Side by side dinette and gaucho

[daveb]

Curious, where do you sleep those extra people that sit at the table? Penthouse?

[larrie]

There are only two of us when we camp, unless we invite someone for dinner. No penthouse bed for them to sleep in. If we have people in back it is for a day trip.

[yfarm]

I had an RB15 with the transverse dinette in the back. We left it made up as a bed most of the time.
It came from SMB with seat belts for four, never used
For sleeping at 48 inches wide it was ok but the length stretched out was marginal for my height 5'11" if you use a pillow.Head against van side and feet against opposite side.
If you need to use the toilet at night you wake up the other person by climbing over to get to the front. I would do the gaucho or RB50 for sleeping comfort.

[daveb]

Originally Posted by larrie

There are only two of us when we camp, unless we invite someone for dinner. No penthouse bed for them to sleep in. If we have people in back it is for a day trip.

Yes but Chance claimed he wanted to have the family at the table. It seems that unless you have a upper bunk you'll have 4 people on one bed.

[Chance]

Originally Posted by daveb

Yes but Chance claimed he wanted to have the family at the table. It seems that unless you have a upper bunk you'll have 4 people on one bed.

99+ percent of time it's just my wife and me that camp overnight in our existing van. Our next van will hopefully be bigger and may sleep up to 4, but that's not a requirement. Sleeping two more comfortably in two single beds where you don't have to climb over people to get up is much more important. And making it a "Flex" type bed that converts to near king-size is even better.

Extra seating during travel and eating would be a welcome bonus. We often take long road trips with family and could stay in camp cabins or hotels at night. Or a tent. Either way I wouldn't compromise layout or function for the two of us just to be able to sleep more. It'd be nice to be able to sleep overnight with small grandkids in van but that too is not a deal breaker. For the few occasions that would happen I could rent larger Class C or tow small trailer.

[4MacFam]

Roadtrek does some interesting stuff with their quad seats up front. From dinette to 2 beds.

Hope I didn't break some kind of rule posting about Roadtrek.

http://www.roadtrek.com/motorhome.aspx

[Chance]

Originally Posted by 4MacFam

Roadtrek does some interesting stuff with their quad seats up front. From dinette to 2 beds.

Thanks for tip – more great design ideas to consider. Those folding beds over the cab seats seem extremely space efficient, and probably work great for children and or for occasional use, but it’s hard for me to imagine that they would be comfortable as the primary beds. The concept of using the cab area for multiple functions is great though; I’m just not sure if a folding bed laying on top of two seats would be stiff enough or secure enough for an adult that moves around a lot at night. My guess is that the manufacturer intends the adults to sleep on rear beds and the front cab beds are primarily for guests and or children.

I do like the front cab area configurable for traveling, seating, dining, and also sleeping. That frees up a lot of room in the rest of the van for other uses – like more counter tops, storage, or a bigger bathroom. One possible option to this concept would be to have a singular rigid overhead bed/mattress attached to ceiling (for shorter people that could walk under bed) that would drop down and rest on front seats. A single big bed should be more stable and not be able to fall/shift off seats. On the other hand it would be far heavier and harder to handle. And even harder to store. That’s why I kind of reverted back to double dinettes side-by-side. The greatest disadvantage with two single dinettes that I can’t resolve, by comparison, is that it adds at least 3 feet to required van length; and that’s assuming I can figure out a way to work around not blocking the side door without having to shift the passenger-side dinette back at least another 2 feet for side-door passage. On the other hand it does allow seating for up to six instead of four.

If I keep needing an even bigger van soon I'll end up with a compact Class A. Just kidding!

[Chance]

By the way, here are a couple of pictures of an older 2001 van camper with a narrow single dinette behind driver. Helps me visualize what two dinettes would look like if next to each other; particularly if in a slightly wider van.