Lara is finished!
You might have thought the day would never come, and so did we, but it has! We can finally say we are finished building Lara…. (but of course we will never be truly finished as there will always be something we want to improve, or add….. but, she is ready to take on adventures and that’s why we are calling her ‘finished’).
Over the last few weeks (months!) we have been able to get lots of little and big jobs finished. Some we started a long, long time ago, and others we managed to tick off quite rapidly after starting them. We have finally finished adding vinyl to the floor of the entire palace, we now have a functioning ladder and a door that doesn’t use a hook to stay open. We also added a serving tray to fill up some otherwise unused space, and as well as our drawers we finished a lot earlier, we now also have cupboard doors where needed.
To top if off we have added some carpet and liner to various places and have added Lara’s sock (if you don’t know where Lara wears her sock click on the link :-)).
We know where we want to mount the maxtrax, but that is a job we will have to tackle later, and decorating Lara is another one that will happen in time. Neither are critical for taking her out for some camping trips, the maxtrax will just live in the roof box for now.
Lara has all the mod-cons you can expect in a modern campervan. She has an indoor toilet, an outdoor shower, a generous fridge and we even have our own washing machine! Gone are the days of having to look for a place to have our laundry done.
This is how she looks at the moment from the outside with her ladder out, kitchen box open and awning out. This is how most of our camp setups will look, just picture some chairs and a little table and you’re done.
Lara in full swing – awning out, kitchen open and ladder down (camping in Dayboro with friends for xmas)
And this is the inside with the bed ‘in’. In this setup we can use the table and seating area and have easy access to the fridge. Even with the bed ‘out’ for sleeping we can still access the fridge and most of the drawers.
the 2 mattresses in place, Jude has added a piece of fabric with velcro to attach to the front of the mattresses so they can’t separate when they are in the open position
If you are interested in the work we did to get to this point, please click on any or all of the links dotted around in the text (or from the overview below). They will open a story in a new tab. Most are very short with just a few photos (some are longer and have more photos). It gives you a great insight into how things were made and why we made certain decisions.
Once we have decorated both the inside and the outside we will add updated photos.
We have listed new behind the ones we haven’t sent out with a newsletter if you want to make sure you don’t miss any.
- Buying our dreamcar
- Plans for the build
- Removing everything we don’t need from Lara
- Making of a sub-frame
- Adding the floor, and her walls and roof
- Connecting the walls of the palace to the cab
- Adding cabinetry and painting them
- Electrics (including an electrical diagram)
- Awning (new)
- Drawers and cupboard doors (new)
- Solar panels and a few other bits
- Our composting toilet (new)
- A cheeky serving tray and a nifty pull-out table (new)
- Vinyl (new), carpet (new) and a marine liner
- Roof box for more storage (new)
- An outdoor kitchen (new)
- Quite a large fridge (new)
- Blue plate (compliance to the Australian Design Rules)
- An ingenious door catch (new)
- A luxurious washing machine (new)
- An outdoor (hot or cold) shower (new)
- A (nearly) king-sized, north-south bed we don’t have to climb over each other to get in or out (new)
- Lara’s one and only sock (new)
- Comfortable steps into the palace (new)
Car is looking good, I hope she brings you as much joy and pleasure as she did my family in our travels. It has been interesting following the fate of my car, the cutting and converting. I really found the nest that was in the chassis interesting, wonder what and where it came from, the car was parked in my shed for a few months so that is most likely when whatever it was, took up residence and decided to settle in. Probably one of the native bush rats from the forest, lucky it didn’t decide to chew anything important.
thanks David, glad you like the conversion 🙂 and yes, we were very happy that whoever had built the nest hadn’t stayed in there and explored what it could eat / demolish!
Can’t wait to see Lara (and you guys) in February!
hahahaha, let’s be honest. You are way more excited to see Lara than us 🤪😂 (we’re looking forward to it too, it has been too long!)
Dat ziet er hartstikke goed en alles weldoordacht uit, wellicht pik ik ook nog ideeën op die voor ons toepasbaar zijn. Heel groot compliment aan jullie allebei en iedereen die geholpen heeft.
Nu genieten en blijven bloggen natuurlijk!
Veel veilige kilometers (mijlen 🤓) en plezier toegewenst!
wij rijden gewoon kilometers hoor 🙂 Dank je wel! Ja boot leven en campervan leven is best goed to vergelijken! Wij gebruiken veel uit de boot industry ook! Dikke knuffel en tot later dit jaar hopelijk weer 😘
Op de eerste plaats dikke complimenten! Héél knap werk. Het ziet er puntgaaf uit én klaar om mooie reizen toemaken en prachtige avonturen te beleven!
Heel veel plezier en mooie reizen zijn jullie van ganser harte gegund!!
dankje wel!! Fijn gelezen bij het eerste kopje op de zondag ochtend? Aan die reizen gaan we snel beginnen hopelijk! 😘
Nice build. Where are the levelling jacks for a good night sleep. 🙂
hahahaha, we haven’t needed them yet! a few rocks under a wheel might do the trick just fine 🤪
Wow! I loved reading about all the little details, and the ingenious ideas you have. Lara is an absolute masterpiece!
Thanks Kathryn!! I feel honoured you still read the blog 🙂 It has been an interesting journey. How are you doing in Perth? Hope you are all good?!