Heng’s 13” diameter drop-in stainless steel sink - $37

EverFlow Junior Duo Strainer - $9

EZ-FLO 10796LF Single Basin Faucet - $20

Whale GP4618 Manual Freshwater Galley Foot Pump - $48

Ozark Trail Desert Patrol 6-Gallon Water Jugs - $37 (for 2)

Home Depot 5-gallon pail with cover - $5

Flexible 1” clear hose, 10 feet - $10

Reinforced 2” hose, 2 feet - $8

Aluminum Recessed Drink Holders 3.5” diameter - $28 (for 10)

    Water.  All life on earth depends, directly or indirectly, on water.  Even fish.

 

    So far, I’ve been a carpenter, an electrician, an auto body worker, and a painter.  Let’s try plumbing!  How hard can it be, right? 

 

    To be fair, this is hardly what would properly be termed “plumbing.”  Water will be moving from one place to another through enclosed tubes, so, technically, it qualifies as plumbing.  It will only move a total of maybe eight feet from start to end, so no big whoop.  But it’s more plumbing that I’ve ever done before!

 

    In the current configuration, the best location for a sink is between the bed and the passenger side sliding door.  A frame of 2x4’s, 33” wide by 18” deep by 29” high is a perfect fit.  I keep the depth to a minimum to preserve precious open floor space. 

 

    The water jugs will fit snugly in the 15” between the front and back horizontal studs, so they won’t slide and tumble around (which would suck). 

 

    The 18” top leaves plenty of room for the small 13” round sink.  The simple one-lead faucet fits in the corner near the door. 

 

    As a bonus, I decided to sink (pun intended) a couple of recessed 3.5” diameter cups through the countertop.  One would be next to the sink, to hold, I dunno, toothpaste, toothbrush, that kinda stuff.  The other is at the front back corner, a perfect drink holder for when I’m fatassing in bed.

 

    The original plan had this whole assembly built right up against the wheel well cage that the bed rests on.  That would provide a lot more stability, but it would also create a scrunch for the bedding.  Leaving a 2” (or so) gap there leaves room for the sheets and comforter(s) to fall neatly into place.  I’m sure that gap will come in handy for something slim.

 

    As for the height of the ensemble, 29” sits it right along the somewhat-recessed bottom of the “waist” of the van:  that thick horizontal rib below the window spaces. 

 

    And that’s where I started, by attaching a 30” stud (2x4) to that recessed, flat metal surface.  There were openings in it, so, just like with the cabinets above, I opted to bolt the stud into the frame.  Four 2.5” bolts hold that thing tight.

 

    That 2x4 is the anchor, not the sink assembly frame itself.  That came next.  I laid a 33” stud against the anchor stud and secured it with dual 2.5” screws at 5 places.  It’s not going anywhere.

 

    From there, I laid/stood all the pre-cut wood to make sure they would all line up correctly and began attaching them to the floor and to one another.  I used a crapload of various ZMax corner braces, securing each with six screws.  On the floor, I used ½” screws because the plywood is ¾” thick.  For stud-to-stud, I used 1” screws for greater strength. 

 

    Content that the frame was solid, I added the ¾” Sande plywood top.  I had already stained it (cognac, to match the cabinet trim), so it was a simple matter of attaching it from underneath with a few more ZMax’s and ½” screws.

 

    By this time, I had trekked up to Brian’s Mainland Workshop for multiple reasons, only one of which was that he knows more about plumbing than I do.  The other reasons were all much more fun.  =)

    But we did set to the task to knock it out of the way and give the beer more of a congratulatory flavor.  A sink requires holes:  in this case, an 11” one for the drop-in bowl itself, a 1” one for the faucet, and a few optional mediums. 

 

    I was getting hole happy.  I used the hole saw to cut out the 1” hole, the four 3.25”-diameter hole saw for my black aluminum recessed holders, and three more of the same size within an 11” circle for the drop-in sink itself.  They served as starting points for the jigsaw, which did a pretty good job, but not exactly spot-on the line in places.  The rim covered the roughness anyhow, so no biggie.  We surrounded the rim with caulk, inserted the sink, and tucked a bead of clear silicone around and under the rim.

 

    We had to use Brian’s small Dremel sanding gizmos to widen the cup holes out to the 3.33” that they apparently needed.  That took much longer than we expected, but we were soon able to press/pound them into place.  Likewise with the faucet hole.

 

    I then decided that a polyurethane coating (matte finish) on the top of the sink counter would be dang good idea.  Anything that would deter water from damaging a plywood sink counter might be downright useful.  It brushed on easily and dried astoundingly fast, so I applied a second coat.  I chose matte finish to better blend with the bare cedar.

 

    We then filled up the 6-gallon water jugs and let them stand in the sunshine for a couple of hours to make sure there were no pinhole leaks.  They passed the test, so I hefted them back into the van (filled, they weigh 48 pounds each).  They are a perfect fit; I have no worry about them tipping or toppling. 

 

    We clamped 5’ of the 1” hose to the faucet and inserted the other 5’ into the neck of the freshwater tank.  I was ready to clamp the free ends of both to the foot pump and close the circuit, but… I couldn’t find the pump!   I knew I had packed the damn thing, but it was nowhere to be found.  Grrrrr.   Where did it go??

 

    The pump presented another problem too:  where should it go?  The most practical location would be at the front of the little space between the sink box and the wheel well box.  It would be easy to run the hoses through the open side, and I would not have to cut through any of the framing 2x4s or to interfere with the doors.

 

    The downside to that was that the sink was on the left side of the box and the pump would be on the right, a whole 33” away.  I have long legs, so it shouldn’t really be an issue, just a tad awkward.

 

    But, anyway, with no pump to attach, we proclaimed ourselves finished and hit the fridge on the way to the pool.

 

    (Well, I found the pump after I got back home.  I had packed it, but it had tumbled out of the box that I expected it to be in.  I found it when I was clearing out the other side to build the desk/dresser.) 

 

    The 1” hose I bought was not especially flexible, and it was also quite bit larger than the post on the pump itself.  My screw-clamps would only close it so far with the flathead screwdriver.  Fortunately, I had a 5/16” nut driver with which I could grind that thing down to water-tight status.  I tested it before I secured it to the floor.  It worked great!  I can’t exactly call it “running water”; it’s not like the smooth flow of a siphon, but you get a good sploosh out of each stepdown. 

 

    But the water has to go somewhere when yer done with it, duddinit?  I bought some pretty thick, rigid reinforced hose – only about 4 feet of it – with the intention of somehow securing it to/through the lid of the 5-gallon bucket, then maybe add a spigot and hose down though the floor to drain it without having to haul the bucket out. 

 

    That seemed like a real lot of effort though, so I held off till I was more in the mood and started working on the driver side desk.

 

    Meanwhile, I was in AutoZone and saw this long black funnel with a deep and reasonably wide bowl and a hard-plastic, semi-flexible hose.  Heyyy, wait a tick!  That just might be my so-lution.

 

    I made the impulse buy and took it out show Maxx.  There was a bunch of random crap in the 5-gallon orange Home Depot bucket, so I pulled it all out and put on the lid.  It sealed really tight.  My razor cutter did a nice job of slicing a reasonably round hole in the center recess of the lid.  It was just slightly narrower than the end of the hose, but just big enough that I could jam the hose through the non-rigid plastic.  The funnel stood up perfectly under the drain with no tape or fasteners of any kind and it was pretty much watertight.  Done!  Ha!

 

    Maybe I’ll add the drain hose through the floor some day.  We’ll see how much I actually use the sink and how much of an issue it is to dump the gray water. 

 

    I’m also thinking about doing a 2-gallon gas can instead of the orange bucket.  It would give me more space, and it would be a lot easier to take out and dump.  We shall see.  I like it as is.  If I start liking it less, I might make some changes.

    There was still one concern.  I worried that the tall 6-gallon water jugs might topple during a sudden sharp turn.  A full jug would lurch almost 50 pounds against those thin doors, and I did not see that ending well. 

 

    I looked at a 36” strap of 1x3 that I had lying nearby and thought, “That dog will hunt.”  I laid it in diagonally -- without fastening it to anything -- and it was held nicely in place by the frame and the jug itself.  I just lift it out to remove the jugs.  Perfecto.

 

    Last thing to do was to enclose the frame.  Originally, I thought that sliding doors, like on the cabinets above, would work, but – two things – first, they wouldn’t slide open wide enough to remove the 6-gallon jugs easily (though I could just remove the doors too, I reckon), and second, I could easily picture destroying that bottom track with 48-pounds of water container when I’m trying to put one of those suckers back in.

 

    So, hinges it would be!

 

    The side panel next to the sliding van door was a simple slab of ¼” cedar plywood screwed into the 2x4’s.  The doors would be the same material, but I was concerned about warping, so I cut up a few of my 1x3’s and created a frame for the inside to give the panel some rigidity.  They also give me something to screw my door latch into, though I hadn’t yet decided what that would be.

 

    I chose black hinges, in a rather traditional style.  I didn’t think gold looked good with cedar and had decided long ago that Maxx would be gold-less.  I considered silver, to match the puck lights, but I didn’t see any silver ones at HD that day.  Anyway, the black hinges would complement the black drink holders, as well as the black power outlets that I’d be installing.

 

    Rather than try to recess the doors, which I felt was a fast track to failure, I laser-cut a 1”-wide cedar strip for each of the front upright 2x4’s so the door would sit flush with it.  To assure that all four pieces be aligned properly, I used blue painter’s tape to hold those strips and the two doors exactly where I wanted them.  With them stuck like that, it was cake to screw and hinge them into their correct positions on the first try.

 

    The right-hand stayed in place well, but the left-hand door swung way too freely.  A latch of some kind was going to be needed.  I thought about some kind of magnet, but no matter how I looked at it, I was going to have to sink some screws from the inside out, and with just a quarter inch of depth, it just wasn’t going to work.

 

    I decided on a slide bolt in the middle.  It didn’t work well at all.   Too loose.  I’m sure it was my bad, but I deemed it not worth a re-try.

 

    So, I went to my go-to device, my laser, and cut two 2” x 1” rectangles, two 2” x 2” squares, and one 6” x 1” dog-bone shaped piece.  I use strong 2-sided tape to secure the rectangles to the doors, more tape to attach the squares to the rectangles, bottom-aligned.  That left a 1” high gap, exactly ¼” deep, into which the dog-bone fit perfectly.  The curved outer ends hold it snugly in place.  I lift up the bone and the doors open.  And no screws to mess with.  [Note:  after a couple of weeks, the tape began to weaken so I screwed the rectangles in.]

 

    Then one more idea hit me.  I already a DC/USB outlet with dimmer switch on a temporary panel under the cabinets, and I fully intended to keep that when I finalized that wall, but I did not have an AC power on this side of the van.  There was a long extension cord that I had snaked through the upper recesses, over the back doors and down by the bed.  It was functional but laaaame.

 

    I had been looking for some kind of outlets to put on the desk, whenever I got around to that, and I found a really cool drop-in grommet outlet with 2ACs and 2 USBs.  What a bonanza.

 

    And I got to use the hole saw again!  Woohoo!  Love that thing!

 

    So, right beside the bedside drink holder, I cut another 3.25 hole, and dropped the outlet into place.  It’s actually not much more than a specialized outlet on the end of a 6’ extension cord.  I stashed my existing e-cord within the back corner panels and plugged this into it. 

 

    Zingo.  We have AC power bedside.  And running water just an arm’s length away.

 

    Sweet.

ADDENDUM

Electric Water

FlowMax Water Pump - $71.95

CAMPMAX Water Container with Spigot, 5 Gallon - $40.99

Inchant Single Lever Flexible Pull Out Kitchen Water Tap - $20.99

Everbilt 2 in. x 10 ft. Polyethylene Discharge Hose - $19.24

½” clear plastic hoses and worm gear hose clamps

Gorilla waterproof tape

Dicor Lap Sealant – leftover from Step 1 (!)

 

Like I said, I took a couple of gambles that bonked in this Project.  The tile floor was the first.  You may have just read about that (if not, it’s the previous chapter, called “The Non-Tile Floor”).  The second gamble was the foot pump for the sink.  The failure here was much more of a surprise.  The device had been chosen for its simplicity because a more complicated one would bring a higher risk of leaks.  Oh well, so much for simple.

 

Actually, this failure was revealed only during my examination of the first failure.  Both gambles had been attempts to take a simple way out and avoid more arduous tasks.  Not an unreasonable wish, right?  Right??

 

Maybe it was where the pump had been installed.  Maybe it was how it had been installed.  Maybe it was how hard I had to step on it to get a worthwhile gush.  Maybe it was all of the above, or none of the above, or A and C but not B, or whateverrrrr …. but it leaked.  

 

It wasn’t a gusher, mind you.  Oh no, nothing so brazen.  This was insidious:  a trickle, totally undetectable without minute scrutiny.  No water appeared on the upper side of the pump.  No water appeared on the top side of the tiles.  It seeped out in the darkness under the hose clamp and oozed its way between the sub-floor plywood and the layer of tempered hardboard (TH) that I had stuck the tiles to.

 

I got lucky, I guess, in that the leak had apparently not been strong enough or been going on long enough to get the subfloor really wet.  Also, the tempered hardboard, being very porous on its underside seemed to have acted almost like a sponge and soaked up a goodly share of the water.  The TH was far more saturated than the surface of the plywood was.  Very fortunate indeed to have found it when I did.  [If you just read “The Non-Tile Floor”, that paragraph probably seems redundant, but if you didn’t, it is necessary exposition.]

 

But, clearly, that pump was a goner.  This was going to be a MAJOR change.  When that manual (or would “pedal” be a better word, manual referring to things of the hand, and pedal relating to feet, as in bipedal?) pump first worked, I was elated that I had saved myself all that construction and wiring that an electric water pump would have involved.

 

Well, not so elated now are ya, Ricko?  Ya lazy bastid.  Bah.

 

Lazy, you say, Mr. Narrator?  Check this out.

 

There was indeed a lesson learned from the leaky pump episode.  Before I took any steps towards the new arrangement, I took everything out of the cabinet.  The sink structure has the four vertical studs on the corners, of course, but it also has studs lying horizontally all the way around the bottom.  The 2x4s are standing “the tall way”, creating a 3.5” high wall around the base.  The wood is secured down with numerous ZMax brackets.

 

Within that “wall” the floor is raw plywood.  Given recent developments, I thought it would be a good idea to give that wood a little protection from water.  Good idea, yes?

 

Home Depot had not only the clear glossy polyureythane that I had used on the cedar and the countertops, but they had a Triple Thick clear glossy version as well!  I was all over that stuff.

 

But before I brushed any of that down, I took the roll of 2” Gorilla Waterproof tape that I had also purchased and sealed off the seams between floor and horizontal studs, effectively creating a basin.  Then, with plenty of tape left, I laid down strips from left to right all the way across the bottom. 

 

Then I did the same from front to back.

 

Then, I brushed down a generous layer of that 3X Poly all over the cabinet floor.  I also brushed it all over the inner walls and upright studs, on the support blank for the pump, the underside of the sink, every damn place I could reach. 

 

Only after that was all dry did I even begin to think about placing anything back into the cabinet.

 

OK, that was all good, but I still didn’t know a dang thang about water pumps.  So, first things first:  check YouTube for how-to advice.

 

Well, it only took a couple of vids before I found a very good one, specifically for the RV-friendly Flow-Max Water Pump.  It was hosted by a young woman, and she gave a very clear step-by-step install.  I was able to see how to run the hoses and how to connect the wires. 

 

I obviously had some work ahead of me, but it no longer daunted me.  There is nothing misogynist in this comment, but I found myself saying, “Well, if she can do it, I can do it.”

 

This was pretty much my mantra throughout the Project.  Every video that struck the chord with me – that is, left me with a firm belief that I actually had the grasp that I needed for a particular task – was saluted with a “If you can do that, I can do that” response.

 

So, I purchased the Flow-Max on ‘zon, and, while I was at it, I tacked on a couple more upgrades.

 

First, I got a more useful freshwater tank.  The military style 6-gallon plastic can (which had also been suggested by the foot pump people) got replaced by a translucent 5-gallon tank with better lids. 

 

It holds less water, yes, but it was the translucence that I was after.  With the opaque gray plastic, there was no way to see when your reservoir was getting low.  This new one, though, was just a tad too long to sit flat within the baseboards of the sink cabinet.  But I quickly found a way to turn that to my advantage. 

 

I propped up the rear end on top of the 2x4 stud along the back.  This tilted everything forward, including the water itself, but not quite far enough for the top front of the tank to interfere with the closing of the cabinet.  And, that puts the wide refill opening in the easiest place possible.  Then, I just made sure that the end of the outflow hose sat right down there at the lowest point of the tank where it could suck right up to the very last ounces.

 

For the tank that would hold the gray water (i.e., the drainage from the sink), I just went with a lidded orange Home Depot 5-gallon pail.  I cut a hole near the center of the lid and positioned the 2” rigid drain hose into it. 

 

That became a MAJOR inconvenience when gray-dumping time came around.  I could not remove the lid or the bucket without unclamping the hose, which required the power-screwer – and I had to use it again to reattach the hose when I was done dumping.  Such a pain.  That needed upgrading as well (though it didn’t happen till a couple weeks later).

 

I had been searching for more flexible hose for quite a while, and then finally, I found my holy grail:  a 10’ roll of flat, blue, 2” polyethylene discharge hose (listed on their web site as “polyethlene pipe”) that HD had just gotten in stock.  This is perrrfect!  I even bought a new 5-gallon pail to get a true fresh start. 

 

The hole I cut was eye-shaped to fit the hose when it was unrolled and flexed open.  Then I cut about 15” of hose, just enough to sink 1/2” of hose under the lid, and easily clamped it to the underside of the drain.  This thin material is flexible enough that I simply lift it out, fold it up onto itself and clip it.  Then I slide and lift the bucket straight out.  When I put it back, I unclip it, unfold it, and place the end of the hose back in the eye-shaped hole.  Easy-freaking-peazy. 

 

The third upgrade was the faucet.  The original one was the cheapest I could find.  It was only about five inches long and it sat barely above the countertop.  This thing had been a bad choice. 

 

So, I considered all of its bads and went and bought goods.  The Inchant faucet stands about a foot tall, has a flexible gooseneck that will even allow me to gush water out the open side door if I want to, and it has a simple lever that I can move with my thumb if the rest of my hands are busy holding water or something.  Huge improvement!

 

So, all of that was the easy part.  NOW for the pump itself.

 

First of all, the pump casing was about 7” high by about 4” wide, and would protrude outward by about 3-4”.  It was too big to mount to any of the existing wooden studs, so I went and got that 9” wide plank of ¾” Sande plywood that I had used in conceptualizing the Sometimes Shelf, cut it down from 40” to 24”, and power-screwed it vertically onto the upper and lower studs along the rear side of the sink cabinet.  Now I had a perfect, sturdy, convenient pump mount.

 

            Getting the two, clear, plastic, 1” hoses attached was quite simple:  a long one (4’ or so) from the bottom of the freshwater tank to the pump (through the gap in the rear cap that was for the spigot, if the tank were deployed differently), and a short one (about 15”) from the pump to the faucet.  Then I slid the “worm gear” clamps into position and tightened them.

 

            That left the wiring.  Ohhh kayyy. 

 

            I had to pat myself on the back here.  Before putting the ceiling up, I ran a half-dozen ten-foot-long, white-sheathed, red-and-black wires up across the rafters, spaced a couple of feet apart, leaving a few feet on each side that I could coil up and tuck into the recesses for future use.  You know, just so if I ever wanted to add anything electric – like, I dunno, maybe a water pump or something – I would already have the wiring and would not have to take down the whole damn ceiling.

 

            Mannnn, was I glad about that!  The one across the very middle of the van was perfect for this task.  The pre-stripped ends on the driver’s side just needed to be connected to the fuse panel, but the ones across the van needed more. 

 

            First of all, I had to drop this end of the wire down to pump level without leaving an ugly white thing dangling out for all to see.  The ProMaster’s inner frame is sturdy steel, but the ribs and such are not solid steel.  They have holes and gaps and spaces, that, if you’re lucky, will allow you to run wires or whatever through them.  The tricky part is that they have dead-ends here and there too, and you can’t tell where they are because, well, you can’t see through the steel.

 

            I did get lucky and was able to drop my wire straight down the vertical shaft just behind the slider door.  It dead-ended, but not till it was below sink level.  At that point, I was able to snake the wire out and make the necessary connections, which were multiple.

 

            Flow-Max comes with an on-off control.  It’s a red plastic rocker switch.  So, the wires from the power source needed to be connected to the switch, and then the wires from the switch needed to be connected to the motor on the pump.

 

            So, for that, I had to remove the side panel of the cabinet.  A small rectangle had to be cut through the ¼” cedar plywood, but there was yet another snag; the little plastic frame of the switch was too small to work with ¼” plywood.  Grrrr. 

 

Once again, the laser at work came in handy.  I was able to cut a small plate out of 1/16” plastic, and cut the exact shape of the switch-unit out of the middle of that.  Then the switch could nestle in that plate.  Only then could I affix that combination to the rectangular hole in the cedar and reattach the panel to the cabinet.  After all of that, the final connections could be made and the wires taped to the wall so as to be out of the way.

 

            It was time to test it.

 

            I flipped the rocker switch on, heard the pump motor kick in, and saw the water start to flow through the clear plastic hose and up into the pump.  I was feeling damn fine about my bad self….

 

            Until water started spitting out in sprays from every connection point.  Switch off!!!

 

            Bahhh, I said sheepishly.  I guess attaching the hoses was easy, but attaching them so they’ll be freaking watertight was going to be another matter.  The 50 PSI pressure and 3 gallons-per-minute flow rate were way too strong for my preliminary hook-ups.  More work to do, Lou.

 

            So, I took the following steps:

 

            I took out my power drill, put in the flathead screwdriver bit, and tightened those clamps about 100% tighter than I had been able to get them by hand.

 

            I fetched my tube of Dicor Lap Sealant, which you will remember was so key in waterproofing the roof fan way back Step 1.  I slathered that goop so thick all over each junction, totally obliterating the clamps from sight.

 

            I had some Gorilla Waterproof tape left, so after I let Dicor sit for a while, I wrapped tight sleeves of tape around each connection, up onto body of the pump and tight around a few inches of hose.

 

            Then, I doused the sleeve ends in Dicor.  It looks like a wreck, but after letting it set for a few hours, I came back and flicked the rocker again.  The hoses filled up, there were NO SPRAYS AT ALL, and the pump shut off when the pressure stabilized.  Yay!!

 

            I then rotated the lever on my tall, upgraded faucet and water gushed forth in a steady, strong, and controlled flow.  I looked underneath and all was dry. 

 

SUCCESS!!  I have running water!!

 

(And half-a-year later, still no leaks.) 

 

Above (L to R):  hand-held, cordless vacuum; the orange tank for gray water; the yellow “jug”; the erstwhile wastebasket that holds four 1-gallon jugs as my back-up supply; the translucent freshwater tank with easy-access lid.

Upper center:  the FlowMax water pump (before the extra waterproofing), next to the rigid drainhose (which was replaced shortly thereafter).

Upper left:  wiring for rocker switch.

Far right, for emergencies:  the still-unused as of this writing (thankfully) camping toilet.