VW mods - Tissue and shoe holders
Shoes have a tendency to clutter up the van very quickly, so Margaret and I built
three shoe holders. We also built a tissue box holder.
Tissue box holder
I custom built two brackets to hold a box of tissue just behind and above the sliding
door. Each bracket is modified from the same broom/mop holder I used for the
flashlight holder. One broom/mop holder can be cut in the middle to create
both brackets. Study the photos to see how I bent them.
I attached the brackets by drilling a pilot hole and using a sheet metal screw.
Be careful drilling through the plastic and metal, as there might be wires inside!
For my part, I crossed my fingers and drilled only as far as necessary to barely
break through.
There was one thing I hadn't counted on, however. And that was the difficulty in
finding more tissue boxes that matched the size of my original one. The original
box I used as a model was small and typically used in hospitals, motels, and offices,
not homes. Therefore, I can't find the same size in any grocery store. All is not
lost, however, as Margaret cut a chunk out of the bottom of the box that allows
us to manually refill the same box over and over. But I highly recommend starting
with a tissue box that can be easily purchased in any grocery store. If your reading
this and going "well, duh", I don't blame you.
Shoe holders
The shoe holders were not originally built specifically to hold shoes. We built
them as general purpose elastic straps to store "stuff" in the corners of the van
where the ceiling met the wall. It just ended up that our contraptions worked exceedingly
well for holding shoes and not much else.
One shoe holder is installed just behind the tissue holder, and can be seen in the
first picture at the top of this page. The other two are located behind the driver
seat and above the propane stove. There is actually room for one more shoe holder
in this area, and we even have the strap built and ready to install, but we just
don't have enough shoes to justify it.
Each shoe holder consists of one elastic band with three grommets added, two screws
to fasten the elastic to the van, and one hook designed to attach to one of the
grommets.
We purchased the elastic band from a fabric store, and Margaret hemmed the ends
to prevent fraying. At three inches, it was the widest elastic band they had, but
if I could have gotten it five or six inches wide, I would have. The reason we have
three grommets is to allow for various sized shoes.
The elastic is screwed to the plastic trim with short sheet metal screws. I was
a bit worried they would pull out or rip the fabric, but after several months they
still look as good as new.
We had to predrill the hole for the hook, since there is metal just behind the plastic
trim. My usual caution applies: Be extremely careful drilling so as not to damage
anything behind the metal.
