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.

Paint and Floor

Things have been going rather slowly with the build lately. The upper rails are installed, and the caravan received a coat of primer and 2 coats of bright green paint. The interior received a coat of white. We had some leftover floor tiles from remodeling our bathroom that we decided to install. They look great and will be easier to keep clean than a painted floor.

The next step will be to install the bunk and then wall covering. I shopped for cloth but what my wife liked was $45 a yard. Just too pricey. Instead, we have decided to cover thin PVC bathroom wallboard with vinyl wall paper. The plastic should be stiff enough when installed on the caravan to eliminate the need for bows in the middle section of the caravan. Anyway, that is for the next post.

Upper End Panels

Here are some pictures of the caravan with the upper end panels attached. At this point, we thought it would be good to prime the whole caravan before any additional work was done because I can still get to the areas that will be under the bed easily. The bottom of the door has been cut out. I had to add some glue between the plywood panels at the base of the door so it was clamped. My door opening was lowered about 1, 1/2" in an effort to make the door open wider. Ideally the door should open at least 90 degrees before hitting the overhang of the bow top. This is a link to some Canadian friends building their own caravan. http://www.romanyrest.com/blog/

End Panels

The next step is to attach the end 3/8" plywood end panels. I must say that the templates made this much easier than drawing it out by hand. I cut two panels at a time by screwing two sheets of plywood together. This made both end panels match, but if you make a mistake, you will mess up both end panels instead of just one. I chose a spot for the screws where the king posts would be screwed in to avoid having extra holes in the plywood.

My end panels were modified for the additional height of the box. Instead of having the squared off bottom of the end panel 11 1/2" high, I made it 15 1/4" high. I also decided to add an additional 3/4" so that the end panel covered the end of the sheet of plywood for the floor for a total of 16". Instead of making the bottom panel higher, I simply drew it out per the template, changed the squared off bottom from 11 1/2" to 16" high, and then lopped off a portion of the curved section to to accommodate the extra height of the box. My bottom end panel is now 3/4" higher than called for in the plans, but mounted, it is the same height. Now the end panels can be screwed and glued to the floor plywood making a very strong joint. You can see the additional screws every 6" on the bottom of the end panel. Now the end panel and upper part of the caravan cannot separate from the floor. The plywood sides make for a weaker joint than the 1x12s attached to the floor so I decided the overlap would compensate for this. As you can see, I will have to cut part of the box out that is covering the door opening.

The Benches

The plans call for benches using 1x12s. I decided to use another sheet of 3/4 plywood so I could make the benches 18" deep to be more comfortable to sit on. The final depth of my benches was 18 3/4". The reason I chose 18" is because cushions are readily available for patio furniture that will fit the benches. My boys could also sleep on the benches. That is my significant other sitting on the bench before they were permanently mounted;) As you can see, the benches are much more functional and there is plenty of space between them for leg room and a walkway. The benches extend about 11" into the box. That leaves 26" for the walkway and king posts. Plenty of room;) Tim suggested adding a 1x3 along the upper edge of the box to add support for the bench so I did that before mounting the benches. The benches are screwed into the 1x3s. [Tip: Mount the end panels before the benches for a tighter joint between the end panel and the bench]