B+ motorhomes

[Daniel_C_]

I just bought a Trail Lite B+ 211s with 8.1 Chevy
engine. This is my fifth motorhome (others range
from an old 20' Vagabond, and three Winnegagos, from 19 to 32'. This vehicle is fantastic. I am
using it as a mobile office (and sneaking in a fun
journey from time to time). It gets about 9.5mpg
and I believe I could pull a bus behind it if I wanted! I paid low $40's which is about what I had expected to pay for a five or six year old Chinook with a nicer interior, but fewer features
(slide). I am delighted thus far.

[cheeze1]

Ok, loyal consultants, we are back from measuring, and my wife had some brainstorms. This is pretty much THE PLAN:
We are keeping the current sofa, (in the same spot) but I'm removing the seatback. (I used to teach metalwork so it's no biggie) The base cushion is ample for DW to sleep on. Behind it, as we all know, is a 6" dummy wall, that was probably put there for clearance. Its going. The remaining base of the couch will be moved against the wall. We will take the original seatbacks and reduce them to about 2" thickness, and find a way to mount them on the wall as something to lean against. When we are in 'living' mode, DW always takes a couple of pillows and lounges with her back to the fridge, facing the tv anyway.
The entire dinette is going. Once the freshwater tank is in place,(it measures about 30 x 19) all the old 23" wide dinette cushions (38" long each) will be made shorter to fit longways on the bench I will build (approx 70"). The seatbacks, that will now be the same length as the cushions, will be used for a 'flip up' for the bed on that side. They are 13" wide. They will flip or fold up on a hinge from underneath, and make the bed on that side 36" wide. This will still give us a 29" aisle when we are sleeping and a 42" area when folded. We will make some kind of thin cushion as the seatback for the former dinette-side bench against that wall.
I'm also trashing the ugly carpet for something with a better color and resilience.
I think this is a workable plan that makes good use of much of what we have. For dining purposes, I will be experimenting with an airline style flip up/out tray/table.
:W

[cheeze1]

Stimulate! Stimulate!!!

[Gene_in_NE]

Not sure where you could buy the jack knife couch that we have. The model 211 with slide has a couch that does not stick into the aisle as much as the models without a slide. When our couch is up there is 20" of space in the aisle and when down there is still 12" of space. Just enough to walk between when both are in sleeping position. We also have a dinette across from the sofa. Our dinette is almost exactly 40"W x 74"L. One of us can sleep on that and the other sleeps across on the sofa. To make the dinette more comfortable, we bought a regular single foam mattress from the local furniture store - paid about $59. We lay that on top of the dinette cushions and that makes a very comfortable sleeping position. We can use tv trays for eating, which we rarely do inside the RV. The couch gets a single 2" foam mattress topper that gets folded in half lengthwise and rolled up and put into a sleeping bag. To make it easier to stuff in the bag, we took a queen flat sheet and made a pillow case for the pad. Hope this is clear to the reader. I merely mention this to stimulate additional thinking.

[cheeze1]

The beds will double as couches during the day, with much more open area between. The more I look at the BornFree, the more I like it. I will have bolsters against the wall to make sitting facing the side of the coach more comfy.
The thing is, right now, when we are parked, and we eat, one of us cannot watch the tv. When we settle down to relax but not necessarily want to sleep, my wife puts a pillow behind her and uses the fridge wall for support, and I sit at the dinette facing the tv, but not relaxed. Even if I make up that side of the bed, it's not comfortable. This still leaves the 17" aisle, but it's still cramped. We do not have others over, and don't care about setting a formal table. We will be very happy with some kind of airline flip out/over tray that we will be able to eat at and still enjoy the room and tv.
I am thinking of hinging the main seat on each side against the side walls, allowing the box underneath to be accessible. In addition, I am 'pondering' an idea of a fold out extension with legs that will make the beds wider for sleeping yet will still allow an aisle. A normal 'full' bed (I have NO idea why they call it that! To me, its a single!) is 39". I'm sure that my wife and I can sleep on slightly less. Even with 39, we would have a 17" aisle at nite. We sleep on our sofa in our tv room all the time, and the surface of that is 24" deep. I'm now thinking of where to get advice for the type of foam we can use for the cushions.
btw, does anyone know what is behind the gray panels on either side of the front area of the coach where it transitions to the cab??? Maybe there is more room there??
Thanks gang! Keep 'em coming!!

[burlmart]

TMBLSN

Our TL213s have that exact sofa now, and a standard two seat dinette across from the sofa...you can click on the brochure link I gave a few posts back and scroll down to the TL 213 floorplan. There you will see that there is a narrow 17" aisle during the day use with the sofa up.

You can see that if the sofa was where the dinette is, it would be flush w/ the kitchen cabinet and not intrude on aisle. The dinette could then be eliminated in lieu of something else, and that is where maybe an inflatable bed or the suggested futon chair-turn-into-single-bed might make a good option in opening up more daytime floor room.

In the Born Free Built for Two, twin beds w/ daytime cushion backs are pointed at the TV and their heads raise like in a hospital.

Born Free Built For Two

[TMBLSN]

So, you wouldn't have anywhere to sit, except for the beds?

Maybe jack-knife sofas on both sides. You could install them slightly away from the walls so that they would come together when extended, creating almost a king size bed.

A couple of these:

[cheeze1]

I like that idea of the sofa BED, but how long does it take for the air mattress to inflate? I think it would take up too much room.
Burl, I will be verifying all the measurements tomorrow when we go up to see the coach and test our 'comfort dimensions'. I did notice that the sofa's depth can be better used on the other side with the depth of the kitchen, but we are now leaning to two separate beds like the Bornfree, with possible night extensions that would increase the sleep space yet still leave a 17" aisle for nites, and flip up armtrays for eating. I did look at used airline seats, but the disadvantages out weigh the good points.

[TMBLSN]

Only one of the sofas has this 'new' mattress, the first one, in the upper left corner. The other models have what look like conventional mattresses, but are inflatable with a frame.

BUT, it does state that the bed, in the deployed position, is 92". So, you wouldn't be able to have anything on the wall opposite the couch, the bed would fill the entire space.

I don't have one of these, I just ran across it a while back and thought that it might be something that you would want to consider.

[burlmart]

VERY interesting. The picture at the website of a blue mattress is quite different from the pic you posted of a brown sofa and what appears to be two separate mattresses stacked and forming a big ottoman. Are they the same?

How much clear space is under the sofa?

[TMBLSN]

What if you rip out both the dinette and sofa...

Then, install a sofa bed where the dinette was (with the air bed option, of course):

http://www.vehiclespecialty.com/convert.html

This will give you a conventional queen size bed.

[burlmart]

The pic of the OPEN 252DS is inspiring

Trail Lite Brochure w/ Floorplans

You can better use the 213 floorplan w/ the dimensions I posted. Notice how the 38" dinette is almost equal to the sofa plus outer storage (34 + 6 = 40").

[cheeze1]

Ponder away! My thought for a u shape would be one with 'legs' a few inches wider than the wall side bench. I'm probably not doing that.
HOWEVER, first we need to see if we can sleep on the sofa by itself. If not, I can make a 30" bed, with a higher seat, with drawers, doors or a hinged top. The sofa frame encroaches on the storage now anyway. Also, making the dinette in it's current position to expand to a 53" bed as I estimate Gary Swanson's must be is another possibility. I'm going up to the coach saturday to take measurements.
BTW, how are the higher end coach mfr. cabinets constructed? With hardwood frames I guess?

[burlmart]

Cheeze1,

For the TL 213, the face of the kitchen cabinetry parallel w/ the frig front define a pretty wide aisle (38 inches) that could be totally opened up from kitchen to cab! Currently the 38 inch wide dinette takes up 6 inches of this aisle, and the sofa seat encroaches by about 15”. This leaves only a 17 inch aisle now. You are right to hope for a possible 18” more open aisle from kitchen to cab, where the two seats are 26 in apart.

Very Approximate widths (inches):

32 for kitchen counter*
25 fridge*
38 aisle*
*add to inside wall to wall of 95 in.
6 outside storage
34 sofa upright, maybe 52 down
38 dinette

If you elevate and swap sofa w/ removed dinette (keep old water tank and little disturbance to pump and electricals under sofa) sofa is flush with kitchen.

On the 25” frig side, maybe remove the false wall of 6” outside storage for a reduced dinette that makes into a 25” narrow bed, or it could encroach on aisle a bit to yield a 30 in. narrow twin when made down. Here, still, you go from a 17” current aisle to 32.

I think you gotta forget the U dinette, as it sucks away the aisle you are shooting at gaining to get that ‘slide width’.

You will be losing outside storage.

Still, I am intrigued and will continue to ponder…

[cheeze1]

Burl, the ideas are coming fast and furious. My DW is convinced that a total change is the way to go and said; "why do we need the dinette at all? we don't eat formally with a 'set' table when traveling. How about the flip up trays like the airlines have?".
I thought that was a stroke of genius. Now we are thinking about doing the 2 bed configuration like the BornFree Built for Two has.
How wide of an aisle is 'normal'?
Also, if I make one side a modified u-shape dinette, we can pedestal mount the table, and I can make drawers under the side where the sofa is now. I think the drivers side where the tank and electricals are will be pretty much filled.

[burlmart]

Gene, I posted about my new batt on the Class C thread titled 'Deep Cycle Batteries, Which Brand'

Am repainting hangar cage (after spraying with a can of foamy neutralizer, probably $4 worth of baking soda!), two coats of rustoleum rust primer, and one coat of rustoleum glossy topcoat. You may recall I did something similar about 1.75 yrs back, but area looked pretty rusty again.

Cheeze1, I am really getting excited about your rehab project. I looked at ours carefully, and think there would be little work to replace existing dinette with the jacknife (provided you raise sofa about 3 inches to allow water tank to fit under it).

I imagine what it would look like w/ that large open floor space when the sofa is up and any new parallel dinette is put away. It really allows many furniture options, some that I mentioned before. Remember that there is a 6 in thick outside storage formed as a false wall behind the jacknife now...this could be opened up also.

I would resist putting another sofa or permanent bed. Your idea from the other thread of a half dinette is good, too. What if two captains chairs and a removable bistro table were put where sofa is now, and somehow the two chairs form a twin bed at nite, as some Class B layouts use?