Minivan Camper Space Saving No-Build Bed/Chair | Mutiple Configurations, Maximum Comfort

[Music] hey everyone it's jay with journey vision and today we're going to talk specifically about my tri-fold mattress and why i chose this for my layout for my minivan camper build [Music] so i've been on the road for a total of 18 months and i've had a lot of experience both sleeping and sitting on this bed and lounge solution right here so first off i just want to say it's incredibly comfortable to sit on i highly recommend getting pillows you need something in the middle to provide some lumbar support and support your back and it's just really comfortable to sit in you sink in it it wraps around my legs and there's plenty of room in the back for me to rest my back against i will say it's probably not the best for my posture but as long as you mix in a little stretching and yoga you'll be fine so in my year and a half of living in this minivan i've been through three different types of these tri-fold mattresses and i will say all of them i ran into the exact same issue when living full time in a minivan and when you sleep and when you sit on the single piece of furniture every single day day in day out it takes a beating and ultimately the memory foam and the foam underneath that gets a little bit mushy and it became uncomfortable to sleep on so all three mattresses regardless of how thick the foam was really i think it's all the same foam it might just be a little bit different thicknesses and what i'd like to do is cover the three different mattresses that i've used so when i very first started van life in april of 2018 i started off with this blue millard fold out bed so this one's really popular it's really common i've seen a lot of other minivan life people use them and truthfully i was really happy with this particular mattress the problem is like i said after two months of full time using it it got weak now the advantage to this blue mattress is it does have an extra fold so you can configure it a couple ways differently than the other two mattresses that i'm going to show but ultimately i really ended up not caring about that extra fold and like this one i would take it and fold it all the way back so i just had a longer back rest instead of stacking the two together to make a shorter rest so ultimately that ended up not being important the blue mattress did have a nice ventilated cover so one of the things that became important to me in these tri-fold mattresses was the cover i wanted a cover that i didn't have to throw a sheet over or maybe get a custom cover made i wanted something out of the box that looked good and was durable and i could wash and essentially use for my everyday van living so the blue one provided that so does this one and we'll get into that one here in a little bit so that was actually one of the things i liked about this blue trifle mattress it was also an xl and as you can see i'll show the dimensions in this little picture right here so after a couple months of using that blue mattress i decided to try something a little bit thicker and i purchased this mattress i'll pull up a picture of it right here for you to take a look at also bought off amazon this one was also made by millard so pretty much the same foam but it was bigger it was thicker and really had high hopes that this was going to be the solution and ultimately be a more comfortable bed so after having that mattress ultimately fail and again become uncomfortable to sleep on i decided to purchase this one and out of all three this one is the narrowest so it's not very wide the foam i would say is about five inches thick so in between the thickness of the blue one and the white one i really like that this one has the durable cover and this particular trifold mattress has about a year worth of use on it so i've really put this one through the ringer and have used it a lot now the question is how am i still sleeping on this after so long with it being uncomfortable so same thing this one i purchased and it became uncomfortable to sleep on after two months again but this time i had a solution one of my minivan camper friends dace he had this exped megamat air mattress so this became key it's actually sitting behind this trifold right now and here in a little bit we're going to go into that part of the bed feature but once i figured out to use this mainly for sitting and then throw the exped air mattress on topper on top of that i pretty much had the perfect sleep solution so i i really like this mattress because it has this neat little gray cover on here it's been very durable i've washed it a million times and actually when i get back from my seasonal job in september of this year i'm going to do a remodel on the van and actually replace this tri-fold mattress and actually purchase the exact same one here is the mattress in lounge mode as you can see it does sit pretty close to the floor there is a handle that comes in handy when you have it folded up that i'll show here in a minute and then of course i recommend some pillows to help support the middle of your back again a very comfortable place to sit and relax when i'm at camp or even when i'm on the road this setup is always available to me i've had some people ask if this mattress blocks my rear window and when it is set up like this you can see it does block about a quarter of the rear window but if you want to go ahead and fold it down it's not going to block any of it here you can see how the two handles actually come together and then from there you can easily move the mattress around there's the underside of it it is a mesh fabric on the back side so that really helps with condensation and keeps the airflow going through the bottom of that mattress here is a configuration of the trifold mattress that i use pretty frequently if i just want to crawl in the back or take a nap or maybe i'm watching some tv this lounge type configuration works out really well and here is a shot of the tri-fold mattress all folded out i want to introduce the air mattress that i've been using on top of this tri-fold mattress i have to fold out the tri-fold mattress then i'll put the air mattress topper on top of this foam mattress now i don't think you have to get the exact same exped air mattress that i chose i think there's a lot of other options out there i went with it because it was a very comfortable and very warm mattress i had a friend that was already using it and it actually matched the dimensions of this trifold mattress almost perfectly now what i want to show you is how it tucks behind the trifold mattress so it actually fits back there i don't roll it up at night i just fold it in half deflate it and throw it behind there i was concerned with putting that air mattress back there that it would take up floor space it took up a little bit but not much not enough to make it a concern i have the exped air mattress blown up and laid on top of the tri-fold mattress so with this i have just about 10 inches of comfort it's pretty incredible how this sleeps and this when i got this air mattress it's what made this whole system sustainable and made it keep working for a year where i'm at right now these two work really well together the air mattress is a little bit longer but i appreciate that i'm 6'2 so i'll take the extra inch certainly not going to matter if i'm hanging my feet down here but everything else fits really nice and together i probably have over 10 inches of comfort and this solution is what makes it so sustainable this exped air mattress is insulated you can fill it up to the perfect firmness for your good night's sleep that you need and it's easy to set up and take down it's self-inflating so i just pull it out about five minutes before bedtime let it fill up here's the pump all you do is you attach that to the inlet valve give it about i don't know 25 pumps is my recommendation here is the bed all made up with my down comforter and plenty of room for me to sleep for a six foot two tall guy i'm a huge fan of these down comforters if you can find one i highly suggest getting one all my bedding stores in this neat little cubby in the back corner i've had some people ask if this solution would work for two people i think it would you would have to base that upon how much room you have between these two cabinets or maybe you don't even have cabinets so i think maybe a full size maybe a double could work as well so there you have it guys is this the ultimate no build minivan bed you tell me leave me some comments below maybe there's something i missed in this particular system that you're interested in let me know as well i'm also going to include amazon links so if you look down below in the description i'm going to include amazon links for both the three trifold mattresses that i talked about and the exped mega matte topper that i'm using as well so thanks for following the journey i hope this helped you in your decision making when it comes time to build your bed it's a big decision and i'll tell you what i was so happy to not have to build a bed for my [Music] minivan

Channel: journeyvision

Views: 41,684

Rating: 4.9522958 out of 5

Keywords: minivan camper, minivan camper build, no build minivan, no build minivan bed, no-build bed, no-build minivan bed, no build suv bed, no-build suv bed, minivan camper conversion, honda, odyssey, sienna build, grand caravan build, minivan bed build, minivan camping, minivan conversion, living in a minivan, minivan tour, minivan living, camper minivan, journeyvision, Minivan camper chair, Millard Tri-Fold Mattress, Exped Megamat

Id: o5_x4WnAeus

Length: 10min 52sec (652 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 06 2021