Roof and Ceiling

I decided to cut away most of the roof panel and get rid of the bright orange grab handles in order to fit a more modern looking tongue & groove cladding for the ceiling. With hindsight I cut away too much because the remnants of the roof panel was used to fix the cladding to.

Halfway through the roof build, my solar panel arrived. It is the 40w panel, and was the biggest size my budget could stretch to (around £90 off ebay). I also managed to get a Status Omnidirctional aeriel before I even bought the van, again off ebay. Both of these needed fitting before the new roof was fitted, but couldn't be fitted until the old roof was ripped out.

Job done with the electrics topside, so work back inside on the roof cladding can continue....

I integrated my lighting into the panels as I went along. Managed to source these from a marine/boat supplier off the internet. Most marine fittings run on 12v DC electric, similar to cars/campers.  I chose some quite smart looking bezel mounted low power LED's for general ambient/mood lighting, and 4x 10w halogen downlights for any heavy-duty stuff we may need. These really are quite bright and a worthwhile addition.

The existing roof-fan and skylight would be useful items for a campervan, so these were retained and worked around with the new roof.

A shot of the finished cab cutaway with the new seats fitted. Again with hindsight, the roof would have been better done before the cab was opened up, because the mess caused by the angle-grinder is still being cleared up now.....

I decided to keep the existing cupboards for storage. I was initially going to remove the doors and replace with a finished timber. To keep the budget down I decided to try facing them with wood-effect fablon and see how they looked. I am quite pleased with the outcome and will be leaving them like this for the time being. 

                                                                                                                                                                    

A rag, a stanley knife blade and a fair bit of patience were the only tools required.

Looks half-decent. If it doesn't start peeling-off after a few weeks, I'll probably be keeping it on. The beauty being you can just peel it off and paint or replace the existing doors if you get fed up...