New to pup camping, storage issues

[campinglover]

We just got back from a trip to Refugio Beach:
 
Here is a pic of the finished mod and a link to a progression of pics.
 
http://community.webshots.com/myphotos?action=viewAllPhotos&albumID=549352213&security=lEjnyL
 

 
Thankyou very much for the pictures.  That is a really good idea.  I think I will do it that way too for our clothes and try to make a counter space out of them like you did.  Again thankyou.

[wavery]

We are still trying to figure out the best way to cover the front of the drawers, so that they are not see through.

We tried wood grained shelf paper and that looked awful. I am considering just painting the inside of the drawer with a light brown paint. I'm just concerned that it will just scratch up and quickly look worse than it does now.

By the way...................If you look at my webshots pics:
http://community.webshots.com/myphotos?action=viewAllPhotos&albumID=549352213&security=lEjnyL

Pic #2 shows some modifications that I had to do to my drawers to make them fit. I have the pop-out galley and the frame support rests on that counter. I had to make a hole in the drawer frame for the support to pass through and a slot in the drawer so that it could open and close with the frame passing through the slot.

If you drill and cut that plastic with a blade, you stand a chance of it cracking and it will soon fail with use, over time. I used a "Hot knife" to cut the plastic. The edge of the cut ends up with a reinforcing ridge of plastic that will keep it from cracking.

[PITPOP27]

Wavery that looks great!!  I NEED more counter space for cooking...we put our cooler there, but maybe we could put it somewhere else?  I'm going to show the hubby tonight and see what he thinks!

[wavery]

Wavery that looks great!!  I NEED more counter space for cooking...we put our cooler there, but maybe we could put it somewhere else?  I'm going to show the hubby tonight and see what he thinks!

Sure works great for us . It's so cool to have everything packed and in place when we set-up and tear down.

Do you have the Pop-out galley like ours? It seemed like a pain at first but it was an easily overcome obstacle (as described above) and actually serves to make the whole thing very solid. The only drawback is that ours over-laps the counter by about an inch. It would have been 4 inches (unacceptable) had I not slotted the drawer for the galley brace.

[tlhdoc]

Do you know of an approximate weight limit for a PUP roof. I've never seen anything on that, so I've been afraid to put anything up there.

The Coleman/Fleetwood trailers have a 300 pound capacity with the roof down and 150 pounds with it up.

[PITPOP27]

Sure works great for us . It's so cool to have everything packed and in place when we set-up and tear down.

Do you have the Pop-out galley like ours? It seemed like a pain at first but it was an easily overcome obstacle (as described above) and actually serves to make the whole thing very solid. The only drawback is that ours over-laps the counter by about an inch. It would have been 4 inches (unacceptable) had I not slotted the drawer for the galley brace.

We don't have the pop out galley (one of the features my hubby wanted( but we have a 6 ft counter top besdie our flip up galley I don't have the greatest photos but:

attached to this

this sort of shows it, I'd like to extend the counter space over here, the only other option is to place things on our bed which isn't great sounding to me, since I'm great at spilling things :p

[wavery]

We don't have the pop out galley (one of the features my hubby wanted( but we have a 6 ft counter top besdie our flip up galley

That looks like a perfect set-up for a drawer modification. Those drawers come in all sizes and there are several manufacturers. The nice thing about yours is, you wouldn't have to do any cutting on the drawers. Just set 'em on the counter, snap the top in place and your done.

There are only the 2 of us, so it's pretty straight forward.....2 people = 2 drawers. I'm sure that you could come up with a 4 or 6 drawer combination that would fit perfectly for you. Each person could be responsible for packing their own drawer at home for the camp-out, then removing it and putting it in the TV for tear-down. It's the same thing as bringing duffel bags or luggage but a lot more organized and you use it right in place. We hated having stuff scattered all over the bunks and luggage to deal with.

It also gets the counter up where it is usable. At that low height, it's just a catch-all and you can't really use it for galley counter space.

[PITPOP27]

My hubby uses the counter closest to the bed to sit at when we eat inside, there's 5 of us so we don't all fit in the dinnette :yikes: , But I'd like to do the same thing you did to our tupperware we bring, we just got free laminate flooring, so it would be great, but I'd have to get hubby to cut it down to size for nice "ness".  Thanks for the mod idea....I'd like to get him to do the shelf mod first!

[dthurk]

Just finished working on this.  I came up with the design based on wavery's description before he posted pics.  I added 4 support "legs", 1 on either end and also between each drawer.  I was concerned that the 5 foot span wouldn't support weight and bear on the drawers.  The upright supports are hinged, so the whole thing breaks down to about 1.5 inches thick for easy storage and transport.  Anyway, we'll give this a try this next week.

[fritz_monroe]

Very nice setup.  I really like that you put the shelf on so you don't lose your counter space.  We still haven't figured out our system yet.

[wavery]

That looks good. You really have a long counter. That's nice. There are a lot of different configurations out there and each has it's own unique benefits and challenges to make this type of mod work.

I was also concerned about how much weight my set-up would hold. With the microwave and a 5 gallon jug of water on the counter, the drawers still open just fine. The dowel pins going from the laminate counter-top, through the top of the drawer cases on my set-up make the entire thing quite rigid.

[dthurk]

That looks good. You really have a long counter. That's nice. There are a lot of different configurations out there and each has it's own unique benefits and challenges to make this type of mod work.
 
I was also concerned about how much weight my set-up would hold. With the microwave and a 5 gallon jug of water on the counter, the drawers still open just fine. The dowel pins going from the laminate counter-top, through the top of the drawer cases on my set-up make the entire thing quite rigid.[/QUOTE
 
After seeing yours, I now would think that weight evenly distributed across the tops of the drawers should work just fine.  I probably could have done the same thing across all our drawers with good results.  This counter is not connected to our galley, it's on the other side of the camper.  
 
I didn't do any doweling as of yet.  The drawers just set loose in their "compartment".  We'll try it as is this next week.  I can easily add the doweling later if I get too many family complaints.  These drawers are great for storing clothes.  We can generally get 4 days worth of clothes in one drawer, 1 drawer per family member.  We roll our clothes instead of folding them.  Fewer wrinkles and you can fit more in by rolling.  If we're camping more than 4 days we find laundry facilities and start all over.

[PITPOP27]

FANTASTIC set up!  Good job!  I'll show the hubby your pic!  I finally got him to commit our drawer mod for saturday YIPPEE!!!  I HATE our drawers they never pull straight out and the faces are pulling from the sides because of it!  We're tuning them into shelving with the flip down face.  He MAY even throw in our cutting board attachment to our flip up galley, now that would be exciting!

Note to self bring camera!

[wavery]

dthurk,

With your set-up, the only thing that I would be concerned about is being able to open the drawer and having the drawer case stay in place. That could be one reason to dowel them but you would need to cut the legs down so that the bottom of the counter is right on top of the drawer cases. It might be a hassle to get all of the drawer cases to line up with all of the dowels while you lower the counter on them. Then again, it may only take one dowel per drawer case to hold it from sliding.

You could also just put a piece of 3" thick foam rubber (assuming the gap is only 2") beween the bottom of the shelf and the top of each drawer That would be a lot easier and should hold the drawer cases from sliding around.