My husband and I have been looking at little trailers for a while now but we finally pulled the trigger. We bought a fiberglass teardrop from a family member with a very generous family discount! However, the layout is kind of unique (or strange) and isn't the most efficient set up for us. We're planning on making some changes to match our camping style better. It's completely camp ready as it is though, so we're planning on taking it out a time or two before we do anything to get a feel what works and what doesn't.
The Trailer
It's built on a 12'x5' trailer and has 5' height at it's tallest spot. It seems like whoever built it wanted to shove a traditional camper into a teardrop shell. It has a traditional RV door with a full second screen door and when you enter, you have a dinette that turns into a bed. The bed is only 41" though instead of the full 5' as it has a little hallway area in front of the dinette/bed that's open toward the back. The back of it comes to a full point, not a curve, and behind the dinette in the back with the very sloped roof is a little fridge and sink.
At the back where it comes to a point, there is a metal plate on the outside and a wooden panel on the inside. We think that at some point there was a small hatch there. We would like to recreate that hatch if possible. It will be quite a small space, not like that big back-galley hatches, but I think it's the best use of that space and fits with our overall plan.
Our Plan
We'd like to pull out the fridge and sink as we really have no use for those and the placement is so strange, recreate that hatch in the back, and have a full width bed that is always down. We have a decent amount of space since the trailer is 12' and 5' headroom is pretty good.
The plan right now is to redo the hatch (21"), then have the double mattress (75") and then we would still have 39" left where the headroom is highest. The problem is the end bed would overlap the door quite a bit and the maximum headroom area would be above the end of the bed so you couldn't utilize it for getting dressed etc.
One idea is to make the bed raised a bit with storage underneath and cut off the last 18" of the bed and have it sit on a bench that is the same height as the bed. That way, you could pull the bench over to the far side of the trailer and have about 3 feet of space between the end of the (now shortened) bed and the bench. That would give you full access to the door, full access to the highest point of the trailer, and you could add a folding table so you could sit on the end of the bed or the bench with a table in-between for cards or whatever on rainy days. When you want to go to bed, just fold up the table and slide the bench back to the foot of the bed and you've got a double bed again with the empty space between the bed and the far wall.
(Please forgive my sad graph paper drawings)
And finally, it would be nice to add a door on the other side so if my husband wants to get up early he won't have to crawl over me to get out.
I'd love to hear feedback/suggestions! We've never done anything like this before so we'll probably have lots of questions as we go on but we're excited to start!
Thanks and nice to meet you all!
Kelsey
