Chinook sleeping
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djones100rt
- Posts: 2
- Joined: January 19th, 2020, 12:41 pm
Chinook sleeping
Wife and I finnaly found our dream chinook however lack of a bed has her holding out has anyone adapted booth to a night time bed space
Re: Chinook sleeping
Congrats on your Rig, and welcome to the Forum. What year and model did you get? Knowing that will help us provide better advice.
We have a 2004 Premier with the couch/dinette layout--the couch "jack-knifes" out and the dinette drops down to form a full nearly King Size sleeping area. We love this layout. It affords us great space for sitting during the day, and it takes us less than 5 minutes to make the transition to the sleeping set-up. You have to get your routine down, so that you aren't having to crawl from end-to-end or over each other...but once you get the hang of it, it really is quite simple. First we move the cushions on the dinette seats out of the way, then drop the table and put the cushions back over the dropped table area. We then take out two REI @inch self-inflating pads that we store (deflated) behind the couch, and inflate them and move them to the rear towards the door--out of the way so that we can jack-knife the couch. Then with one of us on either end of the couch, we lay down a thick cotton cover over the bed area to help fill the bumps and valleys, followed by the two pads with a flannel sheet over them and tucked in all around (that keeps the pads together very nicely). We then spread a double sleeping bag out over the flannel sheet for actual sleeping. If its too warm for the sleeping bag, we substitute with another flannel sheet and light wool blanket. All this bedding by the way stores nicely in the over head compartment above the driver and passenger seats (including pillows). Some people have modified their couches to make them more comfortable for sleeping, but we have not found that to be at all necessary. We have used the above-mentioned set up for more than 6 years now, and for 5-6 weeks at a time. The inflatable pads and sleeping bag are the key...we can adjust the firmness to suit and don't have to futz with sheets and blankets each night.
The only thing I have to add is that I did end up modifying table drop-down slightly. The top piece that is screwed into the wall below the window kept coming loose, and I didn't like the rattle, so I substituted a full panel (made out of cherry to match our cabinets and running down the wall from near top of windows to just above the dinette benches) to give it more strength. That was more than 5 years ago, and no problems since.
Oh yea--and I sleep on the end closest to the bathroom...a concession to the aging process and my need to use the bathroom once...or twice at night.
As I said...sleeping arrangements in our Rigs are a matter of personal preference. I am only describing what works well for us. So, I suggest you experiment, take some trips, try different things out and see what works for you. Hope this helps.
David
We have a 2004 Premier with the couch/dinette layout--the couch "jack-knifes" out and the dinette drops down to form a full nearly King Size sleeping area. We love this layout. It affords us great space for sitting during the day, and it takes us less than 5 minutes to make the transition to the sleeping set-up. You have to get your routine down, so that you aren't having to crawl from end-to-end or over each other...but once you get the hang of it, it really is quite simple. First we move the cushions on the dinette seats out of the way, then drop the table and put the cushions back over the dropped table area. We then take out two REI @inch self-inflating pads that we store (deflated) behind the couch, and inflate them and move them to the rear towards the door--out of the way so that we can jack-knife the couch. Then with one of us on either end of the couch, we lay down a thick cotton cover over the bed area to help fill the bumps and valleys, followed by the two pads with a flannel sheet over them and tucked in all around (that keeps the pads together very nicely). We then spread a double sleeping bag out over the flannel sheet for actual sleeping. If its too warm for the sleeping bag, we substitute with another flannel sheet and light wool blanket. All this bedding by the way stores nicely in the over head compartment above the driver and passenger seats (including pillows). Some people have modified their couches to make them more comfortable for sleeping, but we have not found that to be at all necessary. We have used the above-mentioned set up for more than 6 years now, and for 5-6 weeks at a time. The inflatable pads and sleeping bag are the key...we can adjust the firmness to suit and don't have to futz with sheets and blankets each night.
The only thing I have to add is that I did end up modifying table drop-down slightly. The top piece that is screwed into the wall below the window kept coming loose, and I didn't like the rattle, so I substituted a full panel (made out of cherry to match our cabinets and running down the wall from near top of windows to just above the dinette benches) to give it more strength. That was more than 5 years ago, and no problems since.
Oh yea--and I sleep on the end closest to the bathroom...a concession to the aging process and my need to use the bathroom once...or twice at night.
As I said...sleeping arrangements in our Rigs are a matter of personal preference. I am only describing what works well for us. So, I suggest you experiment, take some trips, try different things out and see what works for you. Hope this helps.
David
Re: Chinook sleeping
Hi David, I recently acquired a 2004 Premier. It has the same layout of sofa and dinette. I’m interested in how you modified the table to the wall piece. Can you post or send me a picture of this?
Re: Chinook sleeping
DRC…just seeing this—I don’t log into the Forum as much as I used to since I have completed most of the mods on my Rig, so apologies for the delayed response.
I will happily send you pics and describe what I did to better secure the dinette tabletop the wall of the Rig below the window. First, I removed the top piece of wood that was just below the window that was used to receive the table when it is in the upright position…that piece had a routed slot on the wall side that receives the metal piece on bottom of the table to hold it snug against the wall. This is the piece that I replaced because that narrow piece of wood was not sufficient to hold the table tight against the wall—it kept coming loose. (Note: to get the table to sit within that groove you have to be sure to angle the isle end of the table down when you take down and put up the table when converting your a bed…but you have probably figured that out already).
After removing that piece, I essentially took a 3/4” by 11 1/4” piece of solid cherry (my Rig has cherry finish) and cut it to the width of the window. Then I routed a similar groove to the original narrow piece into the top edge of the wider cherry board, as well as drilling holes into the sides of the board at the top to receive the screws for the swing arm (same as in original narrow piece. Then it was just a dimple matter of securing that board to the wall so that I would have a more solid surface to hold the table against the wall. I used construction adhesive and drywall screws ( pre-drilled the cherry board for the screws, AND making sure the screws were long enough to go into the wall, but not so long as to penetrate the outside fiberglass skin of the rig—can’t recall how thick the wall is..as I recall, I used one of the screws from the original thin piece of wood as my gauge).
So now I have a much larger piece of wood firmly attached to the wall to hold the table in place. It’s been more than 6 years since I did that and it is still holding solid.
I’ll search for a pic of the setup and send it along in another post on this thread.
Hope this helps…let me know if you have any questions.
Enjoy your Rig…
David
I will happily send you pics and describe what I did to better secure the dinette tabletop the wall of the Rig below the window. First, I removed the top piece of wood that was just below the window that was used to receive the table when it is in the upright position…that piece had a routed slot on the wall side that receives the metal piece on bottom of the table to hold it snug against the wall. This is the piece that I replaced because that narrow piece of wood was not sufficient to hold the table tight against the wall—it kept coming loose. (Note: to get the table to sit within that groove you have to be sure to angle the isle end of the table down when you take down and put up the table when converting your a bed…but you have probably figured that out already).
After removing that piece, I essentially took a 3/4” by 11 1/4” piece of solid cherry (my Rig has cherry finish) and cut it to the width of the window. Then I routed a similar groove to the original narrow piece into the top edge of the wider cherry board, as well as drilling holes into the sides of the board at the top to receive the screws for the swing arm (same as in original narrow piece. Then it was just a dimple matter of securing that board to the wall so that I would have a more solid surface to hold the table against the wall. I used construction adhesive and drywall screws ( pre-drilled the cherry board for the screws, AND making sure the screws were long enough to go into the wall, but not so long as to penetrate the outside fiberglass skin of the rig—can’t recall how thick the wall is..as I recall, I used one of the screws from the original thin piece of wood as my gauge).
So now I have a much larger piece of wood firmly attached to the wall to hold the table in place. It’s been more than 6 years since I did that and it is still holding solid.
I’ll search for a pic of the setup and send it along in another post on this thread.
Hope this helps…let me know if you have any questions.
Enjoy your Rig…
David
Re: Chinook sleeping
DRC…check in Forum Topic—Appliance/Interior under post Dinette Table…there you’ll find another description and pics of the dinette table improvement we were discussing.
David
David