Atfore

So this trailer mod started like this:

Leslie: Set the table, it’s almost time to eat.

Chris: What table? (Looks around as if table will erupt from gaucho/couch like Athena from Zeus’s head.)

Leslie: Ah, yes. Hmm.

This is the OmniGraffle plan for the Banquette.

I’m not saying that having the trailer that with two couches, and thus was dubbed the “party trailer” wasn’t fun.  And yes, that is the adult party trailer, hehe. But the morning after those great parties would be so much nicer if there was  table to sit at. Anyway, for several years I thought about my very meager carpentry skills and the beautiful banquette plans that were clearly designed for people who were real carpenters, or who could at least nail two boards together without it looking like something that would shame a refugee shack.

Now my M.O., when faced with something that I might want to build, but that would take more carpentry skills than I have, is to make some measurements, transfer those to an OmniGraffle (or Visio for you WinDoze folks) diagram of my trailer, pour a glass of nicely chilled Chardonnay and pop the Ikea catalog.  Nine times out of ten I score, and for that tenth time, if I just wait a couple of years they will come out with something new and I will score again.  Yay me!

So for this plan we used refrigerator cabinets. Two of them.  We nearly completed a re-do of our trailer last year. We finished enough to use the trailer, and have taken several trips since then.  The Ikea cabinets are holding up very well and  we have been pleased with the results.  More on that soon. I really do need to finish those blog entries ; I like to see this as a journey.  Either that or I procrastinate very well.  But I digress.

The 36" Ikea over-refirgerator cabinet dry-fitted into the trailer.

This current mod allows us to seat 4 small people who are very good friends for dinner; it is snug. As an added bonus we get  some very nice storage underneath. Since this is based on Ikea cabinets, there are drawers that will fit.  This was important because the gauchos (couches) had 4 bins for underneath storage that we used.  We get a decent bed for 1 or 2 people and a great place to work and eat. You can tell from the drawing that we shaped the backs  of the cabinets to fit the trailer, but that was very simple; we just cut diagonal edges. We weren’t worried about how it looked because it will be topped with a sheet of very nice birch veneer plywood.

Here is the 36″ cabinet fitted.  It’s not attached to the floor yet. We raised the cabinet 1/2″ off the floor with recessed pine 2X4s. That gave a solid base and the recessed wood gives the cabinet a bit of a floating look. Very modern. Also, the drawers will not open if you put the cabinet directly on the floor, they need at least 1/2″ of clearance to open properly.

The green cabinet on the left is an 18″ Ikea base cabinet with 4 drawers; this was part of the previous Ikea mod.  We covered the sides of the cabinet with green plastic.  Makes for a fun and bright interior.  Bright colors are fun, but for the banquette we are going to stay with natural birch with a polyurethane finish. We plan to top the seats with bright orange upholstered cushions, but have not really planned that out yet.

A beautifully fitted curve or, My Friend the Belt-Sander.

Shaping the plywood seats is an exercise with our old friend the compass.

Or at least it should have been.  Chris decided to try to shape the seats using a belt sander after rough cutting the board.  Nearly 8 grueling hours later and the gods only know how many rounds of sand, fit, sand, repeat, he agreed that the compass is best.  However, the seats are beautifully fitted, aren’t they?

Chris had to go to Hong Kong for business, so we put the project on the back burner for a week. That was OK because I needed to figure out how to suspend the table.  I waffled between some very spiffy and pricy boat hardware from Garelick and  a home-grown method I cooked up with an Ikea leg and  aluminum channel.

Wonder which way I’ll go?