first steps

hi we already own an old but reliable talbot rambler motorhome (my wifes tells me im not allowed to call it a caravanette as it makes me sound old ).However lack of power steering,the fact that its petrol and its age has made us decide to replace it for something newer and easier to drive .
The high cost of pro built conversions has sent us down the self build route a decision im sure i will come to question several times over the next few months .having used our motor home for two years we had some idea of what we wanted initially we wasnt going to include a shower as we never use the one we have then we realised we probaly didnt use it as its so small so now were going to include one .one thing we did want was a rear bed originally this was going to be fixed but after doing lots of measuring we decided to get this the van would have to be bigger than we had room to park it so a compromise was to have a rear bed that can double up as a table and fixed seating
The choice of vans came down to either the relay/ducato or the movano/master in the end we bought an 2007 ducato with 3700 miles on the clock its navy blue so should be easy to find amongst all the white ones on site after visiting the local hostelries
first job was to remove the partion ply lining and the ply flooring and sweep out the dust and rubbish from its previous life
eager to start i decided to raise the floor to remove the big step which was now apparent from cab to rearafter spending 2 days laying 4 x1 on edge and fixing with angle brackets i decided i didnt like it and spent an hour ripping it out. a few more holes in the floor to fill .
going to live with the step and have now battened out the back with 25x 34 battens and screwed straight to floor using grip fill and 40 mm self drilling scews sunk in to the wood to set the heads below the surface
30 mm foil faced celotex insulations is fitted tight between the battens and also fixed with gripfill
one thing ive learnt about vans in the last few days is that the floor that looks flat actually isnt and working without a level is going to be a steep learning curve still onwards and upwards
notes to self
water pipes need to go in before ply is laid