived in together for the whole semester.