The Paneling

The bunk is finished and painted. The wiring that will be covered by the paneling is installed. I reinstalled the outlet boxes on the sides of the caravan with a longer board so the center runner can be screwed into it making it much more solid. See pic. My wife covered the PVC panels with wall paper. The panels were $15 from Lowe's. They are relatively light weight and really give a solid feel to the walls. We let the wallpaper glue dry overnight. It was still not dry since the water can't soak into the panels. I think floor adhesive might work better but we did get the panels installed without too much trouble. Only time will tell if we have to re-do the wall paper. Next weekend I hope to install the air conditioner and finish the wiring.

[UPDATE: The water based glue on the wallpaper did not adhere to the PVC panels and will have to be re-done using another adhesive. It sure did look great for a day or two though]

The Bunk II

I finished bracing the bunk over the weekend. It is strong enough to support my 250 lbs without giving much. Once the plywood is installed on the bunk it will be even stronger. The center section will house a TV and DVD player. The sections on either side can be used for storage or sleeping as there is 6' of bench area available. Access to the rear most section will be through a hatch under the mattress. I plan to store stuff there that I don't need very often.

There are two outlet boxes on either side under the bunk. One will be used for an electrical outlet. The other for a dimmer switch for the lights. A piece of 1x2 hides them from view. After mounting them I realized that if I made the pieces of 1x2 a little longer, I could attach the middle 1x4 runners to it to stiffen them up. The angle of the side bunk supports is just right for this. The middle 1x4 runners bend when you put your weight on them because there is nothing supporting their 8' length, while the other two 1x4 runners are very stiff. I'll take care of that next weekend while I work on the wiring some more and figure out how to mount the air conditioner. While the build is going slowly, I like it that way as I have plenty of time to think things through.

The Bunk

Finally got around to working on the bunk. Our bunk will be 4'6" wide so we can use a standard full sized futon mattress on the bunk. Prior to mounting the lower end panels, I used one as a pattern for the bunk supports. The bunk supports were shortened 3/4 to account for the thickness of the benches. 1x2 strips were attached along the upper edge of the bunk support to give me something to attach the bunk plywood to. A small piece of 3/8 plywood 2' wide covers the gap between the benches. Next I mounted the other bunk support 2' from the other. That leaves me 6' on the benches for sleeping areas. Now the caravan can sleep 6 easily. Both bunk supports were notched for the 2x2s that support the bunk. The bunk is not finished yet. I still have to add supports to the 2x2s. We couldn't resist putting the tarp on and seeing how the caravan will look covered. It actually felt much roomier inside once the cover was on.