Campervan Ikea Kitchen in a Self Built Sprinter Conversion

Campervan Ikea Kitchen in a Self Built Sprinter Conversion

What Type of Kitchen for a Self Build Campervan Conversion?

Like at home the kitchen in a campervan is very important and needs to be practical and hard wearing. We love cooking and mainly.... eating healthy food. With the odd cake, pizza, beer, vodka, crisps and other naughty food thrown in, we did say mainly!

The most important things for us for the build were modern sleek lines and wanted to aim for a mini apartment feel. After spending hours on social media looking at other campervan conversions we just couldn't see anything that grabbed us! Then it struck us- we wanted a mini apartment feel- so why not look at house kitchens! That would also mean we didn't need to become master craftsmen and joiners! 

Remember- think outside the box. Just because everyone else is doing things the same it doesn't mean another idea won't work. 

Ikea Kitchen in a Campervan

Ikea was the obvious place for us to get our kitchen from as we like the Scandinavian feel and they offer a really good range of sizes and styles to choose from. We took the hit on the extra weight to get the look we wanted. 

The units are the shallow 40cm depth base units from Ikea and 4 units give us a great L shaped working area. We also have a decent amount of work surface for preparing food because we put the sink by the door and the cooker on the back wall.

We know the units will last well and being standard sizes easy to kit out with stuff too. 

Another factor was also time- it would have taken a lot longer to build ourselves and there is already so much involved in building the campervan we happily gave Ikea our money. Once the units started to go in we could really start to see our camper van take shape and become a little home.

Live Edge or No Live Edge Worktop

It never even occurred to us to take off the live edge because it just looks so beautiful but we have been asked many times since- do we ever worry about breaking it? Well honestly- it's very robust and we can't believe people actually take it off! There have only been a couple of very small sections that have come off near the back because we have clonked it with something heavy but they have super glued back on. 

Top Tip: It's very important to use a proper timber merchants for your woodwork as their wood is kiln dried and is unlikely to warp. You may find from larger DIY stores that not such great care is taken. 

Installing the Kitchen Sink 

Every kitchen needs a sink. Sinks are handy for washing pots, bodies and in time maybe pants! Fitting it was a challenge as we had gone with a solid oak worktop which is hard work cutting with a jigsaw! It was all worth it though as it looks stunning on the live edge work top.

Finding a waste pipe to fit was a challenge for us too but fortunately a washing machine hose fitted perfectly.

The sink is held in place with our favourite product "Sticks like Shit' glue, and it must do as so far its not moved an inch.

Water Set up in a Campervan Conversion 

We have kept to a simple set up for water. Rather than having underslung tanks or garage tanks we keep 2 x 10 litre containers under the sink for fresh water. We also have a further 4 x 10 litre containers that a stored in the garage space which get swapped over when we run out in the front. We have found carrying 60 litres has been plenty and have never run out so far.

A section of flexible tube (from a beer making kit) goes into the container and connects to the tap. 

We initially installed a marine hand pump tap. Whilst it looks lovely, its performance was poor to say the least. The cheap plastic grommets that work the pump are as much use as a chocolate fire guard and wear out super quickly making our pump pump no more! 

The solution was to fit an electric pump to connect to the existing tap which works much better. 

Where we got our Kitchen Supplies from

Hob: Steel Gas Hob from Ebay

Sink: Stainless steel 30cm sink from Ebay

10 litre containers: 10 litre water containers available on Amazon

Electric pump: Whale 12 Volt pump from Amazon 

If you have any questions following reading this blog or any general van life questions then please do contact us we are always happy to help. 

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