Making a corner queen bed?

PSW wrote:
We have a corner bed in our Phoenix Cruiser and find it well worth any hassle. There are only so many ways you can lay out a small motorhome and this arrangement simply allows for more room elsewhere.

Is it idea? No. Is crawling up a ladder to a bed less than 24 inches from the ceiling above the cab a better solution? Not for us. Is it better than a couch that makes into a bed, therefore requiring in most instances the stowing of the bedding daily and then flipping it out again to stretch out or take a nap? Not for us.

I just don't think for a single person a corner bed would be much of a hassle at all. For two people like us, one obviously has to crawl out over the other person to an extent for night to visits elsewhere. This is not as a big of a problem as some seem to suggest and it would a problem for a large person or an infirmed person.

We have had the couch conversion on another two rigs and find the corner bed works better for us. To each his own and his own style of traveling and comfort.

Paul

Just like PSW, we own a Phoenix Cruiser with a rear corner bed, and it is a tight one as you can see here, made up with our bedding. We feel the same as Paul/PSW.


I find it entertaining that "Making Up The Bed" is such a well discussed topic. How pretty does it really need to be?

With that said, I am the hubby and am the one who makes up our bed. I find it easy to set the bed as long as the initial fresh-bed-setting is done in detail with proper tucking of the flat sheet by the feet. Subsequent bed-settings are quick & easy by simply folding the far side over itself instead of tucking.

Another practice we use is the sandwich that makes up the bedding. We set our bed only with a sheet and comforter. Blankets are added as needed. Warm nights we add no blanket. On cool/cold nights we pull up the comforter and/or add a blanket. It sounds like a lot of work, but I find it to be a painless solution to bed-setting. In the morning, the first thing I do is fold the blanket, if used. After the sheet and comforter are in-place, I set the folded blanket at the foot of the bed, under that shirt closet you see in my picture. I added a shelf in our shirt closet for extra blankets.

One last point specifically about the sheets. Many corner beds have a cut corner like our Phoenix Cruiser. The mattress is not a perfect rectangle. I have found the best sheets that conform to the odd shape are cotton flannel sheets that have been shrunk to the max possible. The fitted sheet fits near perfectly while the flat flannel sheet is reduced in size to agree with the size of the bed.

I feel the topic of setting a rear corner bed is not the challenge, but rather entry-in and exit-from the bed. We are nimble 58 year old people and it works. But I can see it will be a challenge for us in our later years. Because our rig needs to be under 25 feet long to fit in our garage, we won't be changing rigs unless we change houses. And we hope we'll die at a ripe old age in this house of ours so the plan is to keep our PC that long.

We are 70+ and have a corner bed. Use the travsak with sheets that velcro in.

It is more difficult for my wife to make the bed (I have longer arms ;-)), so my job each morning is to make the bed. Takes less than 2 minutes. It would be nice to have a walk around bed, but like others have said, it allows us to have more space in the rest of the Motorhome. I would not turn down a unit just because it has a corner bed. We like the benefits of a smaller motorhome.

I agree with Phil. I think those who won't own another corner bed have valid concerns. But everything in RVs is a tradeoff. We can trade a little bed-making for the benefits of having it all in a short MH.

I should have mentioned in my first post, once the bedding is set up, each day consists only of pushing the top sheet and blanket back into place. No tucking anything in, no overlaying with a removable finishing layer, etc. Not hard at all.

Crawling over the other person in the middle of the night is a much bigger decision consideration than making the bed, IMO.

It depends upon what you mean by "making" the corner bed.

We have a 3" foam mattress we bought of just the right stiffness covering our corner bed - we cut the corner off the rectangular piece of the foam to make it exactly match the corner mattress under it that came with the motorhome. The 11 year old corner mattress that Winnebago delivered with the motorhome has a nicely fitted and color coordinated heavy mattress cover on it. This corner mattress has not broken down in 11 years and we've never washed it's stock mattress cover - no need to wash the original cover as it's always been covered with the 3" piece of foam on top if it.

We have a fitted sheet that exactly fits the piece of foam. The DW sleeps directly on the fitted sheet with a comforter on top of her. There is nothing to "make up". We just pull this fitted sheet off the foam piece periodically and throw it in the washer.

I know of no other design way to have a ready-to-use permanent floor level queen bed in a 24 foot motorhome with no slides without it being a bed in the corner. For us compact easy to heat, cool, and clean smallness along with complete self-containment was highest priority for our camping style.

I used to be the half of a (very tall) couple that slept in the far side of a rear corner bed. It wasn't a problem. That said, I'm still young enough to rarely need a bathroom in the middle of the night. I'm single now and I would choose a rear corner bed either way.

Is it annoying to make? Yes, it is (and more so now that I have a real mattress rather than the crappy foam thing that came with the RV). Is it annoying to get in and out of? Maybe sometimes. However, climbing into an over-cab bed or converting another thing into a bed daily would be WAY MORE annoying to me. This is how I minimize the annoyance of making a corner bed:

Step 1: At the beginning of the season, I make the bed completely using the mattress cover and a fitted flannel sheet. These stay in place all season.

Step 2: I use the FLAT flannel sheet (because I like flannel, usually camp when it's colder, and because it stays put well against the fitted flannel) and tuck it in around the edges on top of the fitted flannel sheet. This is my new BOTTOM sheet. It's easy to put on since it's just tucked in between the mattress and the walls.

Step 3: I use a random flat sheet and a comforter for my top bedding.

Step 4: To wash/remake the bed during the season, it's just a matter of pulling off the two flat sheets and putting them back. Super easy!


In this way, I only battle with the fitted stuff once a year. :) (and it's not THAT big of a battle) To each their own, but floor plan is priority #1 in RVs and I love the rear corner bed floor plans.

No moisture underneath.

What I might do is pull the mattress loose, get it out of the rig, onto a clean table. Then, on the side I'm sleeping on, add a pillow cover. Then, zip the thing in a cloth mattress cover. Once everything is shipshape, shove it back in, toss a sheet on top of it, and a Travasak or similar on top.

Are there issues with moisture underneath the mattress as in truck campers, or do I not need to worry about that? If there are, what do people use as a way to allow air to circulate underneath?

We've not found it to be a big deal, especially with the advent of foam mattresses which you can easily lift a corner and stretch the fitted sheet over without having to cram your head into a corner. I suppose it depends highly on age/agility though.

We have found that corner beds are actually longer than centered beds in the average Class C. We have no problems with the corner bed arrangement. We've always made our beds up European style which is fitted sheet on the mattress and a down filled duvet on top. Takes all of 30 seconds to make in the morning.

For a single person it will work. We have one, not an issue. Who focuses on making the bed on vacation and camping anyways.....but we use a a down comforter which is east to sleep on top of in warm weather, or under when it is cool. To make up the bed we just carefully toss the comforter over the bed.