How to Build a Van Dwelling: What to Do with the Commercial Shelves in Your Van

So your getting ready to build your Van Dwelling. It's time for that cargo van to be reincarnated as a comfy home on the road. The first step was to remove all the bins and shelves that carried who knows what during the vans first life. Sure it took a bit of effort but now that they're out and laying on the front lawn, what can you do with them?

What you do with those handy looking shelving units may depend on what your life plan is. If hitting the open road never to look back is your goal finding the quickest way to get rid of what you have no use for is probably your only thought.

The quickest way to eliminate what to you is just scrap is to set them out neatly at the end of the driveway with a "FREE" sign. Their usefulness may be more apparent to those staying put rather then those itching to leave.

Van shelves and bins can be a very useful addition to most garages or basements. Storing all that "good stuff" that you just can't part with. Left over paint and household chemicals, away from your living space is the best place to keep those kind of things.

These aren't light duty fold up and collapse under weight units. Remember pounding down the road with hundreds of pounds of parts and equipment is what they were designed for. Their nut and bolt construction means they can be reconfigured to meet the needs of many different jobs.

By looking close I noticed that the construction holes available on these separate almost 4' high units Indicated the units could be stacked and bolted together.

My situation is common amongst the van dwelling group. I can travel some but still maintain a home base. It just seemed a waste to let usable shelving units slip through my fingers. Rather then send them off to the recycling center, as with any scrap metal disposal is usually free, I set about finding a good use for them.

I didn't have to look any further then our utility room. First a quick cleaning to remove the dirt and grease of their earlier life. Then each unit was brought into the house and with a little assistance they were stacked two high and side by side.

The 4 units were secured together with two bolts per corner making the wall of shelves very solid and secure. These shelves are plenty strong to handle lots of weight.

As the immediate future doesn't come with guarantees we tend to keep a healthy food supply on hand large enough o take us through 90 days or more with ease. Jamming everything into the kitchen cupboards means you are hardly able to find what your looking for as things are stacked on top of each others making identification next to impossible.

Now with our new greatly expanded pantry we can organize our food goods neatly by category making identification a snap. We even have enough room to be able to rotate our goods so the oldest in inventory is toward the front of the shelf.

It's always nice to recycle things into a different use. Before you send those old commercial shelves and bins off to the scrap yard, look around. I bet there's someone close by who could use them.