Introducing “everything you need to know about building cabinets in a campervan”.
Cabinets are the places in van’s that you put your things. But they are often much more than that. In a campervan, storage space and sofas, storage space and beds, storage space and kitchens are one of the same things. If you build a cabinet, there is a good chance it is an integral structural piece to your build.
So cabinets (read: a huge chunk of your structural build) are really important.
This article will take you through the decision process of campervan cabinet design, construction methods, materials and techniques to ensure that you can create durable and well-suited cabinets for your campervan
Considerations
First, considerations. What makes for a good campervan cabinet? Isn’t it just some wood? Yes. It is. But because of their often structural importance, and because this might be your first ever van build, let’s look at campervan cabinets level 1:
Size: Cabinets provide storage space. To maximise ‘space’ in the van, we need to ensure our stuff is stored properly. That means we need to think about what stuff we have, and how we are transforming all of the empty areas into valuable storage spaces. The first big considerations are, how much space do we have, and what stuff do we need to store.
Durability: Your cabinetry must withstand constant vibrations of the road so we need to think about durability in cabinetry. Let’s not design something weak, let’s make something strong.
Material quality: Opt for high-quality, strong materials that can handle pressure (movement) and temperature swings.
Material selection: Take into account weight and payload limits when selecting materials for your cabinetry. Cabinets and structures can add significant weight to your vehicle. The most popular option is marine grade plywood, it’s strong, durable, moisture resistant and temperature tolerant. Particle board, MDF, or OSB will not stand up to the test of time. Aluminium might be coming into fashion.
Prefabricated cabinets: If you’re not keen on building custom cabinets yourself, consider prefabricated options that can save you time and effort. More on that below.
Latches, hinges, extras: To keep your cabinets securely closed during your adventures, you will need to invest in quality hinges and latches that prevent them from opening while driving. These are more expensive than you realise, and they are hard to fit for a professional finish. To save you a bit of time, because honestly, it’s a minefield, when constructing cabinet doors, use concealed soft-close hinges that require about 1/2 inch room on the top of the cabinet to open properly. For latches, use slam latches instead of magnetic latches for cabinet doors and drawers. They are far more secure and reliable, preventing accidental openings during transit.
DIY challenges: Be aware that building campervan cabinets can be challenging for beginners due to unique angles and size constraints. Don’t be afraid to seek expert advice or assistance if needed.
Popular cabinet spaces: Sofa cabinets are going to exist, because you need somewhere to sit. Think about upper cabinets and how they need to be quite big to fit anything in, but will injure your head from time to time. Think about if the benefit of having a full length wardrobe will outweigh the sense of closing in the space it will have. How is your plumbing? Can you use the space under the sink to put specific kitchen-y things? What’s going under the bed (if not a garage.. See here). In the planning stage, there is a lot to consider about the different spaces available in your campervan.
Cabinet design styles: Popular design options such as shaker-style, slab door, and inset cabinet doors will change the look of your campervan, so choose wisely.
Safety: uh, boring. But important. When building out campervans, you have to overbuild and oversecure them. Let’s not leave anything to chance, we don’t want anybody getting injured.
Prebuilt vs DIY
Prebuilt cabinets
Prebuilt cabinets are the convenient-ready-to-install-saviours for those who prefer to avoid the sawdust and sweat of DIY cabinet construction. They come in a cornucopia of styles and sizes, but limit your options and can increase your spending. There are two types of pre-built cabinets, the first are made to measure from a specialist and the second are cabinets made for a house, that you modify for your campervan.
Pros of prebuilt cabinets:
- Time-saving: Skip the building process and dive straight into installation.
- Aesthetic variety: With numerous designs available, you can quite easily find the one that suits your van’s personality.
Cons of prebuilt cabinets:
- Sizing pitfalls: If you go down the household pre-built route, their generic dimensions may not always fit snugly into your van’s unique layout. Shop bought is square, campervans are not. (Editor’s note: You might end up chopping things and doing DIY work anyway)
- Costly: Convenience comes at a price, with pre-built cabinets generally costing more than their DIY counterparts.
- Time: Don’t forget, you will still have to install them.
DIY campervan cabinets: The art of customization
For those who relish the opportunity to create something from scratch, DIY cabinets offer a hands-on experience. Craft your cabinets using wood, saws, elbow grease, and watch your vision come to life.
Pros of DIY van cabinets:
- Budget-friendly: Save money by building your cabinets from the ground up.
- Made-to-measure: Custom dimensions ensure a perfect fit for your van’s interior.
- Limitless creativity: Design cabinets that reflect your unique taste and requirements.
Cons of DIY van cabinets:
- Time and effort: DIY cabinets require time, and sometimes patience.
- Potential mishaps: Errors or lack of carpentry skills can lead to scrapping wood
Choosing between DIY or prebuilt cabinets
Considering cabinets are the pleasant way of describing every structural thing in your campervan, we suggest that you build them yourselves.
There is a funny thing when you are building your van and that is that at the start, with the big things, everything comes together really quickly and you get quite far quite fast. Add some extra dopamine on top for the fact that you’ve done it all yourself. You figured it out. You’re a campervan building master.
The smaller the jobs (in size) the longer they seem to take, and you’ll encounter a lot of this after your main structures (read: cabinets) are in. You’ll want all the early motivation you can get to keep on going through those darker conversion days, so do yourself a favour and do it DIY style. If you’re not convinced:
How to order prebuilt van cabinets
Consider all the factors above (size, style, quality, appearance) and throw in budget constraints, and you should have a fairly good guide to your pre-made cabinet selection.
There are a bunch of specialists offering full kits for £1000’s otherwise Ikea seems to be the place most people go. Don’t forget: measure twice, purchase once.
How to build a campervan cabinet
Step 1: Design and measure
Design your campervan layout by drawing it out. You should have done all this a long time ago. Check here if you’ve gone this far without doing it.
Take measurements of the cabinet size, including length, width, and height.
Remember van walls may not be at perfect 90-degree angles, so keep an open mind going into this.
Step 2: Choose materials and gather tools
Select materials, such as plywood or a lightweight hardwood. 18mm plywood is recommended. It’s expensive and heavy, but it’s going to be quick to work with, and more simple to install.
Choose hinges, drawer slides, gas shocks, latches, and paint or stain, if that’s what you want.
Prepare necessary tools, such as a circular saw, drill, jigsaw, router, clamps, and sanders.
Set up a designated work area outside the van.
Step 3: Create a template
Use cardboard or poster board to create a template of the structural end pieces.
You might need to do some scribing here, which is where you follow the contours of the line of the van with a pencil, scribing them onto the wood you need to cut.
Step 4: Build from strength
There are 2 well understood ways to build structures and cabinets in your van. The first is to make a frame out of timber (long thin bits of wood), screw the frame into the van, and then cover with a facia of thin plywood or cladding or what not.
The second is to build the frame out of plywood thick enough that it is structurally strong enough to not need any timber.
There are pros and cons to each. The first way will be lighter, but it’s actually really hard to build a square square out of timber, and if it’s not square then fitting the fascia becomes a pain. You also lose a bit of the interior space because of the framework inside. You get a lighter van, but it’s harder and you probably won’t get as professional looking finish. 18mm plywood on the other hand, only takes a few cuts to build, you can screw directly into it, and it’s very strong. The downside is it’s heavy. In this article, we are going to continue with the second option, 18mm plywood, and we’ll get the job done quicker and looking tidier. In the states, I believe this is called the ‘carcass style’.
To continue:
Using the ribs you already have in your van, for anchoring, screw a run of 40mm wide 18mm plywood along the walls for your structure to be screwed into. You will need one along the top of your cabinet, and along the floor.
Assemble the frames using pocket holes or simple wood glue.
Step 5: Cut the wood
Using your cardboard template, cut the wood you will need for your cabinet sides, frontage and tops.
Don’t forget to cut out little tabs in the sides, where your wall rib is.
You’ll need a circular saw and a jigsaw for this.
We always recommend using a router to finish edges on show, especially if you are choosing to keep a wood finish and not paint. Speaking of, if you haven’t sanded and sealed your wood, it might be a good idea to do it now, before fitting.
Step 6: Fit the side walls
Start by screwing the sides of the structure into the van.
Use countersunk screws, wood glue and little L brackets for additional strength.
Now you should have something protruding into the middle of the van, let’s give it some more structure..
Step 7: Fit the front
When the sides are secure, fit the front of your cabinet.
Screw into the floor rib you have already fit.
If you are using 18mm ply you can screw straight into the sides with thin screws and it will hold/ not split the wood.
Use more of the little L brackets to strengthen the corners.
Congratulations, you should have something vaguely resembling a shape now.
Step 8: Fit the top
The top might be an opening lid, a kitchen worktop, or just a piece of wood, so we won’t add too much detail here on how you do it.
Suffice to say, you’ll be able to see the top, so make it neat.
Step 9: Finish
If you haven’t already, time to finish your wood. Popular options are to seal, stain or paint.
Whatever you choose be sure to sand your wood down first, to get rid of any rough bits for splinters. Remember to start with a high sandpaper grit, like 120, and move down to a 200 for an airtable smooth finish.
Tip: remove the hinges and you can slap your finish on as quickly as you like without having to ‘go around’ the fittings.
How to build overhead cabinets
Step 1: Finalise the layout of the overhead cabinets in your van.
Determine the amount of storage needed.
Consider the placement of the cabinets and what is underneath them. We literally put up cardboard and pretended to do stuff and see if we’d hit our heads. You have a chance to design a space where you never hit your head, or one where you hit your head all the time. Make good choices.
Decide whether you are going to do a frame build or a plywood build.
Step 2: Rear anchor
Cut some ply, or a piece of your wood of choice to be fixed along the wall, for everything else to screw/ glue into.
Step 3: Roof anchor
Do the same to the roof using the existing ribs/ strong framework you have in place behind the roof.
Step 4: Sides
Make a template using cardboard. This takes a little bit of time to get right.
Once you have something that looks like it fits around the rear and roof battens, cut it out of some plywood. 18mm is best. It’s heavy but you are going to be screwing into it later.
You’ll need a jigsaw for cutting the sides because they will not be square.
Secure the sides in place using glue and screws.
Remember to countersink your screws by drilling the holes in with a countersink bit, before you screw in.
Step 5: Base
Do the same for the base. This should be easier because it’s going to be more ‘square’ quote unquote than the sides.
Remember to countersink screws.
This will be easier if you partially screw the screws into the base prior to installation, then get one person to hold the base in position while the other screws through the base into the batten and sides.
Screw and glue the wood.
Step 6: Create the cabinet front
You have a few options here. You can a) put in a wooden lip that will stop things from falling out. This is the most simple. Everything will be on view and you will need to use storage containers (probably) to keep everything stored nicely. b) Put in a front that has holes that essentially stay open. This is the next hardest step, but is still quite easy. The downside of this is that you may have to reach around without seeing what is back there, because the holes you have made aren’t big enough to get a good view when your hand/ arm is back in there. c) Build a front, and add doors. This is the hardest to get right, mainly because installing hinges and latches are a pain. It’s also the most weighty and the most costly, but it will give your van a finished look, and lots of people do it, so you can too, right?
Step 7: Attach the hinges (optional)
Decide on the type of hinges you want and install them at the top.
Step 8: Attach the door fronts (optional)
Attach the doors to the hinges and check their functionality. Consider installing mini hydraulic lifts that keep the door open once you’ve, uh, opened it.
What we did
We have 4 sets of cabinets in our van. The first is the sofa. The second is the kitchen. The third is above the kitchen storage. The fourth is a bin style wardrobe.
We want a ‘scandi’ finish and so we used our 18mm ply for structure and for aesthetics.
We didn’t want the faff of lots of doors, so we designed the sofa to have lids accessible from the top, the above kitchen overhead cabinet just has a lip to stop things from falling out and the kitchen only has 3 doors that are really big.
We sanded and sealed every piece of wood at least 3 times. This takes time but the result is fabulous.
We constructed them exactly as in our guid above, the ‘carcass’/ plywood style. All the joins and screws are hidden internally, to create a seamless finish.
All of the cabinetry is built in the same way, and it’s easy once you know how.
First thing is first, you need a strip of wood, or brackets, secured to the metal and or wooden ribs you have built into your van. This is your anchor point.
You build out from that anchor point with the side panels. Join it all together with a front panel of wood. Use small L shaped brackets to screw everything together.
We cut the doors out of the front panels using a drop saw, so that the grain of the wood goes end to end. If you’re geeky about wood, like me, you’ll love the effect this creates. You do need a special too to do this, we had to borrow one.
Our tips for cabinetry include:
- Keep it simple.
- You don’t need draws, they are hard to build and fly around when you are in transit.
- Keep the number of doors you need limited.
- Doors need hinges and hinges are hard to get right and inevitably will move around when you are driving.
- Use pre-existing storage options like boxes and packing cubes and crates to organise things inside cabinet spaces.
- Use as much of each space as you can, you have more things that you think you do and your van will fill up quickly.