Continued...

... The guys at Awesome said they have a carpenter, Thomas, who they use to do their cabinet work, so they will put together a quotation for us once they've spoken to him. Let's see if we can afford them! In a way it seems odd not to be shopping around to look for different companies, but on the other hand Jonathan and I both liked the vibe from these guys, and I think personality is going to count for a lot on a project like this.

The return journey was also a little awkward, as the passenger door decided to keep swinging open, so I spent the majority of the drive hanging on the handle to stay in the vehicle!

We've had loads of people looking as we go by, and two sets of people came up to talk to us in the carpark of the service station - I love it!

Bertie on the road

Today was our first long drive in Bertie Blue. We took him down to St Ives to meet Glenn and Greg at Awesome. It has been a bitterly cold day today, and we were SO cold! We left here at half 7, leaving the children with Granny and Grandpa, and I had hoped that the engine would soon warm up the cab - but not a bit! I was very grateful that I had taken a blanket.
We had a few teething troubles with the engine on the way down - in that it kept cutting out whenever the revs were low. It made for an interesting job for Jonathan at each roundabout and junction, but he learned to anticipate it as the journey went on.

We had a really positive meeting with the brothers Glenn and Greg. In fact, we ended up being with them for nearly four hours! They seem very keen to do the project, seem to understand what we are trying to achieve, happy to take our ideas but also to make suggestions too. We talked all about our ideas, the style and feeling of what we are hoping to accomplish, and I think it helped that I took along several photos of the sort of things I like.
We chose the vinyl for the seats and the dashboard, flooring for the back, and agreed a layout.

On hold for now...

So now it's December, we've owned Bertie for three months, spent nearly all of our first loan installment, and have done almost nothing...

I have had several sleepless nights about this - which is really not at all like me - but I am feeling the weight of the pressure. Buying Bertie was all my idea, and now it's completely up to me to make this work.

Anyway, I'm going to try to focus on other things through December and wait until after Christmas to make the next decisions about how to move forward. I have had an email back from 'Awesome', the company in St Ives, suggesting we come and see them to talk further and so we'll try to do that in the New Year.

The children have been having fun playing in Bertie though!

Conversion plans

Since september I've spent countless hours on the Internet looking at conversion companies and ideas. Sometimes I think we should buy all the bits and bobs and do it ourselves - I've been looking at secondhand seats, kitchens and stoves, and also new 'off the peg' campervan units - but then I remember how little time we have on our hands, and how few practical skills, and wish I could just give it to someone to do it all for us!
I think we'll probably end up with somewhere between the two, doing some of the work ourselves and using professionals for the rest.
There is a company in St Ives near Cambridge who look interesting. There seem to be a lot of campervan companies in the West Country and on the South coast, unsurprisingly I guess, but not much up here. I've been in touch with a company in Essex a few times, but I quite like the look of the things the Cambridge company have done - more bespoke and less modern-MDF-blandness. It's hard to tell from their website whether this is the sort of project they do - it looks like they're more on the upholstery and soft furnishing side rather than the welding and carpentry side - but I've sent them an email to see if they might be interested, and I guess I'll just need to see what they come back with. I also have no idea at all how much it would cost to get a company involved - some of the big modern VW conversions seem to cost tens of thousands of pounds, which is just not going to happen!
I've come up with a provisional layout plan which I think will work, but it would be very useful to get a professional opinion! I think we should have 4 individual seats, two forward-facing and two rear-facing - it's not really wide enough to get two seats next to each other anywhere without restricting the movement from front to back - how many times I have wished for a side door like most campervans, rather than the rear doors! The wheel arches are right in the way on each side too...
Anyway, in my grand plan, these four seats, plus the tables which will sit between them, will convert in some clever way into a double bed, a bit like the arrangement in a narrowboat with a dinette double bed (fond childhood memories of many of those...) Behind all this will be a kitchen area (sink, fridge and hob) and storage. However, at the moment I don't really have a plan for where the children will sleep - minor detail! I'm thinking maybe some kind of hammocks acrossthe width of the van in the rear kitchen area, or maybe in the front cab somehow.
It would be great to have a pop top/elevating roof one day, but I have no idea what that would cost or involve. It would give us more headroom and also some more space to fit bunks, but I doubt it will be in the budget for a while. I think we should probably have a go at using it in its current configuration before we make that commitment.

Getting my priorities right...

Oh my goodness, I just have so many ideas (and worries) running through my brain about Bertie! I'm beginning to get some ideas about how I would like him to look, style-wise - and have ordered some fat quarters of fabric I like - spending the budget on the important things!!
 These are my inspiration photos at the moment...

TV dreams

We've been watching a really good series on Channel 4 called 'Amazing Spaces', all about converting small spaces. Jonathan's Dad saw the first episode and alerted us to it, so we've been using 4OD to watch the series. So far they've looked at tree houses, beach huts, old caravans etc, but no proper camper for a family. So - I sent them an email with a picture of 'Bertie Blue' and a brief outline of what we're hoping to do - let's see if they like it!

This is my favourite project so far - and the source of lots of inspiration for me - a gorgeous old bus conversion.

A long job, and a new name

Well, it's been at Wooley's garage for rather longer than we expected, and has needed rather more work than we expected too...

We had to buy four new tyres straightaway, as even though the treads were fine, the side walls had cracked to the canvas as a result of sitting on concrete for all those years. It also needed new brake pipes, brakes dismantling and servicing, system bled, new (second-hand from a T2) silencer, and the battery. All of that, plus the MOT, and we are over £1000 further into our loan. Ouch.

While he's been there, I've been spending some time trying to figure out the layout. I drew the dimensions of him out on the kitchen floor with chalk - but quickly gave up because it seemed so unbeliveably small that I got rather worried. However, now he's back, so we can get back inside and wait for inspiration to strike!

The other thing that has happened since he's been away is that he has definitely become a 'he' rather than an 'it', and we are calling him 'Bertie Blue'. The BMC on the front, I have discovered, stands for British Motor Company - but we think of it as Blue Moon Camper, and Bertie seemed to fit in with this, and with his personality.