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 never travelled in a camper before, so I did not know what was practical and what wasn’t. The only thing I knew was at travelling with my son meant bringing a lot of stuff along.

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 literary 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 want to pull over stop and relax in the back.

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 cupboard, a pull out bed and a slide out kitchen.
Day one
Took out everything (kitchen unit & the bed) , so I was left with an empty van. Cleaning time!.

First to be build 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 size bed something around 1400mm by 2000mm.

Resulting in a sitting area 1300mm by 700mm. With underneath 2 storing boxes for 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 to difficult and done pretty quick.

Pretty proud it works.