Made this rear bed/shelf system

[Beng]

For anyone looking for ideas i thought i'd share my homemade bed/shelf. All in it cost me about £70 in materials.

I wanted to make something that was

• Removable with no permanant fixings or holes yet fixed to the floor
• Fairly cheap to make
• Was tight to the edges of the van as to not loose stuff down the side
• Strong enough and durable

The finished bed:








Profiles for the base:





Carpeted the top sheets of all the way round. This guide by coombe valley campers was ace

A nice tight fit


Secured the sides to the floor fixing points using some longer bolts and the original tie downs on top of the wood.



The final product, really happy with it. Also added a Nooks Board from the Ply Guys for hanging hats, hemets etc. and a Vanshades rear blind. Stealth camper mode on! Hope this helps anyone that needs something similar.

 

[bobbybasic]

Pro job

 

[david173]

really good job there. did you use 18mm ply? did it need many sheets?

 

[AeonMach]

Very nice work.

 

[Paynewright]

Only addition I’d make is a couple of cheap Ikea screw on table legs (depending how heavy you are) in the middle to stop the board flexing. Might need trimming to suit (called Adils)

Looks great!

 

[canaryben]

Nice job! thinking of doing something similar so this is of great help

 

[Sackmycook]

Excellent work

 

[Beng]

really good job there. did you use 18mm ply? did it need many sheets?

18mm Ply, 2 sheets and a bit as i cocked up 1 cut

 

[Beng]

Only addition I’d make is a couple of cheap Ikea screw on table legs (depending how heavy you are) in the middle to stop the board flexing. Might need trimming to suit (called Adils)

Looks great!

I used 18mm hardwood ply so it's pretty strong! If i needed to strengthen it i'd probably glue an extra batten of ply under the spanning board. But it seems plenty strong enough

 

[TallPaul_S]

Only thing you might want to add is some holes/slots in the bed platform to allow the bottom of whatever you use as a mattress to breathe. It'll save a bit of weight too!

 

[JDC]

Looks brilliant. I'm thinking of the same but with a sliding bed in the centre that folds up. Not thought of how to do that just yet. Gonna see what the joiner from work thinks of my plans.

 

[Beng]

Looks brilliant. I'm thinking of the same but with a sliding bed in the centre that folds up. Not thought of how to do that just yet. Gonna see what the joiner from work thinks of my plans.

Let me know how you get on, interested to see that

 

[david173]

any further plans for the side boxes around the wheel arches? Would be perfect for storage

 

[ThunderboltFMF]

@Beng Absolutely great stuff

 

[Beng]

any further plans for the side boxes around the wheel arches? Would be perfect for storage

Probably not, want to keep it simple and not to heavy

 

[ThunderboltFMF]

I am going to plagiarise the hell out of this.
@Beng

 

[Beng]

I am going to plagiarise the hell out of this.
@Beng

Let me know how you get on
A few things that might help:

• I used cardboard to template the side profile of the Van, made those cuts then did a scribe to cut the exact profile.
• 18mm ply is plenty strong enough for me, but 25mm would be stronger if you wanted bigger loads on the span, just a weight trade off an more expensive
• To use the floor tie down points I used M10 x 70mm (i think), i didn't crank it down too hard as i don't think you need to. You'll end up bending the middle as the foam floor brings it up. Other option is to maybe add some washers between the floor and wood.
• The carpet adds a few mm to the width of the boards so think through the width. What i did was carpet the top sections and screwed the side tops in after, that way there was a few mm float to get the fit perfect.

 

[Dalesrunner]

What are the overall dimensions of the finished bed, out of interest?

 

[Beng]

What are the overall dimensions of the finished bed, out of interest?

It's a flat platform across the width of the van, so you'll get a double mattress topper or the like on it