The past few months, most of my nights and weekends have been tied up remodeling our house. I'm on the home stretch with that project (at least this phase), so it's time to start scheming up something else. My family loves to camp, but the wife has grown tired of fighting with the giant tent and leaky air mattress. She and my Daughter have wanted a camper for a while now. Personally, I don't mind tent or hammock camping... I am an Eagle Scout, so it's second nature to me I guess. Also, I don't want another "house" to have to maintain year-round, so the camper idea doesn't appeal too much to me. Keep it simple, stupid. A bed on wheels with a built in kitchen I can do some cast iron cooking in, and a permanent place I can keep my camping "junk" stored all the time? Sign me up!
Designing and building my own teardrop is like a dream come true for me. It's like all of my favorite things rolled into one project. I like to design and draw stuff. I like pretty much anything with wheels... I spent a few years as a mechanic, and I've had a lot of project cars. I like to build stuff out of wood... I don't consider myself a woodworker or a carpenter... more of a wood-butcher I guess, but I do enjoy it. I like playing around with electrical systems... I've always fooled with car stereo stuff, I worked as an Electrician's Assistant a few years, and I like messing with electronics too. I love to cook and eat, especially in cast iron. I love being outdoors and camping. I went through the ranks of Scouting from Tiger Cubs on up to Eagle. And last of all, I love taking it easy and hanging out with my friends and family. I look forward to having a teardrop loaded up and ready to roll out on a whim. There are so many fun and beautiful places to go within a few hours of my house. My daughter is getting big enough now to tag along doing most anything, and I look forward to getting her "out there" as much as possible... and I know having a teardrop can only help.
It seems to me that yall like to talk about your "TV" a lot around here. My daily driver is a 2003 Honda Pilot. If I'm not mistaken it's rated to pull 3500 lbs. I have probably exceeded that several times in the last few months, hauling loads of building materials. I do plan on adding an oil cooler and tranny cooler on it at some point as well.
Now that yall know a little bit about me, maybe you can help steer me in the right direction as I try to finalize my TD design. I've been lurking in the shadows for a while, checking out builds and reading a lot. Since we do Foster Care though, we have some special circumstances I need to design around. We never know how many kids we might have with us any given weekend. Also, just to protect ourselves from any allegations, we won't let foster children sleep with us. We've had kids from 5 months old to 6 years old though. The most kids we have at a time is 3, including our daughter.
Since we need the room I want to go with a 5x10 with removable bunks. I'm willing to sacrifice cabinet space for additional sleep space. I am only 5'7", and my wife is around 5'8" or 5'9", but I still intend to 80" on the interior. I'm thinking about having at least one 60" cot / army stretcher type bunk over our feet, possibly 2. The next idea I had was running an 80" bunk the length of the cabin that would be offset to one side. The poles would be supported on the plywood back wall at the galley and the cabinet in the nose, but could be removed by sliding them out of holes in the galley wall. That way, it we needed to sleep an extra person we could, and if not we could leave that bunk at home. My daughter would be with us all the time, but she will fit on a 60" bunk for years to come. If she's not with us, we can remove it or roll it up and out of the way. If we have one foster kid with us, our daughter could sleep with us and the foster kid could sleep in the bunk.
The next idea I have is making the main bed convert to a sofa, or have it split so you can convert one side independently to a chair but keep the other side as a bed. Similar to how the "Vistabule" converts, but mine would be facing the Galley wall, where I plan to hang a TV or tablet. I have worked out the geometry of my folding mechanism, but I want to build a prototype before I commit to it for the TD, as I am designing around the idea. For it to sit comfortably I will need a foot box that will be lower than the sleeping deck. This could be used as under bed storage as well. To pull it off though I think I'll have to build my deck up for this, so I'll be sacrificing some headroom inside.
Below are my work in progress "sketches" I've worked up in AutoCAD. It is a 4x10 side, but designed to fit on a Northern Tool / Ironton 5x8 trailer. The bottom front corner lines up with the front of the bed of the trailer. As drawn it leaves about 15" of floor cantilevered off the back of the trailer frame. The tongue box is just something I threw on there, I dont know how big or small it might end up being. The door is just a Grumman style I threw on there too. I dont know if I'll try to tackle making doors or not. If I do, I'll probably go with something a little more "Art Deco" looking though. Wheel size and placement is just roughed in there as well for right now. I haven't messed with the galley yet either. RIght now I'm just trying to nail down my cabin design, and then I'll work with whatever space I have left.
I guess that's it for right now. Thanks for letting me crash your teardrop party, and let me know what yall think! I am open to suggestions. I've got plenty of questions, but I'll probably just wait until I start a build thread, so I can keep all my ideas in one place.
Time for me to go to bed. Good Night/Good Morning (it's 2:30 AM here), Brooks
