Queen to King - I hope!

[BigBearRick]

Hi All,

wow.. what a wealth of info on this forum... been much more informative than the hours i've spent on Netflix recently

I took delivery last month of my 2018 Sprinter Campfire to its winter storage. Sadly just got to spend a couple hours in it before I headed home. It sure looks like I can upgrade from its horrible residential queen to a bed-in-box king?

A couple of questions - the non-slide side has 16" from current mattress to wall. If I remove the shelf/nightstand - which looks like it just has a couple wall screws and an easy to remove base, then build a simple plywood platform to fill the gap between space... should be easy? ... and maybe put a small wall shelf a bit higher keeping the screws inline with the old ones (assuming they are into a metal stud?)

The top third is already a solid platform to the wall as its the pass through storage below. And the bottom couple of feet have a liftable lid for storage. Is the middle section that I can't see just air space? maybe exposed if I lift up the plywood base?... not that that will make much difference, as the platform will be stand alone anyway, but might want to attach the platform to it just to keep it from moving. I'll keep the end of the platform open to have some slide in storage.

I only see a downside of the person on that side (not me lol) needs to crawl in? Have I missed something?

[LewisB]

Certainly understand your desire for a king bed - they are great! I'm not sure I understand your plan; it sounds like you plan to extend the bed only into the space on the curb side, placing the bed off center and against the wall on the curb side, correct? While you could possibly do that, making the bed with no access down the side will be a major pain. If I was going to do this, I would try to keep the new mattress roughly centered in the trailer so I could slide down either side. I'd at least want 6" or so on both sides if possible.

Best of luck with your modifications!

[wiredgeorge]

We have a full queen where an RV queen went; I put a piece of plywood across the end where the full queen hung out so it didn't sag. We have a low rise 5th wheel and have to kind of wiggle around the end then up the little space on the side. Was think about getting rid of the nightstands and the bed platform and putting a king on the place where these things went and I could add some shelves to replace the nightstands. It would make getting in/on the bed a lot easier and these would be more room for me since the missus prefers her pups when camping and they hog the bed. I can't lift the darn bed anyway as we have a 14" mattress and it is heavy.

[BigBearRick]

Originally Posted by LewisB

Certainly understand your desire for a king bed - they are great! I'm not sure I understand your plan; it sounds like you plan to extend the bed only into the space on the curb side, placing the bed off center and against the wall on the curb side, correct? While you could possibly do that, making the bed with no access down the side will be a major pain. If I was going to do this, I would try to keep the new mattress roughly centered in the trailer so I could slide down either side. I'd at least want 6" or so on both sides if possible.

Best of luck with your modifications!

Good idea... i've got 16" spare on both sides, although I will need to check to see how much the wardrobe slide comes in on the other.. but yes, a pain to change if it tucks into the wall

[LHaven]

Originally Posted by BigBearRick

I only see a downside of the person on that side (not me lol) needs to crawl in? Have I missed something?

It's a lot tougher to make the bed when an entire side is up against the wall.

It looks like you have generous free space now between the nightstands and the mattress. What size mattress could you fit just using that free space, and would that satisfy you?

Note that Keystone routinely fits centered "king beds" (of some size or other) into rigs in this orientation, with much the same nightstand placement, though the stands are narrower (and probably obtainable through their parts house). See the interactive walkthrough of the 26DBS, which comes with a "king bed." You might be able to copy this design simply by replacing your lower liftboard with a wider one you custom-cut.

[BigBearRick]

Originally Posted by LHaven

It's a lot tougher to make the bed when an entire side is up against the wall.

It looks like you have generous free space now between the nightstands and the mattress. What size mattress could you fit just using that free space, and would that satisfy you?.

Yep, with a memory foam mattress, they are hard to lift to tuck in.... The curb side does have a 16" free space, so a standard king can go to the wall... I may be able to gain a small bit on the other side, but on my model, the table sits on a enclosed box, which i was told contains all the auto level stuff, and that side also has a wardrobe slide that comes almost to the bed when closed... but If i can get an inch or so and squish the mattress a bit, I will try.

Sigh, I think i'm just thinking of things to do out of boredom, which is tough when its parked 2 hours away versus sitting in my driveway

[flybouy]

Originally Posted by BigBearRick

Yep, with a memory foam mattress, they are hard to lift to tuck in.... The curb side does have a 16" free space, so a standard king can go to the wall... I may be able to gain a small bit on the other side, but on my model, the table sits on a enclosed box, which i was told contains all the auto level stuff, and that side also has a wardrobe slide that comes almost to the bed when closed... but If i can get an inch or so and squish the mattress a bit, I will try.

Sigh, I think i'm just thinking of things to do out of boredom, which is tough when its parked 2 hours away versus sitting in my driveway

I'll give you a suggestion. Next time you make the trip to the camper take a tape measure with you. Take a measurement of an area, say the bed. First take a picture of what you're ,measuring, then take a picture of the tape measure. As an example, take a picture of the bedding in between the nightstands. Now you know what you measured. Then take a picture of the tape measurement of the mattress, then the distance between each night stand.

I did this the first summer after we got our trailer. I measured everything, the pictures are free and I just transferred them to a folder on the computer. I measured backsplash in kitchen & bathroom, entertainment center opening for the television, you name it. Also measured things outside like room for the battery box, tank drain clearance and height from the ground, size of steps, and on and on.

I know it may sound crazy but I had all the info in place that I thought I'd need. Then, over that first winter I had what I needed to look at things like replacing the television with a bigger unit, measurements to calculate backsplash tile, etc. I could think of a project, research the cost, and keep an eye out over the off season for things that I wanted to go on clearance or Black Friday sales. It's saved me some money and time over the years.
YMMV

[BigBearRick]

Originally Posted by flybouy

I'll give you a suggestion. Next time you make the trip to the camper take a tape measure with you......I know it may sound crazy .
YMMV

Flybouy, not a crazy idea at all.... I also made another newbie mistake and left the battery connected with no AC power at the site . So i'm going up this week to bring it back to my basement/trickle charger... Tape measure will be with me now!

A cyber sale last week got me a Tuft & Needle bed $150 off, so winter is a great to to get an empty rv ready for spring

have a great holiday season

[dutchmensport]

I strongly, strongly advise you actually use the camper a few times (like 2 or 3 at the very least) before making ANY changes or modifications to anything.

Jumping in and making changes may end up costing you more in the long run later. There are reasons why things are built the way they are. You need a good understanding of your camper first before removing or modifying anything. That only comes by spending time inside the camper, actually using it, and finding it's "natural" flow. You may be perfectly fine in what you want to do, but what happens if you are not?

[BigBearRick]

Originally Posted by dutchmensport

I strongly, strongly advise you actually use the camper a few times (like 2 or 3 at the very least) before making ANY changes or modifications to anything.

Good point... as this pre-purchase of a mattress might be a waste of $600 .. I think I will keep it in its box until I make sure the residential queen is really not that bad for size... and then just upgrade the queen to a good mattress

[linux3]

Sorry to go astray on this but...
We have a full size mattress at home and a queen in the TT.
We have been looking at how to recover space if we replace the TT mattress with a full size.

So, we do find this funny.

[MarkEHansen]

If you let your battery go dead, then you really should replace it. It's lost a good deal of it's charge-holding capacity.

Also, don't use a trickle charger. They are bad for batteries, You need a real battery maintainer (like a DelTran Battery Tender Plus, for example).

[BrooksFam]

Originally Posted by BigBearRick

………..!

A cyber sale last week got me a Tuft & Needle bed $150 off, so winter is a great to to get an empty rv ready for spring

have a great holiday season

We have a Tuft and Needle matress in the house and love it. Were going to get one for the TT but there is 1/2 storage under the bed and I don't think I would be able to lift easy enough it to access the storage. On our last MH the whole bed platform lifted with struts and that was much nicer.

[mikec557]

Originally Posted by BigBearRick

Hi All,

wow.. what a wealth of info on this forum... been much more informative than the hours i've spent on Netflix recently

I'm not suggesting this is THE solution, rather I'm just adding to your options. There are some great foam mattresses to choose from (we prefer 10 inch thick mattresses). But the beauty of them is that you can carve them up fairly easily with an electric turkey carving knife. For instance, we cut a 76 inch wide king mattress down to 70 inches to fit between our nightstands.

In your situation maybe you could take a king mattress, first trim it to 70 inches wide which would overhang your present bed support 5 inches on each side (ignore slide clearance for now). Then notch out the head of the mattress to fit between your nightstands. At the head of the bed you'd be 60 inches wide between nightstands and then become 70 inches wide right past the nightstands.

This would give you a little walk space on each side. If you don't like the soft 5 inch edge you could add some kind of extension to the platform under the mattress. Finally, while I described this as centered on your present bed support, your closed slide clearance may require you to notch the top "off centered" thereby shifting the mattress. Also, remember my suggested dimensions are just that, suggestions. Carve it to fit your needs.

On our first such project the mattress cover (ticking?) had a zipper on the bottom and getting into the mattress to carve it up was easy. The second such project was a little tougher, no zipper. Wife used a seam ripper to gain access. Then used a Frankenstein stich to close and take up the slack after the carving.

Just a thought.

Mike

[LHaven]

Originally Posted by mikec557

In your situation maybe you could take a king mattress, first trim it to 70 inches wide which would overhang your present bed support 5 inches on each side (ignore slide clearance for now). Then notch out the head of the mattress to fit between your nightstands. At the head of the bed you'd be 60 inches wide between nightstands and then become 70 inches wide right past the nightstands.

DW, our family's Tetris expert, is salivating at the opportunity to make a bed like that.

[mikec557]

Originally Posted by LHaven

DW, our family's Tetris expert, is salivating at the opportunity to make a bed like that.

Glad I could be of service. 😁

PS, Tetris. Now that takes me back a ways...!

[BigBearRick]

Originally Posted by MarkEHansen

If you let your battery go dead, then you really should replace it. It's lost a good deal of it's charge-holding capacity.

Also, don't use a trickle charger. They are bad for batteries, You need a real battery maintainer (like a DelTran Battery Tender Plus, for example).

Thanks... ordered DelTran today

[BigBearRick]

Originally Posted by mikec557

I'm not suggesting this is THE solution, rather I'm just adding to your options. There are some great foam mattresses to choose from (we prefer 10 inch thick mattresses). But the beauty of them is that you can carve them up fairly easily with an electric turkey carving knife. For instance, we cut a 76 inch wide king mattress down to 70 inches to fit between our nightstands. Mike

yes!... I spotted several youtube vids of using an electric carving knife to cut around shelves... that is one of the reasons I chose a Tuft & Needle (besides the fact I have one at home and LOVE it)... it doesn't have gel, so can be trimmed if needed

[flybouy]

Must be interesting putting a bottom sheet on a mattress shaped like a puzzle piece.

[mikec557]

Originally Posted by flybouy

Must be interesting putting a bottom sheet on a mattress shaped like a puzzle piece.

Not my job man... My job is to fix the RV when something stops working. LOL!
(don't tell my wife I said that...)