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We have been busy little bees here at Disabled Nomads. Weather couldn't be better, so we got to work. We purged some more things, too. We decided to dedicate July to "get rid of stuff" month. Everyday we try to find something to let go.
We had the broken down jack-knife-bed-couch removed in June and swapped the drawers over to the space where the couch was and put in a Walmart Futon/Sofa, that was on sale, where the drawers were. The difference in the amount of space was amazing. It's was almost like we had a slide-out installed!
With that stuff done, it allowed for the captains chairs in the cockpit to be free to spin all the way around and face into the coach. I got the idea to have the chairs face each other and then span the space between them with a bed so that I didn't have to keep turning the couch into a bed and back into a couch every day. I had been doing that for a year and it had gotten really old. I didn't want to keep doing anymore.
Premade made frames just wouldn't fit in the space, so we'd have to make something custom. I found some ideas on the net for making a light weight frame and went with it. We decided on 1 x 4 side rails with canvas wrapped around it that's laced at the bottom (like a shoe). Then I tried different configurations of the mattress toppers that I had to find the most comfortable fit. The winner was one mattress topper inside between the lacing and the canvas top with the second topper on top of the canvas. We are considering replacing the inner mattress topper with an air mattress to make it lighter and adjustable (like a Sleep Number Bed).
I had been saving canisters that cashews come in. While the weather was good, I used the box that the futon came in as a spray booth and painted the lids to the jars. I also made labels using my Cricut machine. Don made a board that spanned the entire stove all the way to the wall using the left over plywood from the drawers job. This created a nice, continuous, flat, workspace. He included a stopper to keep the canisters in place.
Future projects will be finishing touches like putting a facer board on the platform that the drawers sits on, painting the top and maybe painting a design on the board that covers the stove. After the paint is cured, I'd like to apply a couple of coats of polyeurethane to protect everything.
For now we're sitting back and enjoying the fruits of our labor.
