SUV Camper: Building a Bed

We spent a lot of our free time this week shopping for parts and building a bed frame that we will sleep on when camping in our new car. We stuck mostly to the design from last week’s post, including: plenty of space for storage boxes underneath; hinges to fold up the headboard panel so that the front seats can be pushed back to a comfortable position when driving; easily removable panels and legs so that the whole thing can be packed away into the boot.

The main components are:

• A large plywood panel (cut into quarters at the hardware store so it would fit into the car)
• Several lengths of 2 by 2 for the frame and legs (which is actually 1-1/2″ by 1-1/2″)
• Hinges for the headboard panel and front legs
• Right angled brackets to make the frame more sturdy and to lock the removable legs in position
• Bolts to use as “drop pins” to attach removable legs and panels
• Screws

First, we marked up the plywood panels and our host Dion very kindly cut them to size on his scary table saw! He also lent us his skill saw and electric screw driver which was very helpful (vital in fact…)

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Rosie doesn’t find the skill saw so scary, so she cut the 2 by 2 lengths (as dictated by the CAD model) and we put the main frame together.

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The removable legs for the panels came separately. We wanted to double check their lengths as the back of the car has a slight slope where the seats are folded up. This ended up being a bit of a guess after we realised the spirit level doesn’t give you a local level within the car if the car is on a slight hill.

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Finally we attached the two front panels together with hinges and made two hinged legs for the second front panel. These had to have a slight angle to them to account for the sloped back seats. Someone* put them on backwards initially, so the slope was the wrong way round – but nobody blamed anyone else and separation was only mentioned once or twice.

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Here are some highlights (AKA the bits we remembered to film):

Some minor changes were required to the design. A third back leg became necessary after Rosie almost flipped one of the back panels during the first test climb. Also the clever “drop pin” idea (drill holes through several layers of wood and drop a long bolt in) wasn’t as clever as we hoped. The panels rattle around a bit, so we are going to get nuts for the end to hold it all together more tightly. But a success overall!

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We didn’t get many pictures of the final result and it’s raining now so we can’t be bothered to go out and take any. You can see the completed set up next week after our epic online camping equipment order arrives. After work during the week, we went to the local thrift store to look for some rugs/blankets/curtain material. We were in luck and are now the owners of a disgusting pink rug to put under our bed frame, a rather dated old flowery duvet to put between the plywood and our camping mats, some questionable grey material for curtains and a surprisingly sharp knife, all for the price of $8! Bargain! Let’s not talk about the online camping equipment order…

Going camping and getting to see some more of British Columbia is exciting, but we are also equally sad. This time next week we will be leaving Heart and Soil, after two and a bit amazing months here bunching beets, picking peas and harvesting hakurei. We will miss our hosts and hope to visit them again at some point before returning to the UK. Our first thoughts are to travel to Strathcona Provincial Park for some hiking, before heading to mainland Canada for some more hiking!

_*Rosie