I posted here a couple of months ago asking for help in an emergency situation - I came home to my house on fire and lost everyone and everything.

I got some great replies and info here, and have been building out my "rig" slowly over the past couple of months. Fortunately, I found a small roadside motel that gave me a low monthly rate that gave me a bit of time not to rush it.

I started with removing the back seats (much easier than expected). I washed all the carpets (long overdue with having dogs), and then cleaned the bare metal in the back with isopropyl alcohol. This was only necessary to lay sound dampening over the metal to keep the interior road noise low. Then measured the back and made the cuts. I used 1/2" ply to keep weight low and I wouldn't really have to worry about sag with where the joists/braces would be. I sealed that with an oil polyurethane sealer to avoid moisture getting into the wood. Once the sealer was cured I put carpet on.

I got an Anker Solix C1000 V2 w/ 200W solar panels and a BougeRV 30qt fridge. Both of these have been working amazing so far - I think the fridge is only pulling just over 1%/h from the C1000, so I shouldn't really have any concerns about the battery running out if topping up with the solar each day for a few hours. The solar panels were the hardest part of organizing the interior (small hatchback), but I slide them under my mattress (MEC Reactor R6.5 self-inflating sleeping pad) during the day and put them over my dash/passenger seat while I'm sleeping. If I pull my passenger seat all the way forward and tilt it forward I have just enough room to lay fully out.

I sewed black-out curtain material into the back side of Reflectix and cut two holes to feed a cut shoe lace through so that I can adjust the tops up or down a couple of inches for a bit more airflow if needed. Neodymium magnets were sewn into a little pouch on the top portion of these ties and they quickly attach to the inner door frame.

Last night and the next couple of nights are cold (either -1 or 0) but with a sweater and sweatpants on in my sleeping bag (MEC 0°C) it's fine. It should start warming up again next week which will be nice.

I got everything on sale/clearance, fortunately, otherwise the cost would have been a bit too much. So I lucked out with that. [Side note: if you're in Canada and there is a Cleves in your area that has an Ocean Trail atta he's to it check it out - the one in my area is closing down and they're clearing everything out...North Face tents 40% off, higher clearance on other items]

My contract with the firm I was with finished up last week, so I'm talking the next few weeks to mostly adjust to this and decompress after the whole fire thing and work/other life stuff (father is dying, and I only had 3 weeks off after the fire before having to get back to work) and then back to the grind.

It's been about a week in the car now though (only a few days with the battery and fridge) and I don't have too many complaints. Finding a place is sometimes annoying just because you're having to move around, but the iOverlander app has been pretty useful with this.

In my original post a couple of months ago I said I wanted to get into overlanding, so maybe this is a bit of larping lol, but I'm happy with the setup and will get to a lot of Canadian National Parks in the next few weeks. I've also got camping gear to mix between being in the car and setting up camp, depending on where I am. Really looking forward to this adventure for the next little while.