[VAC] Full bed in the middle - suggestions?

[Terry Tyler <tylerbears@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Chuck,

Unless you have a strong reason for NOT wanting to sleep up front (away from
the kids), the idea suggested by John Anderson would seem like a sensible
"first phase" solution. The benefit is - it could be accomplished easily in
an afternoon. 

If after a few trips, this arrangement turns out to be unsatisfactory, the
futon could replace one of the twins (assuming you selected a futon that
would fit in either location). One benefit would be plenty of walking space
during the day. That could be a significant plus.

My thinking comes from experience with our center bedroom floor plan. It
came with a permanent full size bed and mattress (curbside). There was very
little room to walk past it or open the closet doors on either side of the
vanity (streetside).

After scouring the countryside, I found another trailer (in a bone yard)
exactly like ours except the bed could be made into a couch during the day.
It had a two piece mattress with pillow storage in shams.

I did a complete swap of all the hardware with the owner. He didn't want any
money for the exchange because he had a bed where there was a bed - before I
came along. The fit in our trailer was perfect, including storage lockers
under the bed and the sliding mechanism.  It took me half a day to make the
exchange. 

An offshoot of this idea is what John suggested. You might want to create a
couch arrangement by modifying the twin bed hardware. It's commonly done by
RV manufacturers of other brands. This means finding one on a dealer's lot
and taking pictures of it could give you a leg up on increasing the
versatility of your twin bed.

A few years later after our swap was made, we came across a 3' X 2' island
table. This gives us additional work space during the day while sitting on
the couch. The wood grain and color was an exact match with our interior
woodwork. The island table came with a 3" circular socket that I screwed
into the floor, a table top with a matching circular socket (screwed into
the table's underside), and a circular chrome leg that inserts into each
socket when in use. I positioned the floor socket close to the couch's edge
when it was used as a couch, thereby not interfering with walking past the
table during the day. When not in use and the couch opened as a bed, the
table top and chrome leg slip into one of closets beside the vanity.

The installation is elegantly simple and easy. This modification turned out
to be one of the smarter things I've done. It enables either one of us to
sit on the couch with a hard, flat surface for project work and a soft
surface (the couch) for project supplies. Plus, nothing has to be put away
when it's time for meals (that used to be an annoying inconvenience).

Because you have a boy and a girl, this configuration could mean one of them
gets to sleep on the living room couch (instead of the floor). That would be
the ideal time to determine a "fair" way for who sleeps on the adjacent bunk
bed in the same area with Mom and Dad and who sleeps in the "privacy suite"
up front. <grin> This easily lends itself to lessons about games of chance
as well as "the laws of statistical probability" (one of my favorites).  Yes
- I know - we all have our quirks.

You are going to have a good time with this. I can see it coming already. We
have a boy and a girl also, which made for dynamics similar to what you must
be or will be experiencing.

Keep us posted on how you decide to modify and how you go about
accomplishing it, would you? I'm sure others will be interested, too.

New topic. Roof vents. There are at least three options to consider. You've
read about the fantastic fans. Second, you might want to only replace the
vent covers as part of "phase one."  Third, there are Lindeen Covers that
allow the vents to remain open when it's raining and not allow water inside.
The advantage of these covers is they don't break during hail storms. They
are made out of lexan (the stuff bullet proof vests are made of).

You were fortunate to have found Rick Davis available to deliver your
grandfather's trailer. He's often in high demand.

Traveler's Rest is one of the places where we've considered buying shares.
But, we haven't decided which of the available choices would work best for
us. 

Later, 

Terry

mailto:tylerbears@airstream.net