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We dream about van life, road tripping, a lifestyle of living on the road, whatever you want to call it. The reality is that we are still homeowners and we aren’t becoming nomads on the road as our life. So with not living out of our vehicle full-time but needing something to comfortably sleeping in for the next couple of months, purchasing a new vehicle for our summer road trip didn’t make sense.
The next best thing was to construct a bedroom in the back of our 2008 Subaru Tribeca. We purchased the car in September 2018 and decided to get trade-in value for our 2009 Hyundai Elantra instead of making the Subaru our second car. We are still a one-car household which takes some coordination, but on a larger scale has helped us pay off the Subaru quickly allowing us to save more for our summer road trip. The road trip had only been an often talked about dream that “might happen” in the summer. Today, that dream is a reality – set goals and you too can make something like this happen!
Sarah’s initial reaction was that this project was unnecessary, we could just fold the backseats down to sleep as we’ve done before. It seemed like a “make work” project and that it would only delay our goal of leaving by July 7th.
The main reason for this construction was that it would save space and be more convenient for sleeping. After a long day of driving and exploring all we need to do is rearrange a few items to the front seats, pull out our sleeping bags and sleeping pads and slumber away!
The total cost of this project was fairly cheap. A lot of the wood was scrap wood from family and friends. We also had some extra carpet just rolled up in the garage from when the previous owner had new carpet installed in our house.
Items Purchased:
- T50 torx bit to remove bolts and take out back seats in the car
- 3 – 6 ft 2×10’s
- ⅜ inch staples to staple the carpet to the wood
Andy began work on the project on the morning of July 3rd, four days before our planned departure! Total cost was under $30!
After the road trip, the Subaru will turn back into a daily use car and a weekend adventure car. For now, it’s our home!
Have you ever constructed something like this? Share in the comments below!
Peace, love, and hike thru life!