A Camping Grub Box
When I’m not sculpting or writing, you can find me out in the woods. I love nature. I started the Houston Women’s Hiking group to help ladies hike safely. We are now over 7,000 members. I love to encourage.
As many know, I have a YouTube channel for my art and one for the Alice project, but I also have another more recent one called Women Stepping Outside. The channel encourages women to step outdoors or step outside of their own emotional or spiritual confines to reach what they truly want to be. If you are interested in this channel, please subscribe. I’m having so much fun posting videos about the outdoors and encouraging women in life. You can also find Women Stepping Outside on Facebook and Instagram
Now, about this video and blog post.
I can’t build out my van for camping as I use it to haul sculptures and materials. However, I do love to camp and, I also have to travel for work, and my preferred lodging is my van. Slowly I have made modifications for my van, not permanent build-outs, but things that can be taken in and out of the van as needed.
My family and friends have purchased trailers. I love the ease of having a van and picking up when I want to, without having to go and get something, pay for a rental space etc. But I needed to make it a bit more comfortable so, I have done a few things like building out my bed and building this grub box.
A Camp Kitchen/Grub Box or Chuck box
The reason for having a grub box is that it keeps all of your kitchen and cooking things in one spot when camping. As this video states, I have gone through three in my life. They have gotten smaller over the years. This new design is my own, and I love it. Who would have thought a hunk of wood would make me feel so liberated? The design started as cardboard. Then I found this wonderful website called cutlistoptimizer.com. If you want to modify my design, just put your configurations in, and it will lay it out for you. How cool is that? I ended up not using wooden shelves and instead used only these drawer below that were hung on 2×2 rails. Less wood means a lighter grub box, which was my intention. Remember to account for the thickness of the wood when you are working out your dimensions and putting things together. My box is 20 inches wide by 17 3/4 deep by 22 1/2 inches tall. The box that sits on top is 20 inches wide, by 17 3/4 deep by 5 1/2 inches tall. The wings are 10″ tall (The measurements below don’t fit the latest version of my box, Some of the pieces I didn’t even use, but using cutlistoptimizer will make your configurations work just fine.)
The Drawers
I got mine from the Container store. They come in two parts- the drawers and the runners. Figure out what drawers you want, and then build your cabinet around that. I thought there were no drawers for the size of my grub box when I started, then, my daughter Christina Sizemore found some. She is excellent at finding things and helping others organize their trailers. My design was not wide enough to accomodate the drawers we found, so, I had to notch some things out. I might even make the grub box a bit deeper so the drawers could pull out easily. Otherwise you will have to assemble the drawers as you build the box, as I did. But that is up to you. As those who use their vehicles for camping know, every inch of space is accounted for.
The box for my drawers says the surface area covered is 16-7/8 x 20-3/4 inches with drawer installed.
Here are the other things I mentioned in the video.
* My tea pot * My fancy wine cup* My hot plate *My small, deep, one person electric skillet ,*My electric outlet * My coleman stool,
Hardware|
* My handles on each side *My cute latch on the front *The hardware latches to attach the tray to the grub box *The plastic trays *Those cool flush mount hinges *The cool night light.
You can get furniture grade pvc from Home depot. I did have to order the colored fittings through Formufit. The plywood I used was from home depot and I used 2×2 firing strips to frame the box and use on the wings for mounting.