Beach 3 seater bed and storage improvement

[Vincent the Cali]

Hi All,

This is my solution to stop having to unpack the boot to make the bed up, and make accessing things in the boot much easier!

Now I can simply fold the rear seats forward and pull the end of the mattress down, bed is ready. No effort to unpack boot. All soft stuff on top, bedding, screen covers, coats etc. I’ve put things in the drawer to demonstrate sizes for peoples reference. It’s a CFX35 fridge.

All made from 1 inch thick beech plywood, 260kg ball bearing runners, a lot of screws with a few nuts and bolts thrown in for strength.

 

[paul_f]

Really nice job! And probably a whole lot more comfortable than the standard 3 seat Beach bed. The bed is the worst thing about the beach.
The "comfort" mattress + topper takes up so much room

 

[Amarillo]

Hi All,

This is my solution to stop having to unpack the boot to make the bed up, and make accessing things in the boot much easier!

Now I can simply fold the rear seats forward and pull the end of the mattress down, bed is ready. No effort to unpack boot. All soft stuff on top, bedding, screen covers, coats etc. I’ve put things in the drawer to demonstrate sizes for peoples reference. It’s a CFX35 fridge.

All made from 1 inch thick beech plywood, 260kg ball bearing runners, a lot of screws with a few nuts and bolts thrown in for strength.

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That is probably the best solution I’ve seen for camping.

How easy is it to get the unit out for converting to 7 seat mode, or does the unit have to remain in the van?

 

[Vincent the Cali]

Really nice job! And probably a whole lot more comfortable than the standard 3 seat Beach bed. The bed is the worst thing about the beach.
The "comfort" mattress + topper takes up so much room

Thanks, hopefully will get to road test it sometime soon and I’ll update this thread with changes.

 

[Vincent the Cali]

That is probably the best solution I’ve seen for camping.

How easy is it to get the unit out for converting to 7 seat mode, or does the unit have to remain in the van?

Thank you, that means a lot! I spent quite some time thinking it through and redesigning. I’ve also read your blog and really enjoyed it.

At the moment it has to remain in the van but it’s only held in place by the 4 floor clamp bolts shown in one of the pictures. The problem is the bed boards are so wide they need to be removed before the unit can be lifted out, probably about 10-15 minutes of effort, and two people to lift out all in. A bit of fettling and I’m sure there is a way to setup a quick attach/release for the bed boards though, or a way to fold the ends up.

Picture below of the unit without the bed boards attached.

 

[gareth230380]

Looks really smart. Do you have enough cabin space left to put up the table?

 

[kave]

Really nice job! And probably a whole lot more comfortable than the standard 3 seat Beach bed. The bed is the worst thing about the beach.
The "comfort" mattress + topper takes up so much room

But this is the comfort mattress lying on wood instead of lying of a smoewhat soft bench. Also, the comfort mattres is shaped to fit the sofa. How is this more comfortable?
I am sorry but I dont see the win here over the normal bed arrangement.

 

[Vincent the Cali]

Looks really smart. Do you have enough cabin space left to put up the table?

Not really, it would cover too much of the rear seats. I never use the table internally so this wasn’t really a concern of mine. I have been considering making a smaller table for inside. I think I’ve seen a few on the forum already, bit more practical than using the full sized table.

 

[Vincent the Cali]

But this is the comfort mattress lying on wood instead of lying of a smoewhat soft bench. Also, the comfort mattres is shaped to fit the sofa. How is this more comfortable?
I am sorry but I dont see the win here over the normal bed arrangement.

Hi Kave,

This was never to improve the comfort, I’ve always found the existing setup pretty comfortable as it was with the comfort mattress. It was to fix issues I had with the setup of the bed which intrudes into the boot space when the seats are folded flat backwards. Family of four here so we don’t travel light and I found myself emptying the boot every time we got to a campsite and then not having enough room to repack the boot with the bed setup. Which of course means then setting my drive away awning and so on and so on. Far too long setting up for my liking.

Now I don’t have any of those problems, bed can be setup without touching the boot at all and everything in the boot is easier to access. Comfort wise, my comfort mattress is only contoured on the last piece, the rest is flat and it feels the same as before.

Having said that.... now I have a flat surface I will be experimenting with different mattresses to fInd the best setup I can. I have a 10cm thick double self inflating mat I used to use for camping which is very nice, I may try that on one of my trips.

 

[kave]

You are now more free to have any other mattress and have no issues with seatbelts sticking up etc. We always have our sofa in the exact position so it can fold down and make a bed so we dont need to move it back or front for making the bed. Our rear cargo space is made of 1m runners similar to yours. To be able to maximize storage I have built a small shelf ontop of the storage where we during travel mode keep a rolled up Ikea topper. On the sides of this we have shoes and our extra chairs. So when making the bed we just remove the topper and bedding stuff and just folds the sofa. No need to move around anything. I think if I construct something it will be less crashproof than the multiflex table which might keepmthe fridge from flying into the cabin space in a crash.

 

[Vincent the Cali]

You are now more free to have any other mattress and have no issues with seatbelts sticking up etc. We always have our sofa in the exact position so it can fold down and make a bed so we dont need to move it back or front for making the bed. Our rear cargo space is made of 1m runners similar to yours. To be able to maximize storage I have built a small shelf ontop of the storage where we during travel mode keep a rolled up Ikea topper. On the sides of this we have shoes and our extra chairs. So when making the bed we just remove the topper and bedding stuff and just folds the sofa. No need to move around anything. I think if I construct something it will be less crashproof than the multiflex table which might keepmthe fridge from flying into the cabin space in a crash.

This sounds great, do you have any pictures? I’d love to see it.

Definitely had to give some serious consideration to the crashproof scenario, saw a few videos of motor homes being crash tested and all the furniture just ripping lose on impact. Scary stuff! I’ve got the four bolts in place at the moment using similar fixings to the multiflex, M8 bolts into the floor rails which seems pretty secure. I may add another couple at the rear if it moves at all during my test trips. So far so good.

 

[Tarquers]

Hi @Vincent the Cali what dimensions do you have for this box? I have done some quick measuring and believe if I extend the multiflex (chop up and/or replace) to a board that is 1m long, with a similar sized slide, I can keep the seat in place and still use a table and cooker inside the beach. interested to understand your dimensions.

photos here to illustrate my thoughts:

 

[Vincent the Cali]

Hi @Vincent the Cali what dimensions do you have for this box? I have done some quick measuring and believe if I extend the multiflex (chop up and/or replace) to a board that is 1m long, with a similar sized slide, I can keep the seat in place and still use a table and cooker inside the beach. interested to understand your dimensions.

photos here to illustrate my thoughts:

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Hi Tarquers

My dimensions are as follows, this is all to the outer edges.

120cm wide at the base
147cm wide at the top for the bed boards (installed after the base box went in)
120cm long
53cm high

All my boards are 1inch (2.4cm) plywood

Should work just fine if you do a 100cm long version as the headrests will support the end of the comfort mattress.

Good luck and would love to see some pictures of the end result.

 

[Tarquers]

Hi Tarquers

My dimensions are as follows, this is all to the outer edges.

120cm wide at the base
147cm wide at the top for the bed boards (installed after the base box went in)
120cm long
53cm high

All my boards are 1inch (2.4cm) plywood

Should work just fine if you do a 100cm long version as the headrests will support the end of the comfort mattress.

Good luck and would love to see some pictures of the end result.

perfect thanks. I think I will stick to 100cm as I can still use the table, cooker and a bed without moving the seat. Will share an update once completed.

 

[ChrisMcC]

Hi @Vincent the Cali what kind of bolts did you use in the tracks to hold this down?
Did you find some bolts with a 'T' on the end?

 

[Vincent the Cali]

Hi @Vincent the Cali what kind of bolts did you use in the tracks to hold this down?
Did you find some bolts with a 'T' on the end?

I did, I managed to find a multipack of T bolts that had both a screw down cap the same as the multiflex board, but I used a Nut instead to properly screw down.