Start: Building the bed-camper

Decisions had to be made. Since the first step of the camper conversion took over a month and I was eager to go, there was not much time. I did not like the standard kitchen and the old bed was not suitable for two. I had never travelled in a camper before, so I did not know what was practical and what wasn’t. The only thing I realised was that travelling with a kid meant having a lot of stuff to store.

I needed to build storage space, a lot and a second bed. Also, I want to be able to sit down comfortably without having to convert the whole camper. And when I go to sleep I want to be able to easily make a bed without having to rebuild the whole camper. I did visit friends in a camper before, and they had to rebuild the whole inside in order to go to sleep, to drive or to have dinner. I wanted to be able to cook and sit at the same time, even while on the road. I just wanted to pull over, stop and relax in the back of the van.

Let’s start. I read a lot about isolation, the cons and pros and I figured out that there was not much time to really sort this out, so I decided to skip the isolation. And since we were heading down south, we did not need much insulation anyway and I preferred cooking outside.I drew a prototype ; some cupboards, a pull-out bed and a slide out kitchen.

Day one.
I took out everything (kitchen unit & the bed) , so I was left with an empty van. Cleaning time!.

First to be built was the  “bed bench”. I wanted a lounge kind of style to sit down comfortably when the bed was folded. And for sleeping, I wanted a comfortable sized bed, something around 140cm by 200cm.

Resulting in a sitting area 1300mm by 700mm. With underneath two boxes to store  the clothes and other personal stuff, one for me, one for my son.

I needed to get wood to continue, and I was in luck to find some in my father’s shed, so I could start building the bed frame right away. This was not too difficult and done pretty quickly.

Pretty proud it works.