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.