Merry Christmas, Caravan

One of the things I've wanted to do to the interior from the beginning was paint the night sky on the ceiling. There's a coffee shop just down the street from us that has a really pretty mural of clouds and constellations that I adore, part of my inspiration. Kryo's Christmas present to me is going to be even better than that: the Death Star Planetarium. I can either have a starry sky or the Star Wars galaxy dancing across the ceiling, no painting skills required! Plus, it'll make an awesome decoration when not in use.

We also received a gift card to Home Depot from Jet's family, to be put towards renovations. I have no idea how much it's worth, but it'll be useful none the less. Shopping trips to Home Depot are always fun.

A Bow Top Caravan

The caravan we plan on building is in the bow top style, which is what most people think of when you mention the phrase "gypsy caravan." There are actually six different types of vardo, most of which resemble a box on wheels. The Reading style is the prettiest, but makes me think more of a traveling circus wagon from the early days, than a gypsy caravan.

The best description of a bow top I've found is at Journey Folki, taken from the pages of a book I really want to read: The English Gypsy Caravan by C.H. Ward-Jackson & Denis E. Harvey. It's out of print, so no luck yet finding it at a reasonable price. Fortunately, that's what inter-library loan is for! We do have a copy of Timothy Limke's The New Gyspy Caravan, which will be very useful for the exterior build.

The sketches from the Ward-Jackson book of a standard bow top layout are going to come in handy, when it's time to furnish the interior. (Lemke's book doesn't really include anything other than the bed in terms of furnishings.) Inspiration will also come from Ditchwater Sal's yellow wagon from the movie Stardust, and the GypsyWaggons.co.uk's gallery of bow top interiors. I don't think our decor will be quite on the same level as some of those images, though. Geeky, naturally. Elaborate, probably not.

Origins

Once upon a time, a little girl was captivated by Gertrude Chandler Warner's book The Boxcar Children. Who wouldn't want to their very own house to live and play in, without any adults around? While having a boxcar in the back yard wasn't feasible, a gypsy caravan—another of her fascinations—was, so she thought. Unfortunately, her parents didn't quite agree.

Years later, she was still enamored of the idea. Not being a huge fan of sleeping on the ground, a caravan seemed like the perfect solution for going to outdoor, weekend-long events that would otherwise mean camping. No one, however, was willing to help make that idea a reality. It can't be done, they said; it will be too expensive. No one, until someone by the name of Kyro came along.

How much do you really want a vardo, he asked. This sounds awesome! A little bit of research & one late night conversation over tea, and the dream started to become a reality, with one condition: the door had to look like the door of the T.A.R.D.I.S. Being a bit of a geek herself (why else would she go by the nickname "Leia"?), she agreed.

This is the story of our project, the Geek Caravan. A bow top-styled vardo built by a pair of geeks, because why not?