While I continue to ponder the electrical design and order some various parts, we turned our attention to the galley cabinet. Sara is doing some education consulting work (hey, someone has to make some money) but she wanted to work a full day on the van and the cabinet seemed like the best two-person project.
Our galley will go in front of the toilet on the passenger side. It will actually block about half of the slider door, which is fairly common for these kinds of conversions. One does not really need a 4′ wide door to get in and out and so it uses some valuable space.
On one side the cabinet will have a sweet dometic sink that closes flush with the counter and on the other side will be counter space induction stove. The sink will just drain into a 4 gallon water tank that we will have to empty regularly. Because we need to access it often that side of the cabinet will open from both sides. Under the sink we will also have the water pump and the pressurized accumulator tank. The stove will live in a narrow drawer under the counter so we will only take it out when needed. The space below the stove will be drawers. The specifics of the design have still been a bit in flux as we weren’t sure how many drawers we wanted and where.
I had already cut a few of the larger pieces for the cabinet, but now it was time to start building. As we are not cabinet makers, everything seems to take longer than one would expect! There is a lot of measuring, cutting, drilling, gluing, and sometimes fixing, though this day went pretty well. If you think this post is going to end with “here is our cool cabinet” you are sadly mistaken. We finished most of the frame of the cabinet but found we need one more sheet of 1/2″ baltic birch to finish putting the frame together.
At lunch we also spent a ton of time debating about how many drawers we wanted and what sizes. We roughed out about 5 options while measuring various food items and thinking about what we actually need to store.
We ultimately decided on two small drawers, one for the stove and one for silverware and small items; three medium drawers that will fit can-sized things; and one large drawer for pans and larger bottles. On the other side we will have one large drawer under the drain bucket. It will actually open toward the front of the van and we expect we will use it for dog food and other dog items.
With the frame partially made and the other frame pieces cut, I also started cutting some of the many drawers we have to build. I don’t have a dado* blade so I just concocted a method I can easily repeat to cut dadoes with my regular table saw blade. Right now the $100 the dado blade kit would cost doesn’t seem that expensive! It would sure save me a lot of time.
*What’s a dado you ask? A dado is just a groove in the wood into which one can insert another board. In this case the floor of the drawers are 1/4″ baltic birch plywood so the dadoes are 1/4″ wide by approx. 1/4″ deep. A little glue in the slot and some brad nails to hold the boards together and it makes a very solid drawer, like this one.
