Introduction

My problem was simple: I work in a town about 1 hour away from home over a steep and windy hill road. The job involves shift work doing days and nights, the hours being 6am to 6pm and the opposite for nights.  Coming home involves an hour of driving just to go to bed, and then to get up at 4:30am to drive back again. So I started staying at a mates place a lot, close to work, and camping in the bush on the days between night shifts. The camping was great, and I still plan on doing that when the weather is suitable.

One of my camping spots

But I needed to find somewhere to sleep over there, or something to sleep in. I considered a number of options including leaving a caravan somewhere, buying a proper motor home, a camping trailer, even buying property over there to build a little cabin on. But the only affordable option that made sense was to get a small van and build a bed in the back.

After searching the net to see what other people had done I found very little of use. Most conversions involve a double bed that folds away during the day into seating. I didn't need a double and I didn't want to fold it out every time I used it. I had a pretty good idea what I wanted, and it appears no one has done anything similar and put it on the net.

So this is the story of my process. Enjoy, get ideas, and give me feedback please.

Choosing a van

As I had a good idea what I wanted to do, so the next step was finding a suitable van. After visiting a lot of car dealers and searching the net I managed to narrow it down to a few options. The van had to have seats that folded into a (nearly) flat platform, preferably on one side, leaving the other side as seats so I could still transport the family around on my days off without having to remove the bed.

There were a few options that would have given me significantly more room in the back, the Toyota Alphard and the Nissan Elgrand to name a couple. These vans are big vehicles and as such come with big engines. But for me a 3 or 3.5ltr V6 motor was just going to be too expensive to run so I discounted these vehicles and started looking for something more fuel economic.

Top row: Alphard and Elgrand. Bottom row: Serena and Stepwagon.

So I started looking at the smaller vehicles, and three seemed to meet the criteria. I discounted the Nissan Serena after talking to a few mechanics and discovering that the fancy CVT transmission needs its oil changed every 15000km at a cost of $160 just for the oil alone. So that left two, the Honda Stepwagon and the Toyota Voxy/Noah.

There seemed to by a big shortage of these two models for sale in Wellington. In fact I couldn't find a Stepwagon anywhere, the closest one on a car yard was in Whanganui (over 2 hours away). I drove a Voxy and liked the model but not the particular car. My wife pointed out that it was exceptionally ugly and suggested I drive a Stepwagon. There were heaps of them for sale in Auckland eight hours away by road. So a trip to north was in order.

In Auckland I drove a number of Stepwagons and Voxys. I had convinced myself that the Stepwagon was the way to go, but was a bit disappointed when I actually drove them. They didn't have the presence on the road that the Voxy had, and felt a bit cheaper and more plastic. This may just be because the stepwagon is 400kg lighter. As it would also need to tow trailer loads firewood over the hill I decided the extra weight could be advantageous. So a Voxy it would be, all I had to do now was find one that ticked as many boxes as possible: dark colour (most are white or silver), mag wheels, turning middle seats (to face the back), less than 100000km, tinted windows, and within budget.

After a busy day running around many car yards I ended up with this van. Its a 2005 model with 86000kms on the clock and it ticked all the boxes.

Building the bed platform

Of course the most important part of this project was building in a flat bed platform. None of the vans I looked at had seats that folded completely flat, so some sort of construction was always going to be needed to provide comfortable sleeping.

The easiest way to do this was simply to chop up a sheet of ply. With most of the vans I looked at the rear seats fold 50/50 giving me a width across one seat when folded flat of 60cm in the Voxy. However the middle seats fold 60/40 giving me a width across the front seats of 80cm. I really wanted that extra width at the top of the bed, so my platform was going to be an very interesting shape.

I wanted the platform to fit snugly against the side wall of the van, so anything that slides off the bed (phone, book, etc) didn't end up on the floor. This required a bit of extra work with a jigsaw, but well worth the effort. Although the platform is quite high off the seats at the front, this actually gives a decent amount of storage underneath it.

The Voxy that I have has a middle row of seats that rotates to face the back. This was an important feature as it allows me to sit facing into the van when not lying on the bed. This is important to add the illusion of space and reduce the chances of cabin fever if I need to spend an evening or rainy day in the van.

As I wanted the platform to be easily removed. I needed it to rest on the seats and not actually be attached to anything. This resulted in a fairly complicated structure underneath the platform to sit on the seats and give the platform strength. My plan is to cut some holes in the platform to reduce its weight.

Once the platform was finished I bought a cheap foam mattress (about 100mm thick) and cut it to the shape of the platform. It was adequate, but not really as comfortable as I was hoping to be. So a quick visit to the local mattress manufacturer, a small truck load of cash changed hands, and bingo - one custom made inner-sprung mattress in a very unusual shape.

Privacy, bugs, and lighting.

So now I had a bed, but it was pretty public - like sleeping in a goldfish bowl. So it was time for some curtains. I considered a number of ways to do this, and opted for the easiest and cheapest. I few dollars down at the hardware and I had some little angle brackets and some curtain wire. It was a pretty easy job to bolt these to the plastic covers on the pillars.

Once the curtain wires were up I purchased some material and visited mum. We spent the day sewing up some curtains and some little Velcro tie backs. The velcro ties fit nicely on the handles. The rear window ties I screwed to the back door.

I decided I didn't want curtains all the way around the van, so for the rear side windows I made some lightweight PVC Foam shades that Velcro to the windows. These pull down and store under the mattress when not in use.

So there it was, privacy achieved. I also sewed little squares of velcro to the curtains where they meet to ensure they stay tightly closed. Note the rear seat folded up against the side of the van. I actually just leave it down now, far more convenient.

The next problem I had was insects. I need to leave the windows cracked a little to allow ventilation. However I was visited by clouds of mosquitoes and things all night. I had a look around the internet to see what to do about that. Other than some ridiculous things called window socks, there wasn't much available. So out came the PVC foam again.

After a bit of template making, some insect netting and spray paint from the hardware store, I had some nice little screens that fit on top of the window glass and allow some breeze through. They consist of two layers that the netting sandwiches between. The inside layer fits into the glass slots, the outer layer hangs down over the window glass to make it more insect proof.These fit up underneath the rain shields so can be used in all weather. I have some plans to build some with bigger holes for dry summer nights.

Now that I was bug proof, I needed lighting. The first thing I did was replace the pathetic little interior bulbs with some LED versions. More light, and little battery drain. These were only a few bucks of www.aliexpress.com.

These provide adequate lighting, but while trolling around aliexpress I found these little USB spot lights for a few dollars each. I also got a multi USB socket for the lighter plug on the dash, and some USB extension leads, inline switches, and splitters. Each item was only a few dollars but seem to work well.

So now I was comfortable, private, lit, and bug proof. Time to go camping!

Extras

On my first trip I had some issues with eating and using the laptop mouse in the confined space. So using the left over scraps of ply I made a small table that slides onto the bed platform.

 I also added a water bottle in the boot and a folding camping chair. However now I couldn't access the huge storage area under the floor in the back. So I took to the lifting floor with a saw and now I can open it without moving the stuff.

Gallery