bed coverings, what/where/how

bondebond wrote:
I have used the elastic "garter" sheet holders to keep the fitted sheets in place.

You can find them just about anywhere that sells sheets.

No one sells (or if they do, you wouldn't want to pay the prices) sheets fitted to what you find in PUPs so you make do.

.

OMG those bring back memories.. I forgot all about them..
thanks..
wife has a sewing machine so I'll see it I can pawn that part off..
if not, my lack of skill set will show also..

I'm going through this right now with my PUP that I'm renovating. The two mattresses that are in it are a weird size: 69 in x 48 in. That's not a standard mattress size, not for at home or for campers.

The foam on our mattresses are awful. They're about 2.5 in thick. I wanted to replace them so I ordered two double/full sized memory foam mattresses and I have to cut them down to size.

For under the mattresses I'm laying down Reflectix, followed by anti-fatigue mats. There are no mattress covers that you can buy to fit our size mattresses, so I'm taking two flat sheets, trimming them down to size, sewing them together, then putting a zipper onto them and they will be our mattress covers. Then it's just a matter of getting a double fitted sheet and mattress clips underneath that will go from side to side of the sheet to keep the edges taut. That will definitely be too big but it's the best we can do given the weird size our mattresses are. I don't want to deal with hospital corners so I won't be using flat sheets. Then we have pillows and a synthetic (not down) duvet. I could use sleeping bags instead but I find cleaning sleeping bags is too much of a hassle. With a sleeping bag you need a large sized washer so I have to go to a laundrymat and deal with that hassle, so it's just way easier for me to take sheets off the bed and wash those at home instead.

This weekend is when we're actually doing our big renovation. For reference, I used this post as an inspiration: How We Sleep {Comfortably} in Our Pop Up Camper

We purchased 'moderate' quality sheets. We simply fold over/under a king sheet to cover the mattress. I agree with other comment that fitted sheets are a pain. We use top sheet and blankets in warmer weather, but carry sleeping bags too, used as a comforter. We don't want to sleep in a sleeping bag any longer (did that tent camping for years), but as an upper layer, a sleeping bag is toasty.
We don't use a mattress topper. Some people swear by those foam toppers, others swear at them. That's a personal comfort issue.
All we're trying to do is keep the mattress clean, so covering it with any quality sheet is fine by us.

Double sleeping bag for the DW and I. Individual sleeping bags for the kids. They stay in the camper; I have other set of sleeping bags for when my son and I tent camp.
Sheets & blankets are too much trouble.

We use sleeping bags with sheets within. We don't worry about other bed coverings.

I have used the elastic "garter" sheet holders to keep the fitted sheets in place.

You can find them just about anywhere that sells sheets.

No one sells (or if they do, you wouldn't want to pay the prices) sheets fitted to what you find in PUPs so you make do.

I recently acquired a sewing machine at Goodwill for another project and decided to try my skills (HA!) out on a stupid simple task with the straight sheets.

I folded the bottom end over about 8 inches and sewed the edges together along the sides. This made something of a pocket at the bottom of the sheet. I just tucked it under the mattress and we no longer have a top sheet that pulls out sometime in the middle of the night. We do use sleeping bags as blankets over us and should the cold overcome our heating abilities, we can turn them back into sleeping bags. The kids just sleep in sleeping bags at the other bunk end even though there is a fitted sheet on the mattress there.

Sheets, especially fitted sheets, are nothing short of a hassle in pop-ups and hybrid trailers. Too much work for no gain. We always continued to use sleeping bags in our PUPs, and in our hybrids we put one unzipped sleeping bag down as a base and simply throw comforters and pillows on top. All of 90 seconds to "make" the bed. The KISS principle.

There is only two of us in our OFF-ROAD POPUP setup so we just put a 3-inch memory foam topper on the front bed where we sleep. This is the best place for us since it has the trailer front deck underneath us to keep two and four legged creature from sneaking in on us...

We also use the 2inch by 2inch foam strips you find at LOWES for sealing the window on the house window air conditioner installs. They fill in the air gaps around the tent ends just great.

We also put down stick-on carpet squares under both bed ends and on the trailer floor. This worked great for making the floors not so cold in the morning but I didn't think about all of the leaves and other woods things that keep being brought into the trailer...

My trailer also has a hugh air gap between the where the pull out beds meets up with the trailer front and rear ends. You can look out both of these area and see daylight. I also installed a different rubber seal here to solve this problem. This also allowed insects to come in at night when they could see our lights on from inside the trailer.

I also added 9x12 tarps covers over both tent beds ends which looks pretty good when folded into place using stretch ropes etc... This protects our tent bed fabric from UV and darkens up the inside of the trailer big time...



We got one of these folding steps (AMAZON) to put at the bottom of our two steps arrangement. You can really stomp of these without doing any damage to keep from tracking in leaves and other trash when camping in the woods...


Try camping out in your back yard for a few times and see what you really need to have with you when camping off the power grid... Lot easier to go to WALMART and LOWES from your house then finding them when 30 miles back into the woods somewhere...

Roy Ken

Ours has "King" sized bunks on both ends. We have a 2" memory foam topper on and cover the mattress/topper with a king-sized fitted sheet and just tuck the excess underneath the mattress. In the warmer months, we just us a sheet and quilt if necessary and in the cold months we use 2 sleeping bags zipped together. The kids sleep on the other bunk and use sleeping bags all the time.

When we had our pop-up, we never found sheets that actually worked on both bunk-end beds. I was fortunate, my mother is a seamstress (I can't even sow a worm on a fishing hook!)...

We purchased 2 flat sheets large enough to cover the mattress. My mother sewed them together like a pillow case. She also attached some strings on both sides so they could be tied together.

Because this was a Pop-Up, getting the mattress off the bed was extremely easy. We simply put the mattress in it's new "pillow case", tied up the end and put it in place. Worked great! We used sleeping bags on top of that for years. Eventually, we moved to a real sheet and blankets, and then we discovered ELECTRIC blankets! OH MY! Wonderful on chilly nights!

Actually, when we got our first TT and then our second TT, my mother sewed up more "pillow cases" covers for all the cushions, bed mattresses, and everything for us. A couple times a season, we'd remove them, and washing them in the washing machine. For us it worked wonderful!

Current camper has a real household mattress and we now have real furniture, so no need to do this any more for us. But, if you can't find the item, you make it yourself! That was our solution.