- 2 days ago
How much does it cost to live full-time in a camper van in New York City? In this video, we tour a 2014 Ford Econoline van conversion that cost only $15,000 to buy and build out, proving you don't need a six-figure budget to escape high rent. Meet Leo and Andrea, an inspiring couple who transitioned to full-time RV life right on the streets of Brooklyn, New York, alongside their two beloved dogs.
If you are obsessed with camper van builds and tiny home design, this unique DIY and professional collaboration is packed with budget-friendly inspiration. From affordable IKEA hacks to an ingenious sliding bed frame design and custom dog storage, this trailer tour alternative showcases how much utility you can squeeze into a compact space. They walk us through their 600Ah Renogy solar setup, a fully functioning hot water shower with a cassette toilet, and an incredibly clever sliding kitchen stove made from Home Depot and IKEA parts.
As part of the vibrant NYC camper van builds community, they share the raw truth about urban van life—including dealing with the inevitable leaks, the necessity of a white noise machine in the city, and how they maintain their full-time corporate and babysi
If you are obsessed with camper van builds and tiny home design, this unique DIY and professional collaboration is packed with budget-friendly inspiration. From affordable IKEA hacks to an ingenious sliding bed frame design and custom dog storage, this trailer tour alternative showcases how much utility you can squeeze into a compact space. They walk us through their 600Ah Renogy solar setup, a fully functioning hot water shower with a cassette toilet, and an incredibly clever sliding kitchen stove made from Home Depot and IKEA parts.
As part of the vibrant NYC camper van builds community, they share the raw truth about urban van life—including dealing with the inevitable leaks, the necessity of a white noise machine in the city, and how they maintain their full-time corporate and babysi
Category
🏖
TravelTranscript
00:00I'm from Brazil. I'm an immigrant. I focused on my dream for like years and years and I was
00:05always checking Facebook marketplace and when I found her I was like that's it that's her
00:10and like we went there like I bought it and we are we are moving towards living our dream like
00:18we're still working on our like boring jobs but we we get the fun we already started we get the
00:25fun in between so like this has been super worth our dogs love it I'm in heaven welcome back to
00:30the
00:30show today I'm in Brooklyn New York at Brooklyn camper vans for their block party just met up
00:36with Leo and Andrea and they had this really cool DIY and professional built camper van that they
00:42live in full-time here in Brooklyn they're going to give us a full tour inside now so join us
00:47hi Patrick um this is our van her name is Celeste uh she's a 2014 Ford Econoline and we live
00:58in her full
00:58time and she's like the love of our lives yes uh we live is both of us and our two
01:04dogs um we've been
01:05living in her for six months now and of course our routines hasn't changed we still have full-time
01:10jobs we still do our normal routine every day so just a little bit different just a little bit
01:15different it's not normal that we live in an apartment you know rent is too expensive we
01:20couldn't do that anymore but also we wanted to have more freedom we want to like to have more
01:28like a found a loophole I found a cut out to the lives that we really like wanted to live
01:33with more
01:33freedom with more flexibility and more adventure as well yeah for us and for our dogs yes yes so let
01:40us show you um the outside and then we will go inside and i'm going to show you how it
01:45looks inside
01:46so she's a 2014 econoline she was uh she was a a bus like a lift bus for for disabled
01:58people so she had
01:59a lift on the back but when we bought it it was already like gone she was like she was
02:04started to be
02:06built by someone else but we had to like rip it apart because it was like moldy it was like
02:11messy it
02:12was like nothing like it is like right now she's like very well taken care right now uh so you
02:18guys
02:18you can see she is tall she's very tall we got so she has a high top uh we have
02:25lights outside we have
02:27like this door the door the door was broken when we bought it uh we repaired this is not glass
02:32it's um
02:33what's it called paxiglass yes it's paxiglass because i the door slammed open and it broke
02:39the mirror so we got paxiglass because we we make it work nobody was like uh up to build the
02:47the glass for us or about paxiglass we have cameras we have uh cameras mainly for our safety and also
02:55to
02:55watch the road when i'm driving and we have a short power here so in the winter this was very
03:05like
03:05important for us to have because there's not a lot of solar in new york in the winter because there's
03:09the snow the great day so this was very very like functional for us to use yeah we also have
03:15400 uh
03:16watts of solar panel you already came with the van and like it's mounted to the high top the high
03:23top is a
03:23fiberglass um and you're like we really like it it's like very good so far open so this is our
03:29bag
03:29of course we live in here full time so this is normal this is messy it's messy but i'm sure
03:37your
03:37house has some spaces that also look like this so don't judge um this is our power over here we
03:43have
03:43this is to dc we have how many 600 of uh batteries yes uh we have our solar we have
03:50our inverter over
03:51there our system is from renoji and like so far like we think is like very good yes uh we
03:57have a
03:57ladder we have a ladder we need to repair leaks because if you live in a van you're always fixing
04:02things there's leaks all the time this is for us to get up there we over here we have uh
04:08our heater
04:09a diesel heater it has a diesel tank like built right here so we can like fill it like very
04:15easily
04:16it's just like open and you feel it and there is a remote where's the remote uh right here somewhere
04:22right there right here and we turn it on like from the bed and also our water tank is over
04:29there yep um
04:30i don't remember exactly how many how much it takes but for us for a full week we can be
04:35good taking
04:36showers every day cooking everything so that works for us i think even for two weeks oh this is
04:41these we have our windows here and we have our window shades from uh i don't know nomadic something
04:49and it's like very good to keep the heat out and um that's it we really try to make this
04:56van like
04:56make it as comfy as possible for our dogs it's very important for us that they like are no
05:02overheating or really cold in the winter so we really try to make it work for them it's very
05:07well insulated inside this is the staff already came with the fan and it's like absolutely amazing
05:15you can see that she's very tiny so this really really it's like very good drive
05:19we also have like cameras and lights that rob put in our van he is the mind no i am
05:28the mind and he's
05:29the muscles behind the building no this is van ellie rob everybody knows him he's a legend we love him
05:38oh more lights we we are all for the lights all right now let us show you what the inside
05:45looks like
05:45yep so this is like we have we're all for storage this is our first storage we have like shoe
05:56storage
05:56here it's like i think it's pretty massive it's like very big uh we have both our shoes here like
06:03that's very good this is like a little bit of like dog starch like dog stuff these are our dogs
06:09benito and coda yeah he's a little black gremlin back here and this is benito this is coda and uh
06:18we have like mainly like stuff from ikea like we try to make it work with like everything that we
06:23can
06:23that we can afford and like that's it like the dog storage this is like a little cute area we
06:30also
06:31built the floor ourselves so like if we could do it you guys can do it it's just like a
06:37flooring from
06:38home depot what is it called babe uh vinyl vinyl it's like vinyl floors like from home depot flywood
06:44in the bottom and then of course it's insulated a lot of insulation that was very very important
06:49very important insulation and uh it's like insulation like is everything for us so these are
06:56also insulated like window covers that we actually just cut it we just cut to the size because we
07:02couldn't find like anything that was like a perfect fit so now it is a perfect fit because we made
07:10it
07:10be a perfect fit uh this is also dog storage we're big in dog storage over here this is like
07:16our
07:16niece's like little painting this of course is what more dog storage like these are their toys their
07:23treats and like everything this one is my storage it is messy it's been life people it's gonna be messy
07:30and i have like a cute little mirror over here that is not the only one we have a lot
07:35of mirrors we got a
07:37whole like camera system for when i'm driving so i can see the front the sides and the back it's
07:44like
07:45very good because we don't have uh like a a back view uh we have window shades for like everywhere
07:54so
07:54they insulate like very well the the windows we have one for here one for the front and like to
08:02keep everything secure keep everything safe keep us um safe we have a lagoon table that we sit over here
08:12and we share our meals tell them how you found this this this this seat i found on ebay and
08:18it came
08:19from london it was like crazy because i wanted something very very small that created more space
08:26yeah i was very specific about this seat and it took me two months and i found i found a
08:32seat
08:33like we welded with uh my husband cousin on the floor it's like welded to the frame my cousin created
08:41this and then he used some a butterfly screws something like that and then he walked it as well
08:47it's well did we create like this we hope it's safe and it's very safe it has a seat belt
08:52and like
08:53so far we are like very good not that we had any accidents but like we are very good this
08:58is our lagoon
08:58table is just a piece of plywood and that we cover with uh more of a sticker sticker sticker paper
09:04this
09:05is our dog's door so whenever like we're not in the van they're secure back there yeah and now we're
09:13coming to another part of the house we have our shower when we bought the van it was like already
09:18the
09:18walls were here so rob built the whole water system we have um this is our shower we can uh
09:27have a hot
09:28water we have a hot water heater it's like the pressure is great this like this little thing
09:33uh saves a lot of water i think yeah you only had one review on amazon we are the review
09:40number two and
09:40like great we also have our porta potty the cassette toilet that we can uh empty in like any safe
09:48space
09:49like in the uh public restrooms in the park we just give it a little wash and i that's it
09:54it's like
09:54very good for us it's been working for like six or seven months and this up here we have a
10:00little
10:01leak here because everything is leaking and breaking all the time which is like super fine this is uh
10:06what is it called an installation it's for a studio it's for like music studios so like it repels a
10:12little
10:13bit of like the sounds it's like very great and um it's been like working very good for us this
10:20is our
10:21our baby our knowledge store we installed yeah we did it ourselves which is like great we love it we
10:29have to like clean it better it's like 10 out of 10 worth every penny it was like 200 300
10:36dollars this
10:37is our little things because i'm from brazil and like everything in the van is like filled with our
10:42memories with our love and like stuff and also filled with light these are the outdoors lights we have
10:48one on each side and one on the front and they are powerful they are powerful over here we start
10:56to
10:56get on our kitchen area this is babe show the stove the stove was my idea we had a problem
11:03because we
11:03were like we cannot cook on this side because the heat of course comes all over here and now in
11:08summer
11:08we want the air to flow up so her idea was to get a drawer from ikea and that's it
11:16and this is what we got
11:17this is just a drawer from ikea and we used l brackets uh to just like secure to the what's
11:25it
11:25this called the counter to the counter yeah and this is just uh it's perfect perfect perfect this is just
11:32a camping camping stove a camping stove this is the this is the gas that we use for it and
11:39it's very
11:39secure it's we had it for like maybe two years now yeah and it works perfect it was like we
11:45had this
11:45before buying the van because we used to go camping like very often so the heat and the smoke and
11:51everything just rises like on the fan this is our maxer fan he came with the van and like so
11:57far like
11:58it's great we had a little leak here and there as well because everything is leaking all the time
12:02but it's like we love it it's great and this is like uh continuing with with our like kitchen space
12:09this is perfect let me tell you i love this we heat our meals we store bread in here we
12:17bake
12:18we air fry we toast this is perfect i we also like coffee is very important for us and this
12:23is the
12:23food of my boys uh it's like very well insulated and the size is just perfect and then this tell
12:31them
12:31oh yeah this is more storage so rob the one that like built the van he had one but ikea
12:37doesn't build this
12:38anymore so i went on facebook marketplace and we found the twin of like the the what is it called
12:44the little storage things and when we went to buy we drove and the guy was in a van selling
12:51this to us
12:52and i was like dude do you live in a van and he's like yeah why because we're buying this
12:56for our van
12:57and he was like no way it was like very nice a very huge coincidence and this is i'm going
13:02to show
13:02yours because mine is messy so this is like more storage there's like four drawers these are his two
13:08these are my two and they are very messy so i'm not going to show them but just know that
13:12they're
13:12messy this is more storage it's also his storage look how i have to wear like very uh corporate
13:19clothing so we needed more space for this he's a financial bro no i'm no joking i'm definitely not
13:27he works with catering and i i am a babysitter so uh and we leave our dogs with uh his
13:34mother so
13:35our boys are safe i only work three days a week so get it we made it work um and
13:41coming over here
13:41we've been through oh this is just like it was supposed to be spicy with the man he came with
13:47the van yeah and like we just keep a little like cuties like things this is like a salt this
13:53is
13:53you can tell someone is a fan of the videos i love them perfect and this is like the flag
13:58of my country
13:59yes like in case you didn't notice like yet and like a little bit over here uh oh we have
14:05more
14:06more storage storage is everything for us because like uh i mean this is us this is our house you
14:12know
14:12so like we want to like more clothes space clothes and like everything uh oh this is this is this
14:20is my
14:21really i love this storage it was supposed to be as well a spice like thing but now we just
14:28like
14:29store my tons of like skincare stuff like yours too like down here and like skincare like uh products
14:36like supplies like uh what is this called like first aid like stuff everything is in here and you
14:42can barely notice yeah like if you walk in the van you wouldn't know that this is yeah um like
14:48coming
14:48to this area this is like our sink and we have uh we have a fully functioning like system sink
14:54this is
14:55our water pump we keep it like off but we like turn it on like very easily and like our
15:00sink has like
15:01amazing pressure and like everything is very cute we keep the water heater down there and all our cleaning
15:09products and stuff here see a lot a lot of storage a lot of storage this is our little trash
15:15can which is
15:16like we love it it's like very cute it's hidden it's like perfect uh like i think yours the sink
15:23size is like very perfect it's like not so big not so small it's like very nice yeah this is
15:29our plan
15:30that is like uh fighting for its life but it's like it's been hanging on for months since we got
15:35the van
15:35we have a little bit of like our um we also got this from ikea oh yeah this is from
15:40ikea this is from ikea
15:42uh this is from ikea uh this is from ikea as well so like it's cheap it's good it's been
15:48working for us
15:49we love ikea this is also from ikea uh oh this is our skylight this was an emergency exit this
15:56was an
15:57emergency exit as you can see still has some remains of like emergency exit and we just ripped it off
16:04and
16:04we put a paxiglass on top of it it doesn't open but it gives us like light amazing light and
16:10i just
16:10love to wake up look up and like see the sky or the flowers and like everything during the cover
16:17yeah
16:18and then this also is from ikea this is also from ikea i love to like make things work so
16:26we're making it
16:27work this is uh our control panel like for the uh renault g system so we're getting 9.8 amps
16:34of solar and
16:35we have like 88 uh percent of batteries we have 530 out of the 600 that we have and like
16:42so far it's
16:42very good this is the remote control for our inverter is like 2000 watts of watts right watts and like
16:49we
16:50just turn it on and immediately out um all the rocks and everything yeah all the outlets like they work
16:57we can like turn on the oven like we can make a coffee like that's like just real life stuff
17:02um these
17:03are our lights our house lights very good as well coming over here we also have more storage we have
17:10like our computers like we have books we have like we love i love dogs so all for it we
17:15have an extra fan
17:16in case it gets hot it does get like hot we get our dirty clothes our dirty clothes are here
17:21this is
17:22also like a little like step to go up the bed we're gonna show you the bed and like this
17:26is more storage
17:27like this is these are my my shirts cute shirts and this is also like um our kitchen kitchen supplies
17:35storage we have our pots and pans they don't have like a handle attached to it which is like perfect
17:41for
17:42van life um and it's very cute as you can see like i love cute things this is like very
17:49nice and like
17:50it removes any attached it saves so much space yeah it attaches to all the other uh pots and pans
17:57that we
17:57have they are all from the same brand it's like it's amazing for van life here we have more ikea
18:02storage
18:03that we keep like some random stuff like dog stuff dog stuff dog stuff dog stuff and like uh cute
18:09like
18:09little things like lights and stuff um we also have more storage over here in our fridge uh show the
18:17fridge babe this is a bodega bodega cooler fridge yeah so is there 110 liters yes yeah it's enough for
18:26us to keep our meals oh my gosh so good i really like it and yeah it works perfect yeah
18:32it's like a
18:32store and it wasn't expensive it was not expensive yeah there's other brands that are more yeah we have a
18:38little bit more of the storage here our control panel oh yeah our control panel is like over here
18:44is a little hidden but it's like supposed to be easy access but it's like back here it's it's gonna
18:50be easy if something happens we can just like take all this stuff we have more cameras over there oh
18:56yeah
18:56we have like cameras there's people looking at the van right now we have uh this is like a second
19:01like
19:01monitor because if we are on the bed we can just turn this on or off like to check our
19:07surroundings
19:07and this is a white noise machine because believe me you need this when you live in a van in
19:11brooklyn
19:12this is more storage if i open things are gonna fall oh no everything is like there this is like
19:18random like coffee and like stuff uh this we used to cover the sink and the the stove uh these
19:26are
19:27shiplap uh panels that we made the walls out out of it and under it is insulation what's it called
19:33the insulation is the 3m insulation the insulate is like very good i feel like if it wasn't for that
19:40like it would be like very hot in here it's like hot but it's like manageable um and we have
19:45this is
19:46also like more storage and these are little idea from the apartment oh yeah we these are from our
19:52previous life when used to live in an apartment uh and i wanted to use them to cover uh the
19:58little
19:58holes that we use as storage and like these are very cute amazon light rechargeables they live
20:04forever let me tell you these in this side we also like have more this is our movie theater this
20:10is our
20:10movie theater and it's like let me tell you it is great this is our dog beneath the other one
20:16wasn't
20:16like on their picture yet and uh this is like more storage it's like very deep like to the sides
20:22and
20:22another like little light and uh this is the bed now we're going to show you the bed so i'm
20:29going to
20:29move this here this is our routine which like for me is like very very like fine so we pull
20:37this here
20:37no i did it wrong i said do you want to show them well my husband does the bed every
20:42night because like
20:43i i'm busy taking care of the dogs or anything so we take this out so i'm gonna i'm gonna
20:50narrate you
20:51babe yeah we take this out this is like uh just an amazon um mattress it was like a hundred
20:58dollars
20:59it was like very super fine uh we cut it ourselves this is the bed frame we pull it out
21:07uh this other
21:08part of the mattress we cut out we cut out the mattress is divided in three parts so we just
21:13cut
21:13it out so we can slide it like all the way to the back and then we slide it to
21:17the front whenever like
21:18we are ready to go to the crib and uh we make everything like look cute and these are cooling
21:25shoots and this is our bed go up babe go up on the back go up no oh great beautiful
21:31and that's it
21:33this is his side this is my side we slide the dog's bed under here because they are very hot
21:40sleepers and
21:41they like to sleep on top of me so like they sleep down here and it's like very cool down
21:45here
21:45and like that's it we have like a little step because i am like very small so like we go
21:53up
21:54and like that's it that's it we have fans as well and this is our home well and really i
22:01really
22:02appreciate you taking the time to give us a tour of your awesome van build here uh we saw rob
22:09there in
22:10the video he's here at the block party uh i love that he was able to help you with this
22:15build yeah
22:17so much rob was like the the muscles and like we just like whatever i said like rob i would
22:25like
22:25like more storage he's like let's make it work he brought the vision out yeah yeah and it was over
22:31a period of time so you would travel we will go we will go to long island like pretty much
22:36five months
22:37five months every weekend we will go to long island to like sort of build it together and um
22:43that's it like he made our basically he made our my dream and like your dream like come true
22:48and were you living in it while he was building it no we were no we were staying in an
22:53apartment
22:53more like hey you should still use it and go camping for the weekend yeah yeah we went camping so
22:58many
22:58times there in long island while like he was building it it was like very nice and then off camera
23:04we
23:04talked a little bit about overall budget now i'm i'm shocked that this was like 15 grand for
23:10everything that you have everything yeah so 2014 van i mean they're that van's worth nine grand yeah
23:17you know we found the van on facebook marketplace it was like nine thousand dollars and he came like
23:23basically we saved the we saved like the bathroom from the previous build and uh the solar panels but then
23:30like we had to redo everything and like we tried to do it ourselves like as much as we could
23:35we cut
23:36budget we like got like a affordable product and we made it work for like i would say 15 to
23:4216 000
23:43like dollars with like everything included so that goes to say like you don't need an extremely
23:48professional 100k 200k 300k van to start living like this i would say don't be afraid just go after it
23:56if you like it you continue doing if you don't like it at least you can say like oh i
24:00tried it
24:00i'll try to make this quick because i turned the fan off we're roasting it's a little warm it's 90
24:07degrees here yeah it's like very hot but uh any lessons that you want to share with the viewers that
24:12are maybe looking to tackle something like this anything you learned along the way i think like to
24:17follow your dreams i want to i want to cry um i've i've seen like this girl here she was
24:23like a huge
24:23inspiration like for me and uh i don't know i just like try to make it work because like i'm
24:30from
24:30brazil i'm an immigrant i'm a babysitter and like i just focused on my dream for like years and years
24:37and i was always checking facebook marketplace and when i found her i was like that's it that's her
24:43and like we went there like i bought it and uh we are we are moving towards living our dream
24:50like we're
24:51still working on our like boring jobs but we we get the fun this is the beginning we already started
24:57we get the fun in between so like this has been super worth our dogs love it i'm in heaven
25:02and also
25:03like you don't need a lot you know to live a full fulfilling life like you only need so little
25:09and
25:10as long as you have a good support system you know the person that you love next to you and
25:14that
25:14you're doing the things that you love i think you're gonna have an amazing experience and some people
25:19might be concerned about like security in a city environment but you're in an area of brooklyn
25:24where there's a little i would say community of other van dwellers so everybody's looking out for
25:28each other yeah honestly i thought this was gonna be harder than it is and it has been just such
25:34a
25:35smooth transition yeah it's been like six months now and and we haven't had a single accident in the
25:41city we got someone dropped the letter the other day like talking about like how cool the van is and
25:46like that was like very cute and i know you guys are gonna start a youtube channel so by the
25:54time
25:54this video comes out you guys will be up and running there so i'll put a link in the description
25:58so i know
26:00our viewers are gonna just fall in love with the two of you i love it well this is patrick
26:04with new
26:04jersey's outdoor adventures youtube channel thanks for joining us thank you thank you
Comments