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This is the story of a divorced, retired police officer named Glen who converted a van into a Lord of the Rings-inspired tiny home. It turns out that Glen is a very skilled and talented carpenter, as you’ll soon see.

He named the van Radagat, which is the name of a brown wizard from the Hobbit. Inside, the van features a king bed, kitchen, bathroom, wood fireplace, and one of the most incredible interiors in a van you’ll ever see. What do you think of it? Pretty incredible, isn’t it? It’s also pretty stealthy from the outside in that it looks like kind of like an ordinary work truck.

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Glen’s Box Truck Conversion Inspired by Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit

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This is the story of Nate and his box truck tiny house conversion. Originally, he bought the 1989 Ford E350 for $9,250. The best part is that it only had 33K miles on it. Turns out, it wasn’t really being driven very much, it was being used as a mostly stationary bunkhouse/cabin in Auburn.

So Nate proceeded to gut it so he could start a new build from scratch. Now it’s completely customized and features redwood inside, a lift kit, 4-wheel drive conversion, a DIY composting toilet, and much more. There’s a lot we can learn from Nate below so please enjoy and let us know what you learned from his story and his box truck tiny house conversion in the comments. Thanks.

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He Bought A Used Box Truck And Turned It Into His DIY 4×4 Motorhome

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This box truck conversion story is a guest submission.

Hello, My name is Bill Cogar II and I live in Sutton, West Virginia, USA.

I am a Boilermaker by trade and I have to travel for my work. Most of my work comes as an emergency outage when a power plant suddenly comes off line due to a break down of the steam generating boiler.

Those types of outages can last as little as one day or turn into several days or weeks. Lodging on short notice can be difficult to obtain and with the uncertainty of the job length, one never really knows how long they are going to need a bed and a place to shower.

Some I’ve worked with, move in and out of a room every day until the job is done. I’ve kept track of the cost of the build and by using what some of my co-workers pay for lodging, I estimate this vehicle has paid me back over three times now, not to mention the convenience of having it on “ready stand-by” when a job comes along.

I keep track of the number of days away from home and right now I’m at about 600 nights of habitation in my truck. My cost of living this way usually runs around 5-10% of my take home pay on a given job. Boilermakers rarely get a per-diem so your lodging, food and travel come right off the top of your take-home. I try and keep as much as possible.

What you will see in the following pictures is what I built to live in to make these outages a lot more bearable.

Living in my Converted Box Truck

Living in my Box Truck by Bill Cogar II via TinyHouseTalk-com 001

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