Making of the Bed

On we go to the bed.  The Ford E350 van is 6' wide inside.  We decided to put our bed sideways to give us more "living" space in the central area of the van.  The bed will be as wide as a queen, but 6" shorter.  As neither of us are over 5'10", this option worked well for us.  We wanted storage reachable from the back of the van, but also drawer space under the bed reachable from the inside.  The solution?  Build a framework of support under the bed. 

What you see in the below photo is the back storage which is approximately half the width of the bed deep.  The framework was built using 3/4" plywood, doubled for support.  The top of the bed is again, 3/4" plywood.  We wanted the height of this space to clear the wheel wells, but not so high that we bumped our heads when we sat on the edge of the bed.  We also wanted to make sure this space could accommodate our folding chairs, along with our b-b-q, and other equipment.  The picture shows an old rug laid down to keep the noise down.

The below photo shows how the wheel wells were enclosed and filled with canned low expansion foam.  There are probably other choices available, and if we find this choice doesn't work well, we can replace it with another option, but for us, this was our simplest solution.  The board to the left of the wheel well is the start of the support for the drawers that we'll install on this half of the bed.  These drawers will be used for our clothing so that we don't use living space to store suitcases.  Like the back half, there will be two 3/4" plywood boards in the center for support and another 3/4" plywood sheet on top to finish the other half of the bed.

Here are the completed drawers installed with temporary blocks to hold them shut.  We installed drawer slides on the frame.  The drawer fronts have not been faced in the below photo (as of yet).

Below shows one of the drawers open.  Plenty of space to hold clothes.  The space at the top of the wheel well and below the bed will eventually contain a small drawer over each wheel well.

Some may be concerned about the use of 3/4" plywood and all of the weight associated with the use of all of this wood.  However, this is a one-ton van and we didn't believe the addition of several hundred pounds was going to make a difference, plus we wanted something sturdy for the bed, its frame, and the storage underneath.