BUILD A HOME

Pete Streufert
Dec 4, 2024
7 min read

Updated: Dec 6, 2024

We’re still here! And if you’re tuning in for round 2, that means one of two things: either you love us unconditionally and this is your best way of ensuring we haven’t fallen off the end of the Earth (hey Mom!) or you’re genuinely entertained by our unusual day-to-day lifestyle. Whatever the case may be, thanks for tagging along for the ride; we love sharing our stories and receiving heartening feedback from people other than the jolly Kiwi cashier at the hardware store after purchasing five meters of their cheapest pink 2x4 for the third time in a week.

THE DEAL:

Following our romp through Abel Tasman National Park, we wound our way back north from Christchurch and into the quaint town of Amberley in northern Canterbury. Amberley nests tidily into one of New Zealand’s prolific wine regions, just a short drive from the Waipara Valley, home to dozens of vineyards. A small and initially unassuming vineyard tucked into the valley is the pride and joy of Helen and Matt Barbour, residents of Amberley who manage to balance full-time jobs working at commercial wineries and tending to their own rows of grapevines. Though they are in the process of developing their own wine label to bottle and sell their grapes, they currently harvest the grapes they grow every April and sell them to other local winemakers to create their own blends.

The growing season only increases the labor required to manage their vineyard, a task much of which Matt and Helen gladly delegate to young, able-bodied tourists like ourselves. In return for five hours of work per day, Matt and Helen offered the three of us all of the wonderful creature comforts that we sacrifice by living in our van, Scrappy: real beds to sleep in, hot showers, internet, delicious home-cooked meals and, most importantly, a routine bounty of wine. Additionally, we received unfettered access to Matt’s war chest of a tool shed as we endeavored to completely renovate our van.

The following two weeks we kept quite busy: after a 7:30 wake-up and a quick breakfast where Conor and Noah were sure to avoid confronting Pete about anything substantive until he had his coffee, we would pack our sandwiches and drove to the vineyard, the location that would serve as our worksite for both the farm labor and the van buildout. After five hours of ensuring the plants were growing as intended, we scarfed down lunch and shifted our collective attention to the van. If any energy remained in the evening, Pete and Noah would go on a long, slow run (ultramarathon here we come) and Conor would cruise past, sprinting to maintain peak frisbee-playing condition (New Zealand club ultimate, watch out!). After a soothing shower that none of us dared take for granted, Helen would reliably present us with a bottle of wine as she finished preparing dinner. I suppose that growing your own grapes permits you to indulge a little in your own labors every once in a while… or every evening. They say not to get high off your own supply, but if you got to taste their rosé before tucking into a flaky pork and apple pie, you’d keep your mouth shut, too.

Dinner consisted of a second bottle of wine and several helpings whatever scrumptious concoction Helen whipped together that night; these ranged from enchiladas to cheesy orzo and local sausages to venison steak from a deer that Matt shot from a helicopter (I’m not hyperbolizing here). At dinner we would start by debriefing the day and inevitably transition to yammering on about whatever nonsense entertained us that evening. Adorably, Helen and Matt met through travel while working on a cruise ship together, and they insist that a major motivation to host workers is to live vicariously through their own travel stories. This aroused talk of home in the U.S., which led to incredulity about Americans’ obsession with our flag (a fact about which the five of us remain equally baffled) and a subsequent recital of our Pledge of Allegiance… obviously.

As you might remember, we recently purchased Scrappy, a 2007 Mitsubishi van with an assortment of questionable smells and a tendency for noisy driving. Our goal for the next two weeks was twofold. First, convert this van from a heap of scrap metal to our home for the rest of the trip. Second, ensure the van can pass a Self-Containment Test: A New Zealand law ensuring that all campervans must have portable toilets, gray and freshwater storage, and a working sink to camp sustainably on public lands.

HOW IT STARTED:

Whatever the three of us lacked in both construction and woodworking experience, we made up for with a liberal arts education that taught us to talk, argue, and think our way through any problem. Naturally, the first few days were spent gridlocked in whiteboard sketches, to-do lists, and loud discussions on the pros and cons of plywood thickness.

Eventually we came to a first logical step we could all agree on - clean out the back of the van to start our build. Old plywood flooring, stained metal shelves, and omnipresent dust all had to go.A quick chat with Matt had us coating the inside of the van with a fresh layer of paint. While the paint dried, we made the first of many runs to the hardware store for the building blocks of our van: 2x4 wood planks, and plywood sheets.

Once the three of us agreed the van was as clean as it was going to get, we set to work installing the floor: our very first construction task. We carefully measured and modeled the various cuts. Conor took the lead on our first cut while Noah and Pete watched anxiously.

IN THE THICK OF IT:

They say a triangle is the strongest shape; interestingly enough the same seems to be true with our group dynamic. Once the construction of the flooring was well underway, we realized we had grossly under-purchased our selection of 2x4 planks. We sent Pete off to the hardware store for re-supply while Conor and Noah began construction of the bed frame. Upon reuniting, we quickly discovered the folly of splitting up. Pete had gone on to purchase the completely wrong type of wood while Conor and Noah installed the bed frame with wildly uneven posting and had forgotten to take into account the size of the toilet* when calculating the height of the bed.

A lesson quickly learned allowed the three of us to play to our strengths for the remainder of the van construction as we naturally fell into various roles.

Noah - The Numbers Guy: with an unmatched memory and an uncanny ability for mental math, Noah helped translate the vision to a number for Conor to cut.

Pete - The Ideas Guy: with a clear-ish vision of what he wanted the van to look like, a solid amount of patience and attention to detail, and a stickler for the aesthetic, Pete worked with Noah to ensure the van turned out the way we wanted.

Conor - The Woodshop Guy: with a hoard of power tools and a precise eye, Conor can cut any piece of wood needed for the project.

With Conor in the toolshed and Noah and Pete designing away, we were well on our way to a livable van. We built a set of cabinets near the front of the van to store food and a kitchen on the side of the van with an extendable countertop. We also installed a very expensive plastic toilet* and a semi-functional sink** that should allow us to pass our self contained test. We were unstoppable. We got to work adding side paneling for the back door and van sides to cover up some of Scrappy’s less aesthetic sides.

We hit a brief roadblock as Pete and Conor’s competing design ideas led to a long argument about paint and fabric colors; however, we quickly found ourselves back on track as the store manager informed us they closed in 5 minutes and we had to make a choice. Taking this momentum to the finish line, Noah and Pete (with the guidance of Helen) embarked on the task of using a sewing machine for the first time to build the mattress covers and van curtains. After applying the finishing touches by installing a table, Scrappy was nearly ready for the big stage.

* Van Rule 1 - Toilet will never be used as a toilet.

** Van Rule 2 - Sink will never be used as a sink.

VICTORY:

Following a week and a half of living the farm life interspersed with learning to become handymen, the time had finally come to subject our labors to the scrutiny of a few Kiwi plumbers: the Self-Containment Test. Noah elected to make the hour-long drive to the similarly quaint town of Oxford as Conor and Pete started the work day on the vineyard. Though nerves were jangling at the prospect of exposing our occasionally spotty handiwork to the prying eyes of the experts, like seemingly all New Zealanders, the team of plumbers we paid to certify our van were kind and genial, giving us a passing result as long as we promised to properly seal and vent our water tank, an infraction that should result in a failure. Noah bore the good news to Conor and Pete, promptly forgot to purchase celebratory pies from “World Famous” Sheffield Pies and sheepishly scampered off to the hardware store for the umpteenth time that week to buy the proper fittings for the water tanks. Pending the delivery of the physical certificate, we can now camp in our van in almost any beautiful, off-the-beaten-path spot you can imagine.

With our shiny new home on wheels, it’s finally time to really hit the road. Our next stop is Arthur’s Pass National Park, where Pete and Noah find out how to go on trail runs with no trail and Conor learns how to become a mountain goat, sink-or-swim style. Then we’re on to Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park, where tourists can’t seem to figure out which side of the trail to hike on and where there are only about two smooth trails, so we naturally opt for the better views and sparser crowds on the Stairway to Heaven.