I’ve heard that when converting a van to a camper you should plan on building it, using it for 6 months, and then rebuilding it. We were fortunate to have a “practice” van before this one and that really helped us to see what needed to be changed for the next go around. One thing that made the cut was the dinette. It worked out so great for our family. We enjoy playing games and having a comfortable place to sit and do that as well as eat has been really nice.
BED
The dinette we built in our current van is a little smaller as we will be sleeping transversely in the back of the van instead of lengthwise. Sprinters are exactly 5’10” wide, which is great because I’m 5’9 3/4”. I wish it was about 4 or five inches wider to really spread out, but I’m making due. The width of the bed is 54” wide which is equivalent to a full.
GEAR DRAWER:
Rather than having the foot area under the table flush with the floor we built a pretty sweet drawer to house all of our camping gear. The drawer is a good size and swallows a fair amount of stuff. It extends 48” out the back of the van and with the slides rated to 500 pounds, it slides easily once loaded up. Above the drawer we built a hidden shelf to house our Snow Peak Iron Grill Table. Everything can be locked up with a stainless steel Southco latch.
BENCH STORAGE COMPARTMENTS:
The height of the benches took a lot of experimenting to get just right. We knew we wanted to have overhead shelves and every inch of possible storage space seemed ridiculously important at the time. We’ve now learned that we’re good on storage space, but I digress. Because of our thought at the time we decided to go with a height that would give me one inch of headspace. That has turned out to be perfect. I’m shocked that our calculations worked out as well as they did. We’ve had a couple people taller than 6’ sit in the back and as long as the slouch a bit, it works for them two.
Underneath each bench we have our largest areas of storage. The passenger side bench house 24 gallons of water, our tent, backpacking packs, extra shoes, recovery gear, go treads, medicine, and numerous other random things. The entire bench is one large storage area and we left the back open to slide water containers in and out. Keri had a great idea to sew up a little cover to make it look clean with some of our left over window covering fabric. She’s so clever!
The driver’s side bench is split into two compartments. The area closest to the front of the van is for all things electrical. It house our 3 lithium batteries, DC to DC charger, MPPT solar controller, 2000 watt Inverter, and our fuse panels. It was like a game of Tetris to get everything in there, but I frickin’ did it.
The rear compartment house some tools and spare parts on the very bottom, followed by our down sleeping bags and covered on top by the bedding for the dinette. It swallows a lot of stuff.
DINETTE TABLE:
One of the most important pieces for the dinette is the Lagun table mount. This allows us to swivel the table in any direction and it really aides in getting in and out of the area with the table up. Also, when we drive we swivel it to the side against a back cushion and tighten it up. In this position the cushion helps to keep it in place and it hasn’t moved even after many miles on dirt roads. The large handles on the mount allows us to easily loosen and tighten the mount when taking it apart to make the bed. If you have a van and need a table mount, you’d be hard pressed to find a better one.
DINETTE – BED – STORAGE BUILD GALLERY:
There are 2 pages of pictures. Make sure to click the #2 at the bottom to view the complete build.
We listed a few details of what we did at the bottom of each picture. If you have any questions about this build feel free to reach out to us.
CLICK 2 FOR MORE PICTURES
VAN BUILD GUIDES:
VAN PURCHASES
Van Build
Van Accessories
OUR FIRST VAN BUILD: RUSTY
Our first van, Rusty, a 144 low roof Sprinter Van.
BEFORE & AFTER
Great job, what did you end up with for dimensions on seat cushions?
Also, what was your final seat height?
Thanks! We believe it was 21″ High. Each cushion is about 22.5″ and the back cushions were 12.5″. It’s been awhile since we had that van, but we’re pretty sure that is correct.