Four Wheel Camper Modifications (Part Two)

Space saving and organization are the trick to living comfortably in a confined space.  This post will cover how we have modified our Raven Four Wheel Camper shell model to store more gear.

We flipped the cabinet upside down and installed a towel rack and a removable storage container.  Notice that we also moved the awning crank to rest along side the door.  

We opted for the king-size bed in our Raven and have slides to accommodate the extra cushions.  To make storage more efficient, we relocated the cabinet (we affectionately call it the head-knocker cabinet) and butted it up against the bed slides.  We also flipped the head-knocker cabinet upside down so that the doors now hang down because we couldn't easily see inside the cabinet and it took two hands to remove anything from it... one to hold the door open and the other to fish out the item we needed.  Now that the cabinet door hangs down, it is much more convenient to see inside the cabinet and remove items.

To further utilize the area under the head-knocker cabinet, we installed a paper towel rack to the bottom of the cabinet.  We also moved the awning crank from its position on the seat under the window.  We removed the catches and placed them along side the door.  Now we don't need to crawl into the camper to access the crank.

Originally the fire extinguisher and its case were placed in the middle of the wall below the head-knocker cabinet.  We removed the case and relocated the fire extinguisher to the corner by the back window.  This allowed room for an additional, removable storage box.  We screwed self-adhering Velcro straps into the camper wall and wrapped the box and fire extinguisher separately to the wall to allow easy access and to avoid having items bounce around the cabin.

We also installed curtain tracks for snap tape curtains along the back wall of the camper.  I made some handy pouches to hang along the track for additional storage.  As you can see in the photo above, we have a short pouch behind the head-knocker cabinet (on the passenger side of the door).  We also have two pouches to the right of the door.  The first small pouch holds our thermostat (more about that in another post).  The second, larger pouch holds kitchen goods.

Using curtain track and snap tape, we made pockets to store additional items.

When David was working on the water and electrical system, he removed the panels around the furnace.  To our surprise, we found several areas of unused space.  The first was directly under the furnace and battery box (located in the rear on the driver's side).

David boxed in this area, and we found a container that holds my spices perfectly.  The spice rack is also held in place with self-adhering Velcro.

Spice rack below furnace and battery box.

There was also a pocket of space around the corner from the spice rack.  David boxed this in also and built a door for it.  The space is sufficiently wide to hold paper goods.

New storage cabinet.

More modifications in our next post...