PH Top owners, do you still pack the unused ph bed panels?

[Buji]

Hey y'all.

I know some of you sleep on the top bed all the time, and some of you sleep one up and one down, but I recently realized that I've been carrying around the ph bed panel for no good reason. I just sealed it up in a heavy duty 3mil contractor bag and stored it in the garage. If I ever plan for a trip where I might need it I can easily re-add it.

I have the two panel ph bed, and the cat is the only one who uses the smaller panel for his sun room when we're camping. We haven't yet needed to share the van for sleeping quarters. I took my larger panel out, and not only do I have about 6 more inches of headroom there, but I also have a new place to possibly store a folding table set or something like that.

One of the things I've struggled with in my van is storage for my nice acoustic guitar. In it's case it's pretty big. This might give me enough room to hang it from the ceiling if I don't end up putting a folding table up there.

So my question for ye users is: how many of you have performed the paneldectimy on your vestigial bed panels, and have you put anything up there to take advantage of the space? I know the Badgers at one point talked about a netting suspension in their rig...

PS. we still have the smaller (3 foot panel) for the cat's sunroom. some of you may be able to reclaim even more space.

[Joanna]

Thought I remember seeing a photo of the Badgers' net storage which was hung from the large bed panel and the comment that they got it from Thule.

[yvrr]

We've done that but in reverse...we sleep only in the penthouse so the sleeping pad on the lower level is in storage. I've also made a new fabric-covered plywood cover over the inverter and hot water heater (in lieu of the padded cover which is part of the lower bed) and stored the original cover. Together, that lowers everything stored behind the sofa by a couple of inches...

[kzemach]

We removed ours, as we found the lower bed more comfortable, and we do enough winter camping that we're not going to sleep with the top up anyway.

In place of the rear bed panel (the one that's in the far back), we replaced that with wire mesh and poles on the front and rear of it to keep it in place (imagine replacing the rear bed part with 1/2" hole-sized chicken wire if you will). Then, we put ski boot liners, gloves, hats, socks, and anything else that's wet from a day's skiing up there. Even coats sometimes. This gets all our wet stuff from being draped all over all the chairs, and since heat rises, in the morning everything is dry. Works like a charm.

Better yet, on the way up and down from skiing, the Arctic Shades fit up there nicely, so now we have an out of the way place to store them.