The Bed Raising

My van has a dinette/bed in the rear.  I have no need for seating for 6 or a 6'x6' bed and can comfortably sleep across the rear of the van.  I thought that having about 42 inches between the bed and the bottom of the upper cabinets was a lot of wasted space devoted to the bed.  It was also a lot easier to leave the bed in place while on the road than to make it up each day.  To that end, I decided to semi-permanently make a raised bed in the back.  I got poplar boards to make two boxes raising the bed area by 7.5 inches.   This is item 2 in my list.

The Fantastic Fan is not so fantastic

It finally got warm enough yesterday that the ceiling fan should have come on regardless of the thermostat.  It is sporadic and doesn't seem to work according to the speed control.  I made sure the lid was fully open so that wasn't it but it has to be more open than it did before.  This happened after I cleaned it up of the stink bug carcasses last fall so I must have done something to it.  I'm trying to figure out some way of putting a screen over the top side of it now that the stink bug plague makes that a needed thing.  In the pic, you can see some stink bug carcasses inside the center fan housing (those dark spots).  I haven't found a way to get them out.

Head Rest

The head rests on my otherwise very comfortable seats in my van are hard and do not give adequate neck support for long driving sessions.  I suppose it meets the safety requirements.  I made a padded sleeve to put over it to address these problems.  This is item 11 in my list.

Making the dinette seat comfortable

The curvature of the van wall makes for a rather uncomfortable back rest. LTV supplied a 3 foot cushion that doubles as the bed in the center but it doesn't give good back support at a comfortable angle.  Item 4 in my list.

Changes to my Van

Of course, the stock accouterments that come with my van are not completely to my liking.  Here's a list of things I think I need to add or modify to make it more comfortable for me and my pets.  This is as good a place as any to keep a list of things to do.

A Review of My Rig

I bought a used (3rd owner) Leisure Travel Van (LTV) Free Spirit 210B Class B van. It is built on a 2005 22 foot long Sprinter van with the diesel engine. The interior behind the cab is 14 ft. by 5’8” yielding about 79 sq ft. The cab adds about another 2 1/2 ft. to the center console. The passenger seat swivels to the face the back but while comfortable, it is too high and lacks one armrest. I’m trying to figure out how to make it more comfortable as a lounge chair maybe with a computer desk thing. It was not inexpensive at about $50k but I wanted the gas mileage and longevity of the diesel engine. 

Winter Camping in my Driveway

Last night dumped 9.5 inches of heavy wet snow and the power went out at 7pm.
Still out at 2pm today. The house is cold and I have no water because it is on
a well - no power, no pump, no water. I was plenty warm in my bed with my down
comforter. I ran out of battery in my laptop and my cell phone last night.