Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

By building on a 4x8 Harbor Freight trailer, and extending the floor out to the edge of the wheels, I will get a floor width of 66"
I will be enclosing the wheels in wheel wells.
I am planning on having the sleeping area raised high enough to clear the wheels and then using the area underneath for storage, or possibly a dinette where the table would lower on to a lip on the benches to create the queen bed. In which case the bench part would be used for storage and clearing the wheels. This make the whole setup much more versatile, and easier to drive as well. The wider the trailer, the more you have to worry about staying in your own lane of traffic.
Plus, for me, if it starts getting too wide I will have trouble backing it in to my RV gate which is only 8' wide. I do not have much experience at all pulling a trailer (usually only when I rent one to move a car), so I want to keep it as easy as possible.
A queen size bed is 60"x75" so that is more than wide enough, and also it will leave me more than 20" for the bottom part of the galley.
I will be attaching the tongue box to the front wall so it can be accessed from the inside to give me some more storage so I can really maximize the main trailer space for comfort.
By using the tongue box in this way, I will still have a TD which appears traditional, because plenty of them have tongue boxes. Nobody will notice that it actually opens up all the way.
If I decided to forgoe the extra storage, I could use the box to mount one of those small a/c units from Home Depot. I would still have some room then for my 12" spare, or an extra battery, or whatever. To do this I would just need to put some vents on the side of the box to provide fresh air to the a/c.
By using these plans, and building a Benroy style (kind of like Mikes) it gives me maximum space in the minumum size.

What do you think?

Are you planning on having a table in there too? If so, how is that going to work?

Mike...

sounds grate, I would love to see some schetchs!

I was thinking of doing it the same way as an RV would have. Where the table top lowers on to a lip on the dinette benches to form the sleeping surface. Kind of like this:



At least I think that is how it is done. I really need to go by an RV dealer and check some out to see how they do different things.

I think that's kind of how the table works in a Grasshopper. Anyone got a picture of the interior with it in the seating mode?

Here are Grasshopper pics that I have.
http://www.300f.com/teardrop/grasshopper.htm

Also check out how the Cabincar works. It's a bigger trailer but same idea. The table is attached to the drawers near the door.
http://www.300f.com/teardrop/cabincar.htm

Here's another with a table inside.
http://www.300f.com/teardrop/grumman.htm

Nick.

I've seen the pictures that you are talking about, but they are not currently in the public domain. Hopefully they will be some day soon.

In the meantime, you're talking about something like this I think...



My first thought is there is not enough room for a table. A table should be about 30" across, which only leaves 15" for each seat. That's kinda tight. The seats should be about 21" or 22" to really be comfortable.

Mike...

Hmm, you are probably right. I could have the bench in an L shape rather than a U. That would leave plenty of room for a table, then I could put the lip for it one on of the side walls. There will only be two of us, so that should work out fine.
You are measuring for a 48" wide trailer base, and I am actually talking about 66", however the idea is still valid. It would be a narrow table. The L shape bench would fix that.
Good catch!

Do you really need to have the cushion on the door side? How many people would need to sit in it anyway, I'm thinking no more than two.

The table support is easy to do. I made one to fit on the outside of my Benroy and it could easily be made the same way to fit on the inside. It just had a piece of angle aluminum screwed to the bottom on one end that fit into a board screwed to the side of the trailer. The board had a slot cut in the top of it. I used an adjustable paint roller handle for a leg.

Nick.

I was just thinking, that L shape would make it easier to get in the trailer too, as it would not block the door.

I'm not sure that L shape will work... see what I mean...



The layout I have in my Baja Benroy might work better in your design too!



Mike...

The last one is probably the best.

Now if that thing doesn't qualify as a tiny travel trailer I don't know what does!

Nothing like a model to help you visualize.

Nick.

Mike, the one in your Baja seems right. Does that convert? Is it the way I was talking about? Setting the table on a lip, or do you do it some other way?

Thats exactly right. I set it on a lip. Check out my table on the lip in this photo...



Mike

AHA! I guessed right. I would need to make that one strong lip! My wife and I combined are at nearly 600#

I guess that can be lowered all the wat to cover the footwell? Then you could just loung inside and have a cool drink...

Hey! There is an idea! Put the fridge on a lazy susan platform so you can spin it around and access it from the inside for cold drinks!!