The one thing I don’t like is the bed. (we have a tiny travel trailer, homemade, vanlifers are very smart when it comes to this stuff) I need a bed that is easy to put together or make, or install. It needs to be easy on my back. We just bought a small piece of heaven and we will be using the travel trailer a lot more. Our daughter will be 18 in a little over a year, we will be traveling more too. So a better bed that is also a couch would be awesome!
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Greetings!
Sofa/beds can be pretty easy to make, but comfort is a highly personal thing. For my current rig, I opted for a house style metal framed futon sofa/bed, then created the cushions out of 4" camping pads. It’s not quite as comfortable as my home made ones, but it was quick, cheap, and easy. In fact I got the frame for free. These also come as bunk beds if you have enough ceiling height.
I just extended the legs to clear my wheel well. The seat angle of the sofa is important to me, in the bunk picture, you can see the angles of the seat back and bottom. These do come in different designs too, make sure you get the wall hugger design.
My DIY version was actually a little more comfortable, and it was based on the spring bed frame design like this.
These used springs all the way around, suspending like a piece of metal fencing. So I built 2 matching frames out of 1" metal conduit, using the slightly smaller premade rounded corners. After adding the legs & stupidly simple leveling arms, I wrapped the top of the frames with boat rope (moisture proof), to create a way to attach the springs to the conduit frames. Then instead of metal fencing, I made a similar grid pattern out of the same rope. So this gives you a light weight, vented, spring suspended base under your cushions. VERY COMFORTABLE!!! If you decide to go this route, I can help you with the design of the moving parts for converting it between bed & sofa.
Cheers!
"The less you have that CAN go wrong, the less you have that WILL go wrong!" ~Murphy
Those wouldn’t work. I looked at several. I would have to anchor it in such a way, because of the width of the futon frame, we would not be able to get on it.
Greetings!
I don’t understand, why wouldn’t you be able to get on it?
Cheers!
"The less you have that CAN go wrong, the less you have that WILL go wrong!" ~Murphy
In the U.K. (and Europe) its popular to use Birchwood Slats supplied by IKEA and very cheap to buy (about $20 a set). As IKEA is a global brand I would guess they are probably available in the US. They are known as LURÖY Bed Slats (probably a Scandinavian word). You can cut them to fit any size you want, which is how I made the bed in my camper-van. Hope this helps.
the width that is available wouldn’t accommodate it. We would literally have to climb over the railings to get into it. I have a bad back and muscle spasms. Also, I would need to secure it to the floor, which means it would throw it off balance during travel.
I am still looking for bed ideas, i will post what the area looks like when I can figure out how to log in on my phone. For some reason, it wont let me.
I got a murphy bed kit for my old can and built one that folds up for more floor space. It was nice. Added a temperpedic mattress and I loved sleeping in it more than any hotel. You can youtube murphy bed and see if you wanted to take that on or not.
Greetings Dahlia,
In addition to Casey’s comment. I have no personal experience with a Murphy bed, but I know a couple who had one. It can be folded when completely made up, and deploying it and folding it was very easy.
They seemed to like it.
So good luck choosing!
We used our Casper mattress and cut it to fit our sizing needs. 
It might be worth finding two twin sized versions of what you need, or maybe just a king even, and then cutting it down to your desired dimensions.
I’ve been looking for a Jack Knife Couch Bed for a long time, and I’m so glad I bought this RV sofa bed. The fabric is the most durable fabric in the industry and is designed to perfection. My wife and I couldn’t be more pleased with the RV sofa.
This RV sofa bed is a marvelous product from a top tier company. However, we must note that some taller adults did have issues fitting comfortably onto this model.