Make Your Own Microcamper: Part 3 - Sleeping IN your camper
This is my third newsletter about making your own micro-campervan. (I’ve slightly edited the past 2 posts on this subject, to make the numbering of the series clearer.) This post will deal with turning your car into a sofa and a bed for 1 or 2 people who will be sleeping IN your car. In the next one (or two) posts, I’ll talk about easy add-on options, for sleeping extra people in extensions or adaptations to the car - depending on whether you’re wanting beds for one person, for two intimately-familiar people, for two not-so-intimate adults, or for a whole family of adults and kids.
Removing the back row of seats
In the last newsletter, I described how you might go about converting a car differently if you want to retain the back row of seats for day-to-day use vs if you don’t ever need the back row of seats and can permanently remove them (or if you have a van, which never had any back row of seats in the first place). I need the back row for transporting my kids, but a vehicle without a back row undoubtedly gives you a lot more space and flexibility. In a Berlingo, once you’ve removed that back row, you’ll have a rear space to work with of around 112cm height, c. 120cm width and a length (which varies according to model) of around 175cm-182cm (longer in long wheelbase models: up to around 217cm long) from the boot door up to the back of the front seats. There are helpful floorplans for the various models of Berlingo here.
Berlingo owners (Berlingowners?) show fabulous creativity in the ways they go about converting this compact space into a sleeping, living and storage area. At the simplest end of the spectrum, some people buy large plastic storage tubs (such as Really Useful Boxes or Ikea Samla boxes) to fill the space (and store all their gear), and then simply unroll one or two self-inflating mattresses over the tubs for sleeping. Campfire Mag did a piece on microcamping with this sort of set-up.
Then there are Berlingowners who fit out their space with shop-bought furniture that fits perfectly. Ikea is a firm favourite supplier, and many petite campers who only want a single bed go for the Sniglar toddler bed, and put storage underneath; and make adaptations to the Duktig toy kitchen to use it as a storage unit.
Some owners make their own furniture. A particularly popular design is for an extendable day-bed. In this set-up, a narrow single bed is constructed, in which the bed frame consists of 2 layers of slats. When the slats are pushed together, the bed can be used as a sofa, with floor & knee space between the bed and the cupboards. For sleeping, the slatted surfaces are pulled apart and the bed widens to fill all available space. An outdoor enthusiast, camper and photographer called Tom Edwards has helpfully documented his construction of such a day bed on his website (NB he was making one for a VW Caddy, not a Berlingo).
Whichever arrangement you choose, you’ll need to make sure that EVERYTHING is securely fastened down and immovable when you’re driving: loose items can be lethal in a crash. If you’re planning this style of conversion, I’d recommend joining some of the many micro-camper groups on Facebook, and being inspired by members’ experiments and creativity. You might want to try groups like ‘Berlingo/Peugeot Partner Campers Only’, ‘Modified Berlingo/Partners Owners Club’, ‘Women with Microcampers’, and ‘Car Campers UK’.
You can also buy ready-made conversion kits from various companies. A popular manufacturer is Chapel Motorhomes, which specialises in a set-up in which the kitchen storage units don’t run along the length of the car (as in all the images above), but across its width, just inside the boot door. This leaves a large(ish) space between the storage units and the front seats, which can house one or two extendable benches that can be used as sofas and converted quickly into beds; plus, if desired, a central removable table. Chapel Motorhomes can convert your vehicle; or you can buy the conversion kit and install it yourself. A double one starts at £2899.
Retaining the Back Row of Seats
In the above set-ups, you have a relatively blank canvas to work with. But when you need to retain the back row of seats for day-to-day use, then you have to work around the dimensions of those seats (and whatever dimensions they assume when they’re folded down). By far the most popular micro-camper set-up in this context is what’s known as a ‘boot jump’: a unit, usually constructed of plywood, that sits semi-permanently in your boot space. (It’s easily removed by simply unscrewing 2 clamps, but boot jumps are heavy - often around 50-60kg - and they’re bulky, so they need somewhere spacious to be stored. You wouldn’t want to be switching a boot jump in and out of your car too often). It has a solid base, which acts as a floor and measures roughly similar to the footprint of your boot. Various storage boxes are fitted onto the base (and I’ll talk about what storage they contain in a later post). Onto these storage boxes are attached, by hinges, 2 large leaves and a leg panel. When the boot jump is folded up for transport, its leaves and leg sit, folded neatly on top of the storage boxes and base.
Many people make their own boot jumps - and, again, I’d recommend joining Facebook groups, where members generously upload plans of their creations. There are also lots of companies that produce them, in various configurations - you can get them with single beds, double beds, simple sofas, L-shaped corner sofas, U-shaped sofas. Mine is a ‘Getaway’ model made by R.E.D. Campers. With foam mattress cushions (which all fit together to form a small double bed, and a U-shaped sofa), it cost c.£1045. It does take up a lot of boot space, but there’s still lots of space for boxes and suitcases etc to sit on top of the boot jump on a day-to-day basis, or for when I’m driving to a campsite.
To convert the boot jump into a bed or sofa arrangement is quick and easy.
(1) fold down the back row of seats (remove any kids’ car seats first). In my car, the seats don’t fold flat against the floor. (If you have a Mk 3, and the seats do fold flat, then your boot jump won’t be resting against the seats - but you can buy/make an extra support leg to keep it aloft).
(2) fold out the hinged leaves of the boot jump.
(3) if you want to use the boot jump in sofa mode, then slide the front seats forward, and slightly tilt them forward. Unfold the boot jump so that the leg panel is resting against the top of the 2 front seats, just below the head-rests. This will put the boot jump into this position:
(4) Now you can arrange the cushions onto the wooden unit, and the small middle panel at the front can be placed onto the removable table post (which comes with the conversion unit, and fits into a socket onto the base of the unit) to form a central table, which can be swivelled around for comfort. And voilà! A U-shaped seating area and table. I’ve fit 2 adults & 3 children around this, but admittedly it was a bit…cosy.
(5) To convert the boot jump into a small double bed, move the front seats further forward (you can fold them completely flat by removing the headrests). Now the boot jump will fold out flat, with the leg panel resting on the floor, rather than against the front seats. Replace the table panel in situ so that the boot jump forms a continuous surface, and arrange the cushions so that they tesselate into a full mattress. I recommend buying this 4-foot small double fitted sheet, which fits perfectly and prevents the cushions from sliding apart.
And now you have a small double bed, with plenty of space for 1 adult. In my experience, it can also accommodate 2 small adults, or 2 children, or 1 adult + 1 child. There’s plenty of storage in the footwell of the back row of seats, as well as at the front of the car, in which you can keep your clothes, power banks etc - but I’ll talk about that in a later post about storage. And in the next newsletter, I’ll cover the various sleeping options for when you need more than a small double bed. See you soon! x