This review can be as simple as you taking my endorsement to hire Rossmönster. If so, then you can quit reading and move on.
Okay, you're still reading so let me give you more credentials as to why you should hire Rossmönster.
You may be like me and have already spent hours on Google figuring out who might be the best builder to build your custom van, or you may just be beginning your journey.
I built my custom van to live in full time. I have a 2020 144" High Roof 4X4 Freightliner Sprinter.
If you do a Google search for "best vanlife builders" Rossmönster comes up in all 3 of theTop 3 results:
https://www.rvingknowhow.com/van-conversion-companies/
https://trailkitchens.com/blogs/blog/van-conversion-companies
https://www.thewaywardhome.com/van-conversion-companies/
The most fun thing to do is look at RossMonster's van tours on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHRWZ1YTejMulbzAiCTj-eQ
You should do this if nothing else, then for entertainment
My research led me to narrow my consideration set to Outside Vans, Freedom Vans, Sync Vans, and Rossmönster. The primary reason I chose Rossmönster after talking to Outside Vans, Freedom Vans, and Rossmönster is that the two key principles driving my van design were:
1) I wanted to live in a home not a van
2) I wanted to use the van as a forcing function for minimalism
I felt Outside and Sync vans' clients were more geared to performance. Ross Williamson's (namesake and founder of RossMonster) background as a carpenter/cabinet maker paired with his 10 years of experience building vans made me confident that I'd achieve the van I want.
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I hired them in April 2020 and the demand is so high for their skills that the first slot in their scheduled was February 1, 2021. Fortunately I'm writing this in March 2021 after picking up my van on schedule. I'm writing this review from inside my custom van, Dusty D.
Luke Farny is my hero. He is a mechanical engineer and business man who leads account management and van design with his team. I through something out of left field when I met Luke and told him that I wanted to bring my high school friend and architect Mike Mills from Notch Design into the design process to apply his skills building houses into building my van. Luke was intrigued about how that process would work and was excited to collaborate.
If you haven't designed your van yet then you should know that there are a lot of decisions to make. Luke was invaluable in helping team up all the decisions we'd have to make as neither Mike or I had ever designed a van. We went with one of Mike's early concepts to build two "rooms"... one a very modern white lab-clean like kitchen and a second "totally ensconced" in wood bedroom/dinette. The design presented a lot of unique practical problems that Luke had to solve.
I can not say enough about the client experience that Luke offers. I consider myself a very demanding and detail oriented client. My careers is focused on designing and commercializing projects and I took all that expertise and expectations into my approach to designing my home. Luke was always cheerful, always prompt, and the few times he did not know the answer off the top of his head he'd do some research, make some phone calls and get back to me with an answer.
I just wrote a lot about the design process, but the build process was also awesome.
I had the freedom and desire to live in Longmont, CO for the vanbuild and with proper COVID protocols, I was able to make some decisions in person with Luke during the build. However, every day Luke send important pictures (and time-lapsed videos) showing the days progress on the van build. So there was less need for me to be in Longmont, CO then I anticipated... but it was still hella fun to live in Colorado for the first time.
We are now in the van for two weeks, have driven it a 1000 miles, and the experience is everything we hoped it would be. We had the same experience picking up the van... the van looked just like the schematic diagrams and renderings that my architect friend Mike had made before the build began. read more