My Minivan to Camper Conversion (Part 1 - Requirements and Bed Build)

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video, I'm going to show you how I converted my 2015 Honda Odyssey minivan into a camper that sleeps two.  This is the first of a three part series.  This first video covers my requirements and the bed platform build.  Video 2 will cover other sleeping concerns and how we use the van when we are not sleeping and Video 3 will cover the kitchen and other miscellaneous thoughts.

Why?

I know minivan conversions are all the rage and a hot trend right now on social media, but I swear, I have been thinking about building out my minivan since at least 2012.  I'm definitely the most enthusiastic camper in my household.  Growing up, my family's main summer vacation was camping for 2 weeks about 2 miles down the road from our house and it is still in my bones.  The problem is -- my bones are old and creaky now and sleeping in a tent on the hard ground with some super thin camp mattress just does NOT work for me.  And I detest inflatable mattresses.  So, 10 years ago, I started thinking that I could just slide a full mattress directly into the back of my minivan and sleep on that.  But because I also wanted storage room, I'd probably have to build a platform to put the bed on. 

Fast forward to now -- everyone is doing this!  People are actually living in their minivans full time and I've been obsessed with watching these van to camper conversion videos on YouTube.  The other important thing to note is that I'm practically an empty nester since my youngest is a senior this year.  That means fewer weekend activities and fewer unhappy campers to lug around.  Here's are some other problems that this solves:

• 1 - When I've been out hiking all day long, the last thing I want to do is set up a tent, blow up a mattress, and build a campfire to cook food.  Bleh.  I'm exhausted, I just want to heat up some soup and roll over and go to sleep.  Sleeping in a van allows you to do just that.
• 2 - I hate, hate, hate packing up a wet tent in the morning.  And let's face it, the tent is always going to be wet from morning dew.  I have kind of a mildew phobia, so the idea of all of that moisture being trapped in a bag all day long gives me the heebie jeebies.
• 3 - The quality of sleep is 500 times better.  An at least 6" thick mattress is absolutely key to sleep quality.  Plus, I have all kinds of sleep sensory issues and, in a van, I have a lot more control over sound, light, and temperature than I would in a tent.
• 4 - And finally, I love a good project.  And this is the sort of thing that my ADHD hyperfocus will bite down on and just not let go until the project is complete. 

How?

Okay -- so that was all of the why -- now let's talk about HOW I approached converting my van.  I had some limitations in terms of how much time and energy I was willing to devote and how much money I was willing to spend.  My requirements were as follows:

• My design, my work - I come from a family of mechanical engineers, but this is unfortunately not where my talents lie.  That said, I have a bunch of power tools, very rudimentary carpentry skills, and a lot more confidence than is really warranted.  So, I wanted to do the work myself.  I watched a ton of YouTube videos and gained a lot of design ideas from others, but for the most part, I wanted to do my own design and build.
• Under $1,000 - I wanted to keep the project cost low.  This doesn't include the solar power solution, which blew that limit out of the water.  My power solution is a bit overkill for what I want now, but I thought it would be a good investment for future expansion.
• Removable - I didn't mind building a bit, but the minivan is the regular car that I drive, so I needed to be able to remove everything, store it in my garage, and rebuild it fairly easily.  So the requirements there are that it's not too bulky for storage and that I can take it apart and put it back together quickly.  In addition, I didn't want to make any irrevocable changes to the van for eventual resale value.

So, now let's get into the design.  First off, the

Bedroom - Bed Platform

• Space - Okay -- to give myself as much room as possible, I removed the middle row of seats and stored or folded down the third row of seats.  Some people take this third row out altogether, which allows for more storage, but for my purposes, folding them into the trunk well worked just fine. 
• Level - The Honda Odyssey is significantly sloped up in the back so that just behind the driver's seat is about 7" lower than the rear of the van.  That meant that in order to make my sleeping platform level, I needed to cut the legs accordingly.  Because I wanted about 12" of storage space to access from the back of the van, I need to make the legs in the front of the van about 19" tall. 
• Size - This van is build to accommodate a 4x8 foot sheet of plywood, so I decided to make a bed that was 4 feet wide and 6 feet long.  That works great for me since I'm around 5 feet tall, but is not perfect for my husband who is over 6 feet.  The good news is he is WAY less picky about his sleep environment and tends to side sleep, so he signed off on this design.
• Middle - Just a quick disclaimer, my carpentry skills are crap, so no judging on the quality of my workmanship.  I was going for utility over beauty, which will be completely obvious to you.  I built three heavy duty middle pillars -- which were probably engineering overkill in hindsight.  Each is made from 2 6x2 and 2 2x4s screwed together.  The 2x4s sit down lower to accommodate the lateral pieces for the back and the front of the bed.
• Back - The back part of the bed is super solid and has three 2x4s coming off of each middle pillar.  This rectangular frame is made by horizontally laid 2x4s.  I laid the 2x4s horizontally to give me more clearance for the storage underneath.  Each of the 3 2x4s running from the middle to the back is supported not only by a middle pillar, but by two additional legs made of 2x4s.  These are joined in the back by one more horizontally laid 2x4.  Everything is held together by 2 1/2" construction screws or steel L brackets.  All of these are easy to back out with a cordless drill.    Just a quick note -- the legs all needed to be measured and cut individually since not only does the van slope, but the floor is also super uneven and dips in the middle.  So, I had to add some plywood to the middle pillar to correct my assumption that the middle legs would all need to be the same length!  Anyway -- you can see this back part of the bed is all very solid.
• Front - The front part of the van I wanted to be removable so that I could transform this portion into a living room, which I will get into in the next video.  I got some of these ideas from a design by a company that makes these bed platforms custom to fit your van -- I wish I could remember the name of the company to give them credit.  If I do remember, I'll put it in the video description.  Anyway -- their design was MUCH lower to the ground than mine needed to be to allow for storage in the back.  I ended up making these 3 L shaped legs that attach to the middle pillars with 2 wooden dowels each.  These ended up being 19" off of the ground, so I worried a little about stability.  To make them a little more stable, I held them together with a piece of metal that I think is used for drywall framing for corners.  Anyway -- it has holes already cut into it, I just cut it to length, taped the ends a bit because they were sharp, and drilled some holes in the legs for pins.  Then I pinned these into place with three removable nails to keep the legs hooked together a bit.  In the end, I'm not sure it is necessary since the legs are pretty stable once you have the weight of the mattress to hold them down, but it makes me sleep a little better.
• Top - Finally, the platform part of the bed is made up of two 4 foot by 3 foot pieces of 1/2" plywood.  1/2" is way lighter and easier to work with than 3/4" plywood.  I had Home Depot cut these for me since I don't have a table saw.  These I covered with indoor/outdoor carpet.  I used adhesive spray to stick the carpet to the plywood and then a staple gun to keep it in place.  Now the mattress slides onto this platform without a bunch of wood splinters everywhere.  These sheets aren't anchored to the frame in any way.  The sheet in the back is held in place since it's almost exactly the width of the van.  The front piece slides around a bit if I'm driving, but once there are people on top of it, it doesn't shift at all.

Okay -- so those were my requirements and the bed platform build.  Join me in my next video when I share other sleeping concerns and using the van as living space when we aren't sleeping.  And let me know what you think.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!