savannals

And achievement unlocked: first installation of neat stuff!

Today we added seat swivels to both seats in the van, so they can turn around when it's parked. Melinda May might be pretty fortitudinous compared to your average passenger vehicle, but she's on the small side for a van. Seat swivels will add more interior space when parked, while also adding seats for us to hang out in if the weather is unpleasant outside.

The seats in the van are bolted to a base, which itself is bolted to the floor of the van. We removed the seat from the base:

Then attached the swivel to the base where the seat was previously bolted on:

Rotating the swivel just a bit helped with accessing the places where the seat needs to bolt on to the swivel. We bolted the seat in place on top of the swivel and the swivel was installed! Pretty straightforward install that took only an hour or two. Very exciting progress! (Please ignore the mess in the cargo area.)

The trim that covers the seatbelt buckle on each seat does not clear the swivel when it rotates, which was a bit of a disappointing and hard lesson to learn when we swiveled the seats for the first time. I'll have to figure out some kind of alternate way to cover those bits of the seat.

I've done a couple other things that just aren't very photogenic or interesting to read about: registered the van (with a personalized plate!), taken it to the mechanic to get a checkup (all good! and oil changed and tires rotated!), and gotten a quote and an appointment to have her wrapped (she's going to be SO PRETTY!).

Next up is probably cutting holes in my perfectly good van. No pressure!