Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I've been lurking on this board for many many years. The urge to build my own camper started out with wanting to do a teardrop.I love the compactness of teardrops and all the foldy bits so I spent a lot of nights pouring over websites (mostly this one) trying to find the ideal design to build. I even purchased a 5X8 northern tool trailer chassis to get going but I still couldn't decide on what to build, we needed something that slept more than two but was still on the smallish side.

I have to tell you, I am in love with the idea of a fold up camper and that was what most of my focus was on. When I came across some old ads for the "propert" and expandavan I was hooked! I created my rendition of the expandavan viewtopic.php?f=62&t=70592 down to the last detail. I was finally about ready to start building like crazy!

I'd only been waiting like 4 years to do this.

Long story short, my wife talked me into going with a cargo trailer instead which as she put it "I could park in the driveway and work inside even when it was nasty outside" what a brilliant idea!

So enter our 7X14 V-nose patient

Here's a run down of the specs.

Trailer: Continental 7X14 V-nose, dual axel, drop ramp, electric brakes, aluminum outer skin.

Options which I had the factory add

Increased interior height an additional 6"
RV style side door with screen door
Extended tongue
30X30 and 30X15 window
30 amp electric service
15,000 BTU roof mount A/C
Interior lights and outlets
Insulation
Interior vinyl wall cladding

Looking forward to your build! Like others will say, post lots of pics!

I'm looking forward to watching your build. A 7'x14' -- you can have a lot of fun with that space!! Very nice looking trailer.

That is a very nice cargo trailer. It should be a great platform for conversion. I look forward to seeing your plans come together!

Nice.. Subed

Wow! That's a deluxe trailer to start off with. Good for you! Looking forward to your build.

McDave

Thanks guys for all your encouraging words! I'm really excited about this project

After about a dozen itterations we ended up with this floorplan.

When I was having the trailer built I had the factory slide the side entry door as far as they could towards the wheels to give me as much space as possible towards the nose to allow for the open shelving beside the beds.

Here's a 3D shot of the overall layout, note that the bunkbeds are full size matteresses

Here's a look at the kitchenette. If you'll notice to the right of the picture there is a doorway built at the back of the trailer, that wall is inset from the ramp about 8" for a future fold out room! I did mention at the beginning of this post that I loved "foldy bits". In it's current folded state I can sleep five comfortably, with the addition of the fold out room I can do seven! (My adult kids still like to camp with us)

A shot of the sleeping area.

And lastly a pic of the proposed bathroom, I think it's quite spacious as most RV bathrooms go at 30" wide by 43" Long . I'm planning to use a piece of corian to fabricate a shower pan. Did I mention I own a cabinet shop?

Here's a shot of the enterior before the madness begins. The flooring you see laid out is my wife's idea, it's a solid laminate waterproof flooring which we bought at Lowes which we figured would be great for all the abuse it's gonna get.

Here you can see I added the floor plate for the future rear wall, This way I could just butt the flooring material up to it.