I bought caravan wreck for £950 & transformed it into dream tiny home – cost-cutting hack meant it was so cheap
ONE man bought a wrecked caravan for £950 and transformed it into a dream tiny home – with one cost-cutting hack making the refurb cheap.
YouTuber CallmeKevin usually plays video games on the site, but has now tried his hand at renovating a caravan.
CallmeKevin, real name Kevin O’Reilly, turned the beat up old trailer into a cosy garden room that will just sit in his back yard over the space of two years.
He had spotted the caravan on an online ad for £950 (800 Euro) and thought it would be a good idea to fix it up and turn it into a ‘baravan’ himself.
A baravan is a caravan that has been turned into a garden bar.
Renovating the caravan himself saved him money, but Kevin would find out that it wouldn’t save him time.
When it first arrived, Kevin said “the old smelly caravan” was in a “bad state”.
He then spent the next few days demolishing the inside of the caravan, basically having to refurbish it from the bottom up.
Multiple leaks had caused wood to rot around windows and doors and he had to replace the floor and ceiling.
But Kevin failed to finish it straight away, instead sitting on the project for two years before getting back into it and completing it quickly.
The project became overwhelming and he realised it had become “too big” for him to do.
In those two years he managed to cut the pieces of wood he needed to cover the draws and panels that he didn’t want showing in his new design.
At the end of the transformation he said: “About six weeks ago I was thinking of cancelling the entire project, despite the work that went into it.
“It’s been a lot and I think I certainly bit off more than I can chew.”
He said on one day he almost gave up as he felt “defeated” and realised how much work he still had to go.
“Once I started getting my rhythm again and started knocking off tasks quickly, the easier ones, it helped me a lot.
“This one for me, as cheesy at is sounds, was more about the journey than the actual result.”
Do you need planning permission to put a caravan in your garden?
If you want to do what Kevin has and put a caravan in your garden, you may need planning permission.
You don’t need planning permission if you store the caravan in your garage or on your drive.
You also don’t need planning permission if you store the caravan in your garden if it acts as an extension of your home.
But, if the caravan is its own self-sufficient home that people live in full-time, that will need planning permission.
To be stored in the garden it will also need to meet the definition of what a caravan is: a habitable structure than can be moved, and maximum dimensions of 20m long, 6.8m wide, and 3.05m tall.