Self Built Stories
Hi there! We're Tim and Abi and we converted our Ford Transit into a fully off-grid campervan filming it all as we went along, and we now have an extensive build series with detailed videos of every project. We're now enjoying travelling around exploring the UK and Europe sharing some of our adventures and upgrades to the van as we go… come along for the ride!
We list lots of the products we've used in the build in the video descriptions, and some of the links may be affiliate links. If you choose to click on them we may earn a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate and eBay Partner, we may be compensated if you make a purchase.
Self Built Stories
We posted the first copies of our recirculating shower book this week, from Cornwall to the rest of the UK and Germany!
After spending a lot of time putting it together it was a great feeling to be able to send the first ones on their way. 🥳
It was tricky to try and figure out how many to print as we didn't know how many people would want a physical copy but we've actually sold more of them than the eBook version so far which is cool!
Thanks to everyone that's ordered one and if you went for the paperback version we hope it arrives safely! 🙂
And if anyone else wants one you can grab it here, along with all our diagrams and other resources: shop.selfbuiltstories.com/
2 months ago | [YT] | 116
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Self Built Stories
Our recirculating shower book is now available! 🙂
Inside we take you through the design of the recirculating shower we built in our van, how it works, what it’s like to actually use it, and how we keep it maintained so we can enjoy endless hot showers on the road!
The book contains:
➔ 92 colour pages of A4 packed full of content
➔ 6 parts covering: building the shower frame, waterproofing, our complete recirculating setup, cleaning and maintenance, improvements and upgrades, and answers to all the questions we've ever been asked
➔ Complete parts lists of everything we used
➔ Step by step instructions for how to build everything, including all the plumbing and electrics
➔ Full colour diagrams
➔ Links to our videos and other resources
It's available as either a physical paperback that you can flip through or as an eBook that you can download. We’ve got all the physical copies in boxes in our van so if you’re interested in one of those that would be great as we’d love to have a bit more space back 🤣
For those of you who registered your interest to hear about it on our google form, you should have now received an email with all the details and an early bird discount to say thanks 🙂
You can get your copy here: shop.selfbuiltstories.com/
Happy reading and we hope you find it useful!
Tim & Abi
3 months ago | [YT] | 43
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Self Built Stories
We're really happy to say we finished our recirculating shower book! 🥳🚿
It started off as just an eBook but as we added more details and diagrams we decided we’d also like to have it available as a hard copy as well, so we spent a lot of time formatting it nicely for print.
After a lot of work (including going under the van and dismantling all the plumbing again to remind ourselves how it was all put together!) we finally finished it. In total it’s 92 pages and goes into detail on everything we did to build our shower frame, waterproof it, our complete recirculating setup with all the parts we used, how we clean and maintain it, what we’ve changed since the videos and all the tips and tricks we’ve learnt along the way.
We’re just finalising setting up the order page online so everyone that’s registered their interest via our Google Form can expect an email fairly soon, keep an eye on your inbox!
And if you haven't but are interested in getting a copy you can add your details here: forms.gle/Qaib448pu72kRx476
Tim & Abi
3 months ago | [YT] | 222
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Self Built Stories
Hey everyone, we're excited to say we've just recently released the last video in our six part NC500 series!
We had an amazing trip over 5 weeks in the Winter when there was barely anyone else around so it felt like we had the landscape all to ourselves.
In the last episode we made our way from Badachro back towards Inverness but not before driving the incredible Bealach na Bà, and we were really fortunate to have great weather to capture some awesome drone footage!
The videos took a long time to put together so we hope you've enjoyed them. 🙂
📽️ You can watch all the episodes in the playlist here:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
5 months ago | [YT] | 104
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Self Built Stories
Merry Christmas everyone! 🙂🎄🎅🏻
We hope you're all having a brilliant time wherever you are! For us that's in a campsite in Oxfordshire this year, enjoying some festive movies and dinner in the pub!
We wanted to take the time to say thanks to everyone who’s enjoyed and commented on our videos over the last year too (we read them all). There's lots more to come next year which we're looking forward to sharing, and hopefully we'll get a bit quicker at releasing them too!
Right, back to the fun and trying to squeeze in a few more tasty treats.... see you all in 2026, Happy New Year! 🥳
Tim & Abi
8 months ago | [YT] | 377
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Self Built Stories
Wow, we just passed half a million views on our 12V electrics video! 🥳 That's a mind boggling number of views so thanks to everyone who's watched it over the years!
Here's the link to the video: https://youtu.be/Ysm1d0otDnA 🙂
1 year ago | [YT] | 165
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Self Built Stories
So here's a behind the scenes picture of us editing our latest video! It's been really hot the last few days in the UK and it got up to 32°C while we were in the van, so it was great to find a spot where we could keep the doors open..! 🔥
This was our last video from when we travelled around Cornwall and we hope you enjoyed the whole series going around the coast. It took a little while to edit this one but it was a fun one to do especially with the bonkers pub crawl at the end! 🤣 You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/1fmm0dnh2J8
If you haven't already noticed we're still a fair bit behind with our YouTube videos but we've got a lot of great content to come and we are trying to catch up and edit whenever we can. We've got a mixture of build/upgrade and travel videos on the way, so stay tuned!
We're currently spending most of our time in the South West and South Wales at the moment, as well as criss-crossing our way across the country for lots of different van festivals this Summer.
What are some of your favourite moments from all our videos so far? We'd love to know! 🙂
1 year ago | [YT] | 143
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Self Built Stories
Wow, we just passed 3 million views on our videos! Wouldn't have thought we'd ever reach those kind of numbers in the beginning, so thanks for watching everyone and we're looking forward to sharing more soon! 🙂
Tim & Abi
1 year ago | [YT] | 136
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Self Built Stories
We just passed 30,000 subscribers on YouTube! 🥳
It’s feels great to reach another milestone so thanks to all of you who have been following along, whether you’ve been with us for a while or have just found our channel more recently.
We haven’t released a video for some time as we’ve been quite busy with other things outside of YouTube, but we hope to have more on the way soon!
1 year ago | [YT] | 87
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Self Built Stories
Merry Christmas from us both to all of you out there! 🎅🏻🎄☃️
Thank you to everyone who's followed along with us and watched our videos this year, and for all of your great comments, we love reading them!
We're spending Christmas with family and looking forward to sharing some more adventures with you next year.
We hope you enjoy the holidays and wish you a very happy 2025! 🥳
Tim & Abi
1 year ago | [YT] | 282
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