Building Meredith

The Process

I know what you’re thinking… Why, out of all the characters on The Office, would you pick Meredith to name your home for the next few months? Well, to be honest, picking a name was hard at first, but once we started the transformation, it stuck out like a sore thumb. We came across Meredith on the good ol’ classifieds on Facebook. She was within our budget and within in the area, so we decided to drive out and test her. She seemed like a diamond in the rough at first. She had a clean running engine, tires with life left, leather seats with some commodities that weren’t necessary, but nice to have (bun warmers). Her AC blew cold, and her heater blew hot and it warmed up quick. No warnings, good on gas, exactly what we were looking for! The only things we wanted to upgrade was the radio, that had a burnt out display. After negotiating the price down, we decided to purchase her and bring her back to scenic Beaufort, South Carolina to begin creating a home on wheels.

Now, one thing we both noticed off the bat pretty quickly, was her smell. Meredith smelled like old people. No, not like a clean assisted living home, but that musty, mildewy, haven’t gotten a good cleaning behind the ears since there was one Virginia, old smell. No big deal, a little elbow grease and some Febreze will take care of that, no problem. Oh how wrong we were. We began to remove the mats and spray disinfectant down into the carpet of the interior of this dirty old hag, and the most disgusting, unspeakable, SPOOKY(Happy Halloween everyone) horror scene unfolded before our very eyes. I noticed it first, and groaned in disgust and disbelief as I called McKayla over to lay eyes on my discovery.

Maggots.

Yes, those maggots.

Droves of them.

I was sick to my stomach, and a wave of anger, disappointment, and anxiety washed over me. We had been bamboozled! Dooped! We’d been smeckledorfed and it was too late to turn back time and send this demon back to the Hell in which it came from. It felt as if our trip had ended before it started. Then McKayla and I decided to go on the assault, I mean we really went all out to destroy those little turds. We first ripped up all the carpet inside that old hag and separated every layer of fabric so we could see every dark, dirty crevice in our ‘home’. Next, we sprayed a chemical concoction reminiscent of something from Walter White’s lab deep into the carpet, the leather, the roof interior, everything we could, before vacuuming up the small families of disgusting creatures out of every corner we could find. Were we done? Oh no, far from it my friends. We then got an industrial strength debugging fog bomb and nuked the insides of our crusty caravan. After the bodies hit the floor and the smoke cleared, we vacuumed up the war scene and re-methed the carpets before soaking, lathering and repeating the process 3 times until we were satisfied with the results. We used a steam vacuum and more deep cleaner before finally declaring the war over, and that old Meredith was bug free. Nothing like that new car smell amirite? With the car finally clean, we released a collective sigh of relief, knowing that a daunting nightmare had been conquered. Does it now make sense why we named her Meredith?

Now that the hard part was over, we could now focus on the fun stuff: Building the bed. A high priority for us before we started this project was to act frugally and resourcefully to keep the cost of everything we put into our vehicle as efficient as possible. McKayla had this great idea to use wood pallets as the base of the frame for the bed. The Walmart down the street had free pallets in abundance, so we loaded up the old pick up and began to plan. The design worked wonderfully! After measuring the dimensions of the back of Meredith, We removed the back row of seats and saved the bolts so that we could use them to bolt the bed frame down to the vehicle and keep it secure. We modified the pallets by adding more columns and rows to them so that it would take up the entirety of the space behind the driver and passenger side seats. It took about 5 pallets in all, but two whole pallets to make the basis of the frame. We went to a local thrift store and found some old wood bottoms to a twin sized bunk bed, and broke them down to use as support beams for the bed frame. Underneath the frame we were able to create a large open space directly behind the two front seats, where we would store our cooler, cooking utensils, water jug and filter, propane cooker, and various other items we planned on using during the trip. In the back of Meredith are two large compartments built into the floor near the back hatch. We did not want to build on top of these two compartments and lose out all on this space. We decided to connect the two major components of the bed frame with gate hinges. This way we could lift up the back end of the frame and easily access anything below it. To store our clothes, we constructed three drawers that go down the length of the back pallet; two large, and one small. The small one we share to store socks, gloves, etc., and we each have a large drawer to put our own individual clothes.

While we had used up all the space in Meredith rather efficiently, one question still remained: How will we stay warm in the winter-or even during the fall of the northern states such as Wisconsin or Minnesota? Our solution was one that we executed in multiple steps. McKayla fabricated privacy/insulation screens fashioned out of Reflectix, foam composites, and vinyl fabrics. These screens were custom fitted to sit snug in every window of Meredith. With these installed, no light and minimal heat would escape the inside of our car even with the engine off. We also purchased a couples sleeping bag that is rated for -30 Degrees fahrenheit. We tested it out in our apartment a few weeks before we left Beaufort and trust us, it works! With these precautions we plan to brave any storm headed our way.

A week before we headed out on our trip, I was mindlessly browsing the Facebook classifieds and I found a Thule Cargo Box the perfect size for our Santa Fe, and it was a fraction of the price! We bought it and immediately it doubled the storage of our home. Now, ‘upstairs’ we have a pop up table, pop up chairs, yoga mats, gym gear, and extra coats and jackets for the winter stored and easily accessible to us. For food, we plan on making meals on the road to keep the cost of living cheap and reasonable. We plan on staying in shape and showering at Planet Fitness, which has various locations spread out across the United States and are conveniently open 24 Hours. As I write this, we have been on the road for a few days now. The frame is holding up great, and the mattress we fashioned out of mattress pads is rather comfy when coupled with our massively thick sleeping bag. We are as snug as bugs in a rug (oh the irony) with the insulation screens McKayla made. Life on the road is as exciting as it is relaxing. I am so thankful to be blessed with such an incredible opportunity and I am eagerly looking forward to the road ahead.

-Daniel-