(MY BUILD vs Common Platform) Best DIY DESIGN for Small Vehicle Camper Conversion

hey guys welcome back to the channel so if you're new here on this channel mainly we talk about all things related to suv van life or nomadic living living in your vehicle and how best to do that so today what i'm gonna do is actually just go through a comparison of really a a very popular build that i keep seeing all over youtube and on the internet on blogs on reddit uh and i'm just going to compare that to my more uh you know non-traditional build that i find is just a much better use of the space what i'm talking about is a build like this where you kind of have a separated lounge area i still have one side of the seat in here i've got a full-size bed it's 26 inches wide it's very comfortable it's on four inch foam it is solid and i have a lounge area though as well you know i'm not restricted by a platform that goes from side to side and covers the entire area that i have to work with in my suv you see that a lot and i just wanted to do a quick comparison for you so that you can determine for yourself which you think might be more useful to you hey so let me just say right off the bat you guys that this video uh in no way is meant to disparage the efforts of other people and their wonderful builds okay because there's some really cool builds out there and yeah a lot of them are just straight up platforms uh this isn't about dissing anything or anyone or anything like that this is just about a comparison and about how you can get the most from a small space and me just really passing on what's worked for me so to sum up you guys really what this is all about is this right here uh the difference between a traditional platform build and my less traditional kind of side by side build we'll call it is just this i have a fully operational kind of lounge area where i can close my door i can be private i can do my thing i've got my bed here i love even to be able to like prop up my phone or my tablet or if you've got a laptop that'd be great too just right here on the bed this is like a workspace right here if you need it to be i did do a cooking video as well and if you're interested in cooking inside your small vehicle go ahead and check that out i show you how i transform my bed and use the platform underneath as a cooking surface as a table basically so you can cook in here but like i was saying i just it's all about this you just don't have this ability on a more traditional platform surface and for me living in my vehicle i want comfort i want usability i'm sure if you're watching this video that's what it's about for you too the main problem that i find is that when you do build out your car and you have one of these platforms only and you've got all your storage underneath it for one you can't sit up you get in your your suv at the end of the day and you're restricted to kind of laying down or propping up on an elbow and i think it's just going to be hard on your body after a while you know you want something that's really livable and not just meant for kind of weekend warrior fun times which is okay if that's what you're doing but i like to live out of my vehicle so you know this is just more beneficial to me i want to show you how i did it so that maybe you can make some strides toward doing it for yourself all right so the first thing we're going to do here is just show you the back of the vehicle so again in a traditional build with the platform you'll see just a platform probably about 14 inches up pretty much right around where this uh bed panel is here and it goes straight across and all the way through the vehicle and so like i was saying it makes things very difficult for you to uh well it makes it almost impossible for you to be able to sit up unless you're a very tiny person now with this what you've got is you have all your stuff a lot of storage accessible from the back of the vehicle this is a 2004 honda crv so i do have the side opening door which is really handy now we've got uh six drawers here and i've bought these off of amazon i'm gonna link this stuff below for you like i do in all my videos uh but these drawers just hold a lot of stuff you know i've got a bunch of food in here down there i've got some extra zip locks and things like that and this one's mostly empty with gear and whatnot so again uh with the more traditional build you guys you just don't have all of this layering that you can do here all of this the stacking uh you know your platform is kind of taking up the entire side or the entire inside rather of the vehicle and all you can do is either sleep on it or pile things on top of it next to you which again make it difficult to access one side of the vehicle and then most of your storage is going to be underneath the platform here's the lounge area i'm talking about you know i pulled out one side the passenger side of the rear seat and in these 2002 to 2006 models of the honda crv you've got kind of a 70 30 split of the back seat and what i mean is on the passenger side you've also got the middle seat section attached to it so when you remove the passenger side it's quite a bit of seat that you're taking out and it leaves you with this smaller seat right here that is just wonderful to leave in because it's very comfy obviously and it's built to be in there and it's sturdy it also folds up when you need it to just a little paper towel holder that i rigged up just with some twine cut some notches in a piece of wood hanging around the head rest boom done uh now back here so i'm just going to show you how this folds up you pull this latch down here and then boom your seat is all the way up when you need it to be that's useful if you have to go to the bathroom inside uh if you're stuck you know somewhere where you just can't use a public toilet and you're not in a fully rural setting and you can't just go outside so i do have a toilet in here if you're interested in this toilet and how it works it's the trip tips outdoors it's a foldable toilet it's so thin it's about you know two and a half inches thin probably about ten inches tall just a wonderful little unit and i made a video on that so you can check that out if you're interested in the toilet and how that works uh but again this space back here is just so useful it's just a bunch of open space typically i'll put my cooler back here kind of fits perfectly right there from the inside the shelf you can see i've got my clip-on usb fan i can access all of these i've got my utensils uh right there and i've got my toiletries of course over here on this side of the shelf inside we've just got some lighting and i've just kind of tucked that in over here right there that's the lighting there that's an independent unit if you're interested in like some of the gear and gadgets i did make a gear and gadget video uh you can go and check that out and i just kind of detail my favorite items that are in this build uh that you're looking at here you know what let me mention this real quick while we're talking about this lounge area look guys if you've got an suv and it's not exactly a 2002 or 2006 or somewhere in between like this is a 2004 honda crv and what i'm getting at is if you have an suv and you want to build it out like this but you don't have the 70 30 split that i've just kind of been uh graced with here uh and and you feel like oh it's only one big section i got to remove my whole back seat you can still do this build with something like that in the beginning when i was considering building my vehicle out like this i wasn't sure which way i was going to go about it i actually thought at one point that i was going to pull the entire back seat out both sides and what i was going to do well because i just have you know obviously this would all just be flat open space here right i'm going to just pull this up so you can see what i'm talking about but this would have just been flat floor right here and the seat would be gone in that case you can still make it work i'm going to show you how all right you familiar with this if you don't know what it is you're about to i'm sure you do though because if you're into this kind of living you've probably seen these chairs everywhere this is just a small camp chair or a backpacking chair now you can get these anywhere you can get them at rei you can get them on amazon you can get them at target okay and basically this just kind of folds out folds up this is my chair that i use outside but you could use it inside in the same way that i use my seat here and i'm just going to put this together and kind of show you what i mean all right here we go so this is what the chair kind of looks like they come in different models different sizes but mostly this is about the general size and this is kind of what you're looking for okay guys you don't want a camp chair that's too tall you want one of these shorter more squat ones okay because if this seat had to come out which may be in your build it has to that's fine pull it out you're gonna have a lot of flat space here just go ahead and put your chair right down here you still got a lounge you still got head clearance you got everything just the way you need it all right so that is kind of a workaround for some people who might want to do a build like this but don't have a 70 30 split in their back seat all right there you go uh so that's really it you guys uh that's a look as to why i think that a more traditional build is sometimes subpar versus just a little creativity that you put into your build this didn't take me long to put together at all it took me some thought you know i sat down we all have these wonderful brains to sit down and look at your vehicle go out make some measurements come back in kind of draw up a little rough schematic and then just kind of keep refining as you go that's all i did it maybe took me a few weeks to figure this thing out and probably about 500 bucks if you're interested in a more detailed monetary breakdown as to how much everything cost me to really put this together i could go into those details for you but i'm going to tell you right now it's right around 500 bucks for this complete build i got a lot of the stuff off of amazon and i always measured my interior dimensions based on my hoped for design and then i measured the products before i bought them on amazon most products that you'll find they have the the dimensions listed on the description of that product and i just kind of went back and forth measured things out and made sure it was going to fit before i pulled the trigger and bought it but as you can see it's really great i can you know this is just so easy i got a whole bunch of gear in here and it's just simple to lift that up i can pull that right out no problem uh all my other gear inside if you're interested as to like how i get to this stuff you can go ahead and watch a bunch of my other videos there's one called full time diy where i really just kind of go through a big tour of this build and then there's one called i think it's just a build video uh how to how to do your van life uh suv van life and uh that kind of goes into a more detailed step-by-step process of exactly how i did this build so guys there it is uh that's why i find that a less traditional build like this with you know one bed and you've still got all the space over here for lounging out and really chilling and not being cramped and being able to sit up i just find it to be much more optimal for my needs and maybe even for yours if what you're doing is hoping to live out of your vehicle and not just take it on weekend adventures so there it is thank you so much for being here you guys i really do appreciate it i know it's kind of bouncing around a bit in this video um but you know i just wanted to give you a quick look as to how i do what i do and why i think it's just a better design for living out of a small tight space which it is but you know what it's a lot of fun please like subscribe please share the videos if there's other people in your life that you think might benefit from this uh that means a lot it helps get the word out and helps uh just make it easier for me to be able to make more videos for y'all okay which i love doing so thanks again we'll see you out there have fun on the road adios you

Channel: InTheOpenAir

Views: 44,271

Keywords: SUV camper conversion, Minivan, Camper, Mini van, Van, Cheap, Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, SUV RV, Camper conversion, SUV van life, Vanlife, Truck camper, SUV camping

Id: zkU4wbTZOoQ

Length: 12min 39sec (759 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 30 2021