Adding bunkbed to Coachmen Mirada 29ds, yes it can be done but you will lose a sofa!!

[hkhadra]

Below you will find pictures for before and after, I will post more pictures later to show how it was done but meanwhile, I am sure some of you will have questions, so below are answers for the questions I thought you may ask, please feel free to ask any question though!!

Why you did it and why you are sharing it here? We have two kids and we discovered quickly that the jackknife sofa and dinette don’t work well; it is a hassle to setup every night and rearrange every morning, also the cushions are not comfortable for our kids. We have the RV and stuck with it, also I don’t want longer than what we have, 32 feet is good enough. So I had to come up with a solution other than selling this RV and buying another one.
I thought I may share with you in hope it may help someone who need more comfortable space for their kids.

Is there a tradeoff? Yes, I had to remove the sofa and 4 useless cabinet space (4 doors but they are open on each other inside).The new setup gave me 2 bed, 2 drawers and a “mud room” beside the door where we can put our shoes and put our jackets during colder weather.

Did your RV become heavier? Yes, the new bunkbed setup is ~100 lb heaver than the sofa that we had. I used Red oak for durability, yes, it could be an overkill.

Did you secure it well to the structure? Yes, it was secured to the floor and to the wall behind the bed using many screws, it is as stable as the dinette! I know that because I had to take the dinette out before.

Why the bunkbed is not attached to the ceiling? I did not want to drill holes in the ceiling and tried to make the bed to look like it part of a slide. We even tried to match the RV fake wood stain color, so it looks like it was there since day one.

Did you add a safety net for the upper bunkbed? Yes, I did not take a picture for it yet, I just did that last week, we used a cargo net that big enough to do the trick, you can find it here

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[hkhadra]

This is group one of the project pictures

[hkhadra]

Below are the second group of pictures, the bed was assembled using pocket screws

[RasMouSein]

Wow !!! This is not your first rodeo eh !!!
Great work, inspiring bud !!

[hkhadra]

Thank you!! this is our first RV we ever owned, we did couple of modification to it so far, we changed the MDF countertops, driver center console and added a wall mounted washer/dryer combo. Hopefully we are done with RV major work to spend more time camping , ofcourse after the covid19 craziness !!

Originally Posted by RasMouSein

Wow !!! This is not your first rodeo eh !!!
Great work, inspiring bud !!

[RasMouSein]

That's the thing with the Covid-19 !! Doing all kind of mods to the RV lol

[hkhadra]

Originally Posted by RasMouSein

That's the thing with the Covid-19 !! Doing all kind of mods to the RV lol

Yup

[jash1234]

or can buy one of these

[Darin1960]

Originally Posted by hkhadra

Below are the second group of pictures, the bed was assembled using pocket screws

No doubt you have some experience in cabinetry. Very nice work. I have had a plan similar to yours , have a jackknife sofa on the slide out and was thinking of building something like yours , dabbled with the idea that I can make the top bunk be the back of the sofa during the day and with some ingenuitive tracks or slots on each side of the sofa/bed and perhaps some springs if needed . I would lift and swing the sofa back up to make the top bunk. All in my head now but am itching to do this , wife aint so thrilled but while coach in down in my shop , I have some time to surprise her.

[hkhadra]

Yes, but it was longer than the space we had, I believe they are 86 inches. also they are expensive, I found this one last year on ebay and the seller was asking $2500. In my case ended up spending roughly 800 dollars including two mattresses for $220 from Amazon.

Originally Posted by jash1234

Attachment 279077Attachment 279078Attachment 279079or can buy one of these

[hkhadra]

Thank you, my wife was not also that thrilled when I started the project, I never did that before, my day job is teaching accounting at a university, so she was rightfully having doubts about the outcome. Building it was not difficult as soon I figured how to use kreg pocket hole jig. I was tinkering with the idea of a Murphy double bunk before, but the wife did not sign off on that idea, she was clear that if I wanted to do the modification to the RV, it has to be a fixed space for kids so nothing to setup every night, ofcourse I followed orders . As side note, I had 80 inches height to play with, if you are having a slide you may have smaller space to work with, I will post my drawings for you if that does help.

Originally Posted by Darin1960

No doubt you have some experience in cabinetry. Very nice work. I have had a plan similar to yours , have a jackknife sofa on the slide out and was thinking of building something like yours , dabbled with the idea that I can make the top bunk be the back of the sofa during the day and with some ingenuitive tracks or slots on each side of the sofa/bed and perhaps some springs if needed . I would lift and swing the sofa back up to make the top bunk. All in my head now but am itching to do this , wife aint so thrilled but while coach in down in my shop , I have some time to surprise her.

[hkhadra]

Originally Posted by Darin1960

No doubt you have some experience in cabinetry. Very nice work. I have had a plan similar to yours , have a jackknife sofa on the slide out and was thinking of building something like yours , dabbled with the idea that I can make the top bunk be the back of the sofa during the day and with some ingenuitive tracks or slots on each side of the sofa/bed and perhaps some springs if needed . I would lift and swing the sofa back up to make the top bunk. All in my head now but am itching to do this , wife aint so thrilled but while coach in down in my shop , I have some time to surprise her.

This is what I have, you will see clearly that what I planned was adjusted slightly as soon I started the building process, I also included the wood shopping list, if you choose to do yours, please double check, I ended up going back for some more wood. Finally you will find cost list, it has some tools, so that is not part of bed cost, I wish I knew about the kreg pocket screws kit before! The one that I got is k3, small one but effective

[Darin1960]

Originally Posted by hkhadra

This is what I have, you will see clearly that what I planned was adjusted slightly as soon I started the building process, I also included the wood shopping list, if you choose to do yours, please double check, I ended up going back for some more wood. Finally you will find cost list, it has some tools, so that is not part of bed cost, I wish I knew about the kreg pocket screws kit before! The one that I got is k3, small one but effective Attachment 279084Attachment 279085Attachment 279086Attachment 279087

Thanks, had a keg outfit years ago , loaned it out never got it back. I have an old biscuit jointer that works well in similar applications .what width was your matresses?

[Darin1960]

Originally Posted by Darin1960

Thanks, had a keg outfit years ago , loaned it out never got it back. I have an old biscuit jointer that works well in similar applications .what width was your matresses?

Kreg , dang auto spell or my big ole thumbs .