Building slide out sofa bed with lift up lid - Van Build Series - Episode 25

[Music] [Music] hi guys and welcome to the next episode in the series in this week's video i'm going to be making a pull-out sofa bed to go here and that's so that the van will comfortably sleep three people potentially four people are push once i turn that seat into a double swivel seat if i can find the right adapter plate for it i'm making it up as i go along so i'll try and explain as best i can what i'm doing but i'm going to be sort of doing this video retrospectively i'm going to make it first and then talk about how i've done it afterwards once i'd worked out the dimensions for the pull-out sofa bed i began making the initial frameworks i had to make two frames the first one here is for the slide-out section of the bed and that will have half of the bed slats attached to it as you can see i'm using pocket hole joinery to join the frame together and you guessed it this is more upcycled wood from old futons the second frame you can see here is for the front section of the base unit and that will be permanently fixed in place a router a rebate in two of the frame sections and that's to take a piece of ply and because the rebate cutter is rounded i have to chisel out the corners to take a square piece of ply using a jigsaw i cut out the ply panels and then just neaten the edges up using the miter saw i cut two holes out one's for a 6x9 speaker and the other one is for the hot air vent from the diesel heater i'll go back over the framework and just put some bevels on the edges to make it look a bit neater and finally i give it all a coat of sage green chalk paint and a top coat of lacquer just to protect it this is a cut out for a speaker and this is a cut out for the air vent so i'm now gonna put these in the back here i've made two frames here so the inner one will be fixed in place and then this one will slide out that's one of the front panels i've put a batten across the back and i've cut out this piece of ply to go in here um i've raised that batten up at the back so that we can have a lift up lid on there and i'll put some hinges on the back so that'll lift up like that and then we can have this slide out section as well here you can see i've temporarily fixed a batten piece across the back and one across the front here with a spacer in between and that's to make the lift up lid section the spacer is so that it doesn't get caught on the front panel when you lift it up i measure and cut down our bed slats to length and then begin fixing them in place every other one and i'm fixing these ones to the the temporarily fixed battens and this will form the lift up lid section it's important to keep all the gaps even so i use a piece of three millimeter acrylic just to even out the spaces in between the bed slats but you could quite easily use a packer or a washer whatever you have handy i can now remove the temporary screws from the battens and lift out this section and continue to work on the base unit i finish off the end panel by cutting a hole out for a back box that's to have a double socket behind the driver's chair i then painted sage green with a top coat of lacquer so here i have my unbranded version of the lagoon style table leg this was under 100 pounds off of ebay whereas the lagoon branded one is around 170 pounds but we'll see how it holds up over time quality wise on first impressions it looks to be well machined and it comes with stainless steel fixings i'm going to fix my table leg bracket to the end panel of the sofa bed so i've reinforced it with a 2x4 and i'm just trimming down this metal plate so that it fits on there nicely where i want it and then we can go about bolting it through so it's nice and strong [Music] [Music] [Music] i've installed a couple of hinges at the back of this section so it lifts up now and that allows us to store larger items in here and access the diesel heater and the fuel tank [Music] [Music] i've screwed these slats to the front frame i now want to screw this piece of metal um to all of the slats at the back and that's just to keep the spaces nice and even so it slides out smoothly i've got a couple of these kenwood six by nines to go in and i'm gonna have one in the base of this unit here [Music] i need to make two more cupboard doors one to go in this recess here and one for this over cab storage cupboard [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] what i'm going to do to make this section of the bed slide up onto the batten a bit easier i've got this beveled router cutter here and i'm just going to run this on the ends of the slats and then that way when this meets the batten at the back it should automatically slide up to where it needs to be without getting caught on anything [Music] it makes sense to put a bevel on this edge as well so that when you slide it back in it doesn't get caught on a sharp edge [Music] there you go inside this unit we've got loads of storage the diesel heater is fully installed now so we've got a duct connected the pump's clipped down so it's not going to be rattling against anything and i've boxed in the fuel tank so that's not going to be rolling around spilling diesel everywhere i've connected my socket up and this speaker so that's all ready to go so there we have a really comfortable sofa i've basted around these old caravan cushions which i already had from the previous conversion and i think the most important thing when building your sofa is to make it comfortable so make the base nice and deep i think this is around 6 50 to 700 mil deep so you're not sitting bolt upright on it and also don't make it too tall because you don't want to be sitting on it with tiptoes touching the floor because that's going to be uncomfortable as well although this floral pattern's quite lovely and it's probably going to come back in fashion very soon i think i'm going to get some new material and get these recovered so it's a little bit more in keeping with the rest of the van so let me show you how this slides out into another bed so first of all i'm going to take the cushions off just put them at the front okay i've got these two handles on the front section and this is a section that slides out so i just give this a pull and this edge is smooth so it doesn't damage the floor that slides out stops there it won't go any further and that's to stop this lats falling out so it's nice and strong then i get these cushions these fold out i have one there a little bit too long this cushion but you can just tuck the excess down in there and then you have a third bed line across it diagonally you've got plenty of room here and it's nice and comfortable so that is a third bed and it takes no time at all to make it up you've got this little gap at the end here so you've got space to make it up that goes there that goes there slide that push that in there and it's quite difficult to make a sofa bed that slides out into a bed but can also have this lift up lid but this one does both i hope you've enjoyed this video and you found value in it if you did please don't forget to give this video a thumbs up and if you'd consider subscribing to the channel if you're not already subscribed i'd really appreciate it and thank you so much to everybody that's been following the build so far giving me ideas and suggestions i really appreciate it um and hopefully i'll see in the next one cheers guys take care [Music]

Channel: Turners Workshop

Views: 44,718

Keywords: vanconversion, Vanlife, Campervan, Homeiswhereyouparkit, Vanlifediaries, Home on wheels, Camper, Projectvanlife, Vanlifers, Van life movement, Van life ideas, Road trip, Van life explorers, Travel, Camper conversion, DIY camper, Budget campervan, Adventure, Camping, Self build campervan, Sofa bed, Storage idea, Camper inspiration, Vanlifeuk, Tiny home, Ford transit, Sprinter, Volkswagen t5

Id: Y7R__ZfoUAA

Length: 11min 59sec (719 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 04 2022