Vanovations: Interior rebuild

The interior rebuild was "the fun part" of this van renovation. Max had tirelessly worked on the mechanical under-workings of the van for approximately 3 years. But we are going to disregard all that hard work in favor of the flashy stuff! 

One winter day, while I was living at my parents house and Max was living in his brother's living room in Massachusetts, Max sent me some photos of the interior of an old Volkswagon van and the simple message that he had bought it was planning to renovate it. Knowing what I know now, I am convinced that he had a professional photographer and and set designer with him at the used car lot that day. The photos of the interior looked beautiful! I knew there were issues with rust on the side and some of the underneath of the car, but based on the photos I had received, the inside looked to be in mint condition! 

It was a bit of a different story when I first met the van a few months later. The unmistakeable rancid odor of mouse inhabitation emanated from all the cabinetry and air conditioning vents. The upholstery, although it had remained in surprisingly good overall condition, was inundated with dust. The faux leather side panels were peeling and stained. The carpet in the front of the van was caked with several hundred layers of dirt and mud from nearly 40 years of shoes and paws gracing its surface and the laminate covering nearly every other surface of the inside of the van (walls, ceilings, shelves etc.)  was peeling and flaking off into tiny particles which garnished all the other furniture. 

Unfortunately, I have almost no photos of the interior from this time. I think we were both so discouraged by the mess, it never occurred to us that we might one day need "before photos".  

As we undertook the demolition, the mouse infestation began to reveal itself fully. The stench increased about 10-fold and we discovered a mouse mansion. They had shredded the fiberglass insulation behind the wall panels and arranged a nesting area, a storage area of nuts and seeds, and a bathroom. Several of the shelves on the interior of the cabinets were rotted out entirely because of the amount of urine deposited there. Again, we took far too few photos, but only because we wanted to get the disgusting affair over as quickly as possible. 

The pièce de résistance was uncovered a few days later when we exposed a charming couple of petrified mice at the bottom of an interior wall column. We removed the previous homeowners and laid them to rest. This was to be our home now, we couldn't have any mouse-ghosts crawling about. 

TRIGGER WARNING for petrified mouse photo!

The demolition was finished off by stripping out the carpet, removing the old stained flooring in the back, and peeling back the laminate coverings on the walls. 

With the insides of the van gutted, we spent a couple weeks cleaning and prepping for the rebuild. 

For several weeks, all we did was grind and sand away the numerous locations with rust damage. Not limited to gas pedal, rear seat mount, both foot-steps, the passenger seatbelt, the battery storage area... you get the idea. Most of those spots needed body-filler and/or welding to be repaired. Here are a couple of before-and-afters of areas we repaired on the interior.

Rear seat mount. We had the mount itself welded on by a professional later.

Driver foot well needed a lot of scraping and cleaning as well as some Body filler

Max tried his hand at welding on the foot-step and the section next to the passenger seat. Although his welds may have relied heavily on body-filler, I was impressed with the final product. 

Finally the van was clean and ready for re-installation. No more rust, no more mice, and no more smell!!! 

Next, we plunged enthusiastically into installing the sound deadening and insulation. Max custom built a wood subfloor for underneath the cabinets and in the main area of the van. 

In addition to the floor, we needed to replace the wall panels. We ordered some custom made birch panels and did several rounds of water based polyurethane coats on the side panels and floor before installing them.

This photo is from a very late night spent coating and hang-drying the wall panels in the garage.

Before and afters of the side front door side panels.

Finally getting to replace the freshly cleaned cabinets was so incredibly satisfying. 

I think that this was when we realized that we would indeed be living in this van. It finally started to feel like an inhabitable place: maybe even a home. But our work was far from done. Max built shelves to replace the ones that had rotted out and I got to work carpet cleaning the upholstery.

At this point the interior of the van was livable. But the interior is an ever-evolving project. After traveling in the van for over a month, we landed at my parents house and I was able to get my sewing machine to make the final large component of the interior re-build: the curtains! I spent about a week sewing like a mad-man. 

This rebuild has been challenging and fun. I am continually impressed with how well designed the Vanagon Westfalia interiors are. Although we did change some components of the interior (whether because of preference or because of irreparable damage), the overall structure remains true to the stock build and the layout is an incredibly efficient use of space. It was (mostly) a joy to work on this insides of the van and it feels particularly rewarding to know that we touched almost every square inch of the van. Not a mouse went unturned.