Saturday, July 10, 2010

Talk About Tight Spaces









After camping off and on with some close friends of mine over the past few years, I kept asking them if they had ever gotten anything done on their pop-up camper which was just an empty shell. The conversation got around to me picking up the project by designing and making the interior cabinetry. Now this pop up camper fits on their Toyota Tacoma four wheel drive pickup so it has a small footprint and with me at 6 foot 4 inches tall, its kind of tight for me.

They have already purchased a 12/120 volt fridge, 2 burner cook top, sink, foot pump, 20 gallon water tank, deep cycle battery, and a solar system which was already installed. My task was to get all of this to fit into this small space and still make it comfortable as well as useable.

As with any project of this type, many discussions took place as well as matching up their conceived ideas and then getting mine to match. After many trips to the camper for measuring, I made a 2 dimensional mock-up in Adobe Illustrator. After this was agreed upon, I went to Sketch-Up for a 3-dimensional version of the driver's side where most of the previously purchased items will be going.

We moved the camper from my house to my friend Bob's house as he has a complete woodworking shop. He graciously allowed us to invade his private domain. Thanks so much Bob.

At this point, the driver's side cabinet is complete with the facing put on. Now we're working out the counter top and will be applying a white laminate. Here's a few pictures of our progress and copies of the digital files.

More to follow...

3 comments:

Sugarfoot said...

Brad, I am so impressed. That's a lot of storage crammed into a small space. Looks great!

Just curious, how many times did you stand up and hit your head? LOL

Brad Norgaard said...

Only the first time.

Mello Mike said...

Looks great, Brad. Very nice work. Is that your workshop??!!