Club 80-90 Forums

Hello folks,
I am starting to redo the interior of our van. It has/had a fixed bed that took up most of the floor space in the van and is too high for me to sit on without bumping my head on the roof so I would like to pull that our and build a folding, sliding bed in a similar vein to rock and roll beds (I would love one but I can't find a supplier for hinges here and I am too impatient to wait for JK postage).

My girlfriend has a reservation though. The 15cm thick foam mattress is very comfy but she is worried that if I cut it into three sections to make the seat base, seat back and cargo area sections that it won't be as comfortable

I figure that since most vans have something like that it must be alright but I thought I'd better check before getting the knife out. Those of you that sleep on folding beds; do you sleep alright and can you feel the joins in the foam once the bed is folded flat

Are there any dimensions/tips that I should bear in mind so that the foam will line up and be nice and comfy? For example, I was thinking that maybe I should sew the cushion covers together where the back and the seat base meet (along the top edge only) so that when they are folded flat they line up nice and close without a ditch across the bed at the joint.

Thanks in advance Neil

99% of vans have rock n roll beds. The are a comfy settee/back seat for passengers and can be quickly transformed into a bed. We use camping air roll mats on top of ours for extra comfort. But I'm sure people on here will tell you they have spent many nights on rock n roll beds. Loads of places sell them, with or without the foam and covers. It will make you van so much more versatile and useful.

Get yourself a memory foam topper.

We still have our original Devon R&R bed and we have found the foam too hard for sleeping on but OK to sit on (when sitting you weight is spread over a smaller area (backside) than when you lay down, so the bed foam needs to be softer) We have tried a double SIM but it is too wide for the 3/4 R&R bed so the next idea is to use a bit of 2" memory foam in a cover.
Should do the job!

Rob beat me to it.

My devon bed was a little too hard so I covered it with several layers of wadding before recovering it - we did use a memory foam topper when we were on holiday this year but found it a pain to move about

bugmonkey wrote:I figure that since most vans have something like that it must be alright but I thought I'd better check before getting the knife out. Those of you that sleep on folding beds; do you sleep alright and can you feel the joins in the foam once the bed is folded flat

In the 18mo we lived in the van, I don't recall really noticing the joints in the Westy bed. We just used a standard slip-over mattress protector under a normal sheet, so nothing much to hide it. Surprisingly comfortable.

It's going to be a very personal thing, though - some people can damn near sleep on gravel, others are absolute princess-and-pea types.

We use an opened out sleeping bag on top of the foam seat base and back. This makes a super comfy bed.

Thank you all for your input. It sounds like we don't have anything to worry about on the comfort side of things and I can get to work with chopping the interior up