OVERHEAD STORAGE

When we purchased or first van we looked for a low roof as we wanted to carry a canoe on top. We knowingly gave up the option for overhead storage and standing room for the ability to easily get the canoe on the roof rack. That was totally a mistake. We ended up taking out our canoe one time. It happened to be on a trip to British Columbia where we paddled around for about an hour. So dumb. When we decided to make the van our home for a couple years, we only looked at high roofs. Being able to stand up fully and get dressed is a luxury I can enjoy now. The extra foot or so of height has been a game changer for storage.

Above our rear dinette we have about 44” of cabinets on either side and Keri and I are able to keep all of our clothes and even have extra room for books and journals. We used

Above the kitchen we have 4 feet of cabinets and an open shelf in the middle for produce. I’m shocked how much Keri is able to cram into such a small area. We also put a small cabinet above the kids seats where we have a power to charge our cameras while they’re in storage. For the rear dinette and kitchen overhead cabinets we used stainless steel Southco latches. They are able to be locked to secure the items when we ship to other countries. For the struts we used Apexstone Gas Struts. We used 2 different kind of hinges. The overhead cabinets open upward so we used a Soft Closing Full Overlay Concealed Euro Hinge with a mounting pate. There are 3 bottom storage cabinets that open to the right, for those we used a Concealed Euro Cabinet Hinge Overlay Framless Face 1/4″. To install them we used a Concealed Hinge Kreg Jig which was awesome and make it a quicker install.

One of my favorite additions with the high roof is the shelf above our seats. This has allowed us to have a great area for backpacks and window coverings. It was wasted space that is now super usable. One of the designs philosophies we adhered to when building it was we wanted to “store it where we use it”. A good example of this is a small shelf we built above the sliding door. We had about 4 inches that was not being used so we turned it into a great place to store our awning crank and pole, door window covering, and our Wiffle bat. Having a tall van, we’ve had to be conscious of what we store in the cabinets and shelves. We’ve tried to limit what is up there to lighter items to combat a high center of gravity.

OVERHEAD STORAGE GALLERY:

There are 2 pages of pictures. Make sure to click the #2 at the bottom to view the complete build.

We listed a few details of what we did at the bottom of each picture. If you have any questions about this build feel free to reach out to us.