Change dining booth to table and chairs

We've had both and prefer the dinnete. You lose a lot of storage area.

Unless there is some other reason, leave the table with posts. The table with wide base is a pain to get your feet in and out (regardless of bench or chairs).

If you want to change your dining booth to a table and chairs, you will need to purchase a new table and chairs. You will also need to remove the booth from your dining room. Nice Dinette Sets here - ***Link Removed***

I know some time has past and you may have already sorted this out, but I'll show what we do with our table and chairs.

Ours came from the factory with the table not mounted to the floor. Sunline was out of business by the time we got the trailer, so we could not ask them how they wanted to do this securing for travel.

Here is what we do. The wife really likes that the table is not mounted to the floor as she slides the table on the carpet standing up to the end of the slide room when not in use to create more room in the camper. Then we slide the table back to eating position when we need to use it etc.

It came with 4 chairs, but we now only use 2 of them since 98% of the time, it is just the two of us. The other 2% of the time, we bring the other 2 chairs with us.



We lay over the table down and to the front of the slide to travel. The chairs are stacked in such a way, the seat fabric isolates the wood to wood touching. We tried this many ways, and this is the final setup we came up with. It has worked since 2007 and over 45,000 miles with no damage. We really like it




If we carry 4 chairs, it looks like this.


I will say this, the table and chairs is slight forward of the TT front axle. It is not way behind the axles. I also have shocks and a Trail Aire rubber equalizer. The suspensions upgrades really help tame down the road bounce.

I'm not sure we could do this if the table was at the back of the camper. The bounce is more magnified back there. I can tell by the swivel rockers that move some on bad roads.

Hope this helps give you some ideas to build off of.

John

OP, we replaced out U-dinette with a round freestanding table with drop leaf. I made my own benches for the one side and back wall. My table isn't anchored down because originally we would take it out for some trips and put a pack-n-play for our youngest. We found that flipping the table upside down was sufficient for transport and haven't changed that.

We found the original dinette to be awful uncomfortable and under used. Now the kids sit on the benches I made and my wife and I have short stools that we use. We absolutely LOVE it and have no regrets. Hope your reno goes smooth and you like it too.

Took my dinette out on a TT I had. Left the table that had a post going to the floor. Used a couple nice wooden folding chairs I got a Wally World. Very happy the way it came out.
B.O.

Thanks a lot for all the advise and ideas....

We removed the end tables from the walls, we just lay them down when we move. We are considering the same with the dinette table since it has worked out well. The chairs don’t move even when we forget to fasten them.

We "tie" the chairs down like this.

I removed my dinette as well recently and find the table and chairs I use don’t move much without any strapping down. The piece of carpet under them seems to keep them steady.

My current 5er and my previous TT, both had these anchored into the floor with straps to keep things from moving in transit (not the Command hooks in the photo below):





It turns out, the ones installed by the manufacturer are almost identical to the same ones used for hanging picture frames. So, if you are looking for them, go to WalMart to the picture fame area and you'll find them there. I used a half-inch course dry-wall screw to anchor it to the floor, so it would not go too deep and perhaps come out the bottom of the slide.

I've added more of these in different locations to create hooks for different tie-down or bungie cord tie downs.





As far as the table, we've had 2 RV's with stand-alone kitchen tables. Both were the pedestal rectangular tables with the claw foot style base. Holes were drilled through each arm of the claw feet and long screws attached each foot to the floor. Of course, you could leave the table free-standing and move it around then too. If ours was free standing and not screwed down, I'd probably keep a strap over it too, to keep it from falling over or sliding around.

This is not my photo, but we have the same chairs and table (Montana High Country 375FL - Fifth Wheel).



The strap over the chairs is hooked into one of those hooks like pictured above. There is a screw hole drilled into each foot on that table with a long screw going into the floor, actually, only about 1/2 an inch.

Any table will work, as long as it fits your space and your comfort level. If you want, you could even use a camping folding table. Nothing says it has to be RV specific. Measure the size you have available and visit furniture stores.

Good luck!