What can I say, they are shelves! Each shelf does have a lip on it to stop stuff sliding out. Some shelves have old suitcases on (I like them… don’t judge me!) The last niggling thing was that I was using two cardboard boxes waiting for the perfect box, chest, suitcase to turn up that would fit in nicely.
I gave up waiting and made two crates out of my left over and scrap ply. I’m quite chuffed.
The only problem is that now my kitchen shelf with plastic stacker-boxes of food and cooking utensils looks really untidy. May have to buy more ply to make more matching crates!
So I did go back and make another 3 boxes for the kitchen shelf. I also got some name plates so I could add labels to the front of the boxes. I think they really finish off the boxes.
At the bottom of the shelves I’ve added a drawer / pull out table. This is on drawer runners so can be pulled out by the rope handle. I went for the rope handle as that would be right next to the head of the bed when the bed is out so I didn’t want a hard handle sticking out and the rope fitted with the vaguely piratey theme that seems to be growing in the van.
Update: this pull out drawer works really well… I’ve had my first weekend away since I’ve added this. I made this so you could sit at the table if the bed was not folded out but the drawer also clears the bed (and duvet) if the bed is down. It was really pleasing to sit crossed legged on the bed and play jenga with the boy and later find him and his mate using it to write on and build car tunnels out of jenga blocks.
Shelves over the sideboard
On my latest trip out I’m still piling stuff onto the sideboard, such as my toiletries bag. I need more storage. My next plan is to have some more shelving above head height, over the sideboard. The current plan is to rivet some aluminium right angle to the last exposed metal, then fix some ply to that and add in a few brackets on top to support from above. I’ve not decided if I’m going to have doors, a lip or a roller to keep things in place.