Matress covers, table and starting on the kitchen

​Once we got the mattresses, we could start on making the covers and frame out the backrest. The slanted back would need a support fixed to the wall and the bench to be solid. This meant that the mattress would need a slanted cut as well - making the sowing more complex.

The mattress setup is one long on each side (with slanted cut), one in the middle that doubles as the backrest during daytime, a small pillow that goes above the middle pillow and two thinner cushions as backrests on the wall.

Finding the right angle for the backrest took some testing and I’m still not sure it’s perfect. I guess we’ll adjust that final bit with some throw pillows?

After fixing the backrest support, I made the slanted cut to fit. AM dreaded sowing this part, but it turned out really pro looking!

The backrest has another important function - during daytime it hides the mattress topper that also packs the duvet and pillows. At night, we take out the backrest and lay it down between the other mattresses to form a bed. To make the bed, all you do is roll out the mattress topper and you’re done.

I also made a table of three glued layers of ply with birch on top and poplar at the bottom to save weight. The table is on a Lagoon mount, so it can swivel in all directions as needed. Here’s how it looks with the first two mattresses in.

The reading lights work great! If you don’t need them, you can just point them upwards, but they’re the right angle if you want to read. They also have builtin USB chargers for convenience and they dim. After this, I got started on the kitchen setup. It’ll hold a Dometic top loaded fridge, our water system, a sink and a flip-top that hides the cooking area. We’ll use a portable burner so we can cook outside if the weather is good.

The drawers are made so they can hold quite a lot of weight since the fridge (Dometic CFX3 35) weighs 17kg and it can take 36 litres of produce. I’m also using 8kg magnets to ensure it does not swing open as we’re driving.