bluegoatwoods
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- Nov 12, 2018
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A modest start? Yesss...but I'm proud of myself anyway! 
Who knew you could make a decent sleeper out of one of these?
Of course.......there's bound to be plenty of folks here who already knew this. But I didn't know it. Until I realized, a few weeks back, that removing the rear seat is no big deal at all. That's when I knew what I had to do.
The first pattern for the deck of the bed was cardboard. I didn't think to get photos of that. But I'm sure you get the idea.
I used some of that cheap 'chipboard' imitation plywood (OSB, I think?).
I might regret the poor material. But it was half the cost of genuine plywood of the same thickness. More than that, though, I can afford to be a bit careless with my first rig. I expect errors and it's only meant to last a year or two while we decide what we really want.
To avoid dealing with splintery chipboard, I 'upholstered' it.
1/2 inch foam mattress topper.
cheap brown tarp.
Above is not meant to be the actual sleeping surface. But 4 to 6 inches of memory foam covered with a blanket or cheap comforter, tucked in around the corners and edges, ought to make a good mattress. Keeping all that clean shouldn't be too much trouble.
For privacy I simply cut up more tarp.
I'll put a series of suction cups on it and stick it to the windows on the inside. I'm pondering whether or not to insulate the curtains. I have leftover foam. But that might start getting bulky. We have heat, after all, and we'll be avoiding 'heart of winter' type conditions. Plus this is not meant to be regular sleeping quarters. It's for emergencies or very bad weather when we're actually camped. Or for simply grabbing a quick sleep when we're travelling and not at an actual destination. Still, a single could be pretty comfortable living in something like this.
I brought my wife out when it was finished and we tried lying down side by side. It was roomier than I'd feared it would be. All the same, we wouldn't choose to sleep in this every night of our lives. Though, once again, this would be more than enough bed for a single.
My wife surprised me in one way with this. To make the irony clear, I'll need to give a bit of background info. It'll only take 45 minutes....... maybe an hour..........of your time. Tops!....I promise!
(It won't take that long. But be warned: I'm long-winded)
You see.....I'm a tinkerer at heart. I'm a mickey mouse engineer. Yup, I tore things apart as a kid. Not to see how they worked. To see how strong they were.
I'm a "hacker" in the pre-digital age sense: I really don't know what I'm doing. But I'm gonna stick my neck out and do it anyway.
I've had amusing failures. One comes to mind off-hand that was positively dangerous.....but never mind. I've also had successes. And my batting average has improved as I've aged and learned.
My home has quite a bit of my engineering in it. I've gotten to be pretty good with lighting and electricity in particular. I've hooked up 3-phase circuits. Not in my home, of course. No need for it there. But I've worked with them. I understand their purpose, or advantage, over single phase circuits. I understand perfectly well just why it is that the potential difference is 208 Volts instead of 240. Assuming 120 Volt poles, that is. What I'm getting at here is that household electrical circuits are child's play to me. I've designed, and installed, some pretty complex circuitry. It works well. My lighting includes plenty of spots and plenty of washes to highlight pictures on the walls, for instance. I'm willing and able to split voltages if that's desirable.
The people who know almost nothing except, "You can't do that!" are smugly and schadenfreude-ally certain that I'm sure to burn my house down sooner or later. (Vandwellers? Ever have experience with people like that? If they come find you out in the desert, please let me know. I'll have to make plans for that.)
Insurance adjustors and code enforcement officers would probably have me led out of here in handcuffs. I don't invite them in. And they're wrong anyway. It's true that I don't follow their conventions. But there's nothing unsafe about my circuits. I have a very, very good understanding of just what a warming electrical conductor can do in an old, bone-dry stick-built house. I know how much power a conductor of a particular gauge can take and my circuits stop short of that limit. I protect my cables from mechanical damage and I give them as much air space as possible. That turns out to be quite a bit when you put a little thought and effort into it.
Our shower could use a little polishing and a few components replaced in order to actually look good. But it would knock you right on your butt if it didn't spray at you from two opposite directions. But you can also have a soft, yet still saturating, spray from one or both directions if you want. And the adjustments are easy; mere quarter-turn valves. The only limit is the 40 gal water heater. I might have put a second one in in parallel long ago if it weren't for the fact that my wife and kids would then use 500 gallons a day.
Years ago I supported our second floor near the stairway using an arch that I made from cantilevered 2x4s. It's hard to explain on paper, but it curved in a direction seperate from the arch itself. Imagine you were looking directly down on it from the second floor. It would exist on more than one plane. It would have an X and a Y axis from that perspective.
From the kitchen it actually looked more like an A frame than anything else. But from my favorite sitting position in the 'den' it had such a graceful curve. I loved it. But my wife mistrusted it. She had no reason to. It's not that she knows anything about small house structures. So one time when I was out on the road she brought in this young general contractor wannabee. (To be fair, the kid ain't too bad......but....) She had him rip it out and replace it with a couple of 2X8s nailed together.
The point of this long spiel? I'm an obsessed DIY'er. (Possessed by the spirit of DIY?.....hmmm.......that might describe it)
One flaw in my engineering is that my 'finishes' are not even remotely close to the finish you'd get from high-end designers and contractors. It's mostly not fancy. I'm not interested in that. My stuff has a boiler-plate look. I've gotten a bit better with time. But it'll never be my strength.
And I'm afraid this embarrasses my wife. She's ashamed of all of these things that are easily recognized as home-made. Though the balance has shifted more in my favor over the years, the fact is that she's disapproved of my projects more than she's approved.
So I don't give her advance warning of anything. I wait until she leaves and then get started. By the time she gets back I've usually gone too far to turn back. Then I put up with several hours, often more than 24 hours, of her anger.
To be clear, we don't fight physically and I'm sure we never will. But she can really let me have it with that big mouth of hers.
And she does. Oooohhh.... I'm trembling right now as I think about it. It's okay.......I'll get it together.........Okay.....we're good.......
So.....anyway.........this sleeper Chevy above. I'd almost forgotten about it
That's how I did this one. I waited until she'd gone and I got to work. I didn't really expect to be hated on for three days. But one never really does know.......
When she perceived what I'd done, she thanked me. I wondered if it was some sort of set-up.
But she's given plenty of verbal support to the idea of going nomad. Maybe she's really on board with it.
I hope she doesn't leave without me.....
Who knew you could make a decent sleeper out of one of these?
Of course.......there's bound to be plenty of folks here who already knew this. But I didn't know it. Until I realized, a few weeks back, that removing the rear seat is no big deal at all. That's when I knew what I had to do.
The first pattern for the deck of the bed was cardboard. I didn't think to get photos of that. But I'm sure you get the idea.
I used some of that cheap 'chipboard' imitation plywood (OSB, I think?).
I might regret the poor material. But it was half the cost of genuine plywood of the same thickness. More than that, though, I can afford to be a bit careless with my first rig. I expect errors and it's only meant to last a year or two while we decide what we really want.
To avoid dealing with splintery chipboard, I 'upholstered' it.
1/2 inch foam mattress topper.
cheap brown tarp.
Above is not meant to be the actual sleeping surface. But 4 to 6 inches of memory foam covered with a blanket or cheap comforter, tucked in around the corners and edges, ought to make a good mattress. Keeping all that clean shouldn't be too much trouble.
For privacy I simply cut up more tarp.
I'll put a series of suction cups on it and stick it to the windows on the inside. I'm pondering whether or not to insulate the curtains. I have leftover foam. But that might start getting bulky. We have heat, after all, and we'll be avoiding 'heart of winter' type conditions. Plus this is not meant to be regular sleeping quarters. It's for emergencies or very bad weather when we're actually camped. Or for simply grabbing a quick sleep when we're travelling and not at an actual destination. Still, a single could be pretty comfortable living in something like this.
I brought my wife out when it was finished and we tried lying down side by side. It was roomier than I'd feared it would be. All the same, we wouldn't choose to sleep in this every night of our lives. Though, once again, this would be more than enough bed for a single.
My wife surprised me in one way with this. To make the irony clear, I'll need to give a bit of background info. It'll only take 45 minutes....... maybe an hour..........of your time. Tops!....I promise!
(It won't take that long. But be warned: I'm long-winded)
You see.....I'm a tinkerer at heart. I'm a mickey mouse engineer. Yup, I tore things apart as a kid. Not to see how they worked. To see how strong they were.
I'm a "hacker" in the pre-digital age sense: I really don't know what I'm doing. But I'm gonna stick my neck out and do it anyway.
I've had amusing failures. One comes to mind off-hand that was positively dangerous.....but never mind. I've also had successes. And my batting average has improved as I've aged and learned.
My home has quite a bit of my engineering in it. I've gotten to be pretty good with lighting and electricity in particular. I've hooked up 3-phase circuits. Not in my home, of course. No need for it there. But I've worked with them. I understand their purpose, or advantage, over single phase circuits. I understand perfectly well just why it is that the potential difference is 208 Volts instead of 240. Assuming 120 Volt poles, that is. What I'm getting at here is that household electrical circuits are child's play to me. I've designed, and installed, some pretty complex circuitry. It works well. My lighting includes plenty of spots and plenty of washes to highlight pictures on the walls, for instance. I'm willing and able to split voltages if that's desirable.
The people who know almost nothing except, "You can't do that!" are smugly and schadenfreude-ally certain that I'm sure to burn my house down sooner or later. (Vandwellers? Ever have experience with people like that? If they come find you out in the desert, please let me know. I'll have to make plans for that.)
Insurance adjustors and code enforcement officers would probably have me led out of here in handcuffs. I don't invite them in. And they're wrong anyway. It's true that I don't follow their conventions. But there's nothing unsafe about my circuits. I have a very, very good understanding of just what a warming electrical conductor can do in an old, bone-dry stick-built house. I know how much power a conductor of a particular gauge can take and my circuits stop short of that limit. I protect my cables from mechanical damage and I give them as much air space as possible. That turns out to be quite a bit when you put a little thought and effort into it.
Our shower could use a little polishing and a few components replaced in order to actually look good. But it would knock you right on your butt if it didn't spray at you from two opposite directions. But you can also have a soft, yet still saturating, spray from one or both directions if you want. And the adjustments are easy; mere quarter-turn valves. The only limit is the 40 gal water heater. I might have put a second one in in parallel long ago if it weren't for the fact that my wife and kids would then use 500 gallons a day.
Years ago I supported our second floor near the stairway using an arch that I made from cantilevered 2x4s. It's hard to explain on paper, but it curved in a direction seperate from the arch itself. Imagine you were looking directly down on it from the second floor. It would exist on more than one plane. It would have an X and a Y axis from that perspective.
From the kitchen it actually looked more like an A frame than anything else. But from my favorite sitting position in the 'den' it had such a graceful curve. I loved it. But my wife mistrusted it. She had no reason to. It's not that she knows anything about small house structures. So one time when I was out on the road she brought in this young general contractor wannabee. (To be fair, the kid ain't too bad......but....) She had him rip it out and replace it with a couple of 2X8s nailed together.
The point of this long spiel? I'm an obsessed DIY'er. (Possessed by the spirit of DIY?.....hmmm.......that might describe it)
One flaw in my engineering is that my 'finishes' are not even remotely close to the finish you'd get from high-end designers and contractors. It's mostly not fancy. I'm not interested in that. My stuff has a boiler-plate look. I've gotten a bit better with time. But it'll never be my strength.
And I'm afraid this embarrasses my wife. She's ashamed of all of these things that are easily recognized as home-made. Though the balance has shifted more in my favor over the years, the fact is that she's disapproved of my projects more than she's approved.
So I don't give her advance warning of anything. I wait until she leaves and then get started. By the time she gets back I've usually gone too far to turn back. Then I put up with several hours, often more than 24 hours, of her anger.
To be clear, we don't fight physically and I'm sure we never will. But she can really let me have it with that big mouth of hers.
And she does. Oooohhh.... I'm trembling right now as I think about it. It's okay.......I'll get it together.........Okay.....we're good.......
So.....anyway.........this sleeper Chevy above. I'd almost forgotten about it
That's how I did this one. I waited until she'd gone and I got to work. I didn't really expect to be hated on for three days. But one never really does know.......
When she perceived what I'd done, she thanked me. I wondered if it was some sort of set-up.
But she's given plenty of verbal support to the idea of going nomad. Maybe she's really on board with it.
I hope she doesn't leave without me.....
