Materials/Spend
- Vinyl Flooring - Oak 3x2m - £38.94
- Pine Corner Moulding 27x27x2400m x2 - £23.94
TOTAL: £62.88
You may have realised by now, I’m a bit of an idiot. Especially when it comes to flooring.
I made the conscious decision very early on that I wasn’t going to lay down my flooring at the start of the build, but instead wait until I had things like my kitchen and seating in place.
I figured that the less surface area I had to cover, the less money I would have to spend. So paying for material that was just going to sit underneath my kitchen units for example, was a bit of waste.
Now that I’ve come round to laying my vinyl flooring and actually thought more about it, I realised that I have to buy it by the metre anyway, so I’ll be spending the same amount of money, I’ve now just got the extra hassle of having to cut around the internal structures I’ve built.
As I have an oak veneer worktop for my kitchen units, I decided to buy oak styled vinyl flooring 3m in length and 2m wide.
Laying the floor
I decided to do this in two separate parts - my garage section first, up to when the edge of my bed will sit, and then my main living area. I decided on this because it would be a lot easier to cut the vinyl in smaller sections, and where those two sections will join will be covered by slide out storage.
I started with the garage section of the van. I measured the total depth I would need and cut a section of vinyl that length. The vinyl is super easy to cut through with a stanley knife or some scissors.
I then measured and cut one of the corners off so the flooring would wrap around my left-hand bench. I positioned the flooring in place in the van and then pressing down on the vinyl, trimmed the other half around my right-hand bench and right van wall in situ.
After I’d got the flooring trimmed, I removed it from the van and applied some double-sided tape around each edge of where the flooring will sit, I then returned the flooring back in place and made sure it was positioned and stuck down fast to the floor, making sure to smooth out any creases.
For the front section of the van, I decided to alter the process ever so slightly, as it caused a bit of needless hassle trimming the floor, removing it, and then trying to position it back in place.
This time I made sure two of the edges where more or less the correct length before positioning the flooring in the van, and then trimmed the other two sides roughly to size. I then applied the double-sided tape and stuck the vinyl flooring down, then fine-trimmed it with a stanley knife whilst the flooring was stuck in place. This was a lot easier.
Adding corner moulding
For the rear door and the side door of the van, I cut some smaller strips of vinyl and stuck them, again with double-sided tape, to the upright sections of the door steps.
I then got some pine corner moulding, sawed it to size, then applied some clear adhesive to both edges and stuck it down in place on the corner of the steps. This gave both doorsteps a nice finish and meant that no edges of the vinyl can be seen.
Applying sealant
To finish, I went around all the edges of the floor with clear waterproof adhesive just to make sure there were no exposed edges and to help make the floor watertight.
I still need to ply my benches, so these upright sections of ply will also help hide any small gaps.
If you have any questions at all, feel free to ping me an email or drop me a message on Instagram!
