MARTIN Nunn's family started to fear for his sanity as he showed them around his new home 18 months ago.

Not only was there no furniture, no running water, no heating, no toilet and no kitchen, his future home was covered in straw, hay and horsehair.

More than a year later, his hard graft and imagination has paid off.

From the outside, Martin's home is a straightforward horsebox, albeit with a lopsided chimney sticking out of the top.

Inside, he settles down at night by candlelight in the comfort of an Indonesian four-poster bed, with a wood-burning stove to keep him warm.

There are stained glass windows in the bathroom, and an Aboriginal mosaic adorns the wall by the stove.

In hot weather, Martin and his partner, Ann Carruthers, can let the back of the van down and use it as a deck, sipping wine.

The van is currently at the Cowpen Bewley Woodland Park, in Teesside, where Martin is a countryside warden.

But tomorrow, the couple begin their year-long tour of Europe in the horsebox.

They will travel through France, into Spain, and spend some time there before moving on to an unknown destination.

Ann, who left her job at Darlington Borough Council last week, said: "We have been learning Spanish to get us by. We will probably need it because we are going into some of the more remote areas of Spain, where there are fewer tourists.

"After Spain, we will just go where we feel like going. We could go to Italy or Eastern Europe. It just depends."

Before the couple leave, Martin is installing a water tank under the van to store water in bulk.

Electric lights and a CD player are powered from the van's battery, and a gas cylinder is used to power the stove. Otherwise the van is lit by paraffin lamps and candles.

Martin has also built a bathroom area, complete with toilet and washbasin, which looks like a luxury wooden wardrobe from the outside, to one side of the van.

Ann said: "I think Martin's family thought he was mad when he showed them the horsebox for the first time and said he would be living in it. "But it's really comfortable. We've been all over the UK in it, and travelling further afield was something we had both always wanted to do.

"It's going to be strange not having the routine of going to work every day, but it will be lovely.

"We're not worried about the cold because it's so warm in here with the stove. It burns peat, wood or coal so we should be OK through the winter.

"It's funny because from the outside you wouldn't have a clue that it was anything but a horsebox. The only strange thing is the chimney."