During our test camping trip, we realized that the dogs are very disruptive to sleeping at night. Our black lab Yoshi is 6 years old and at home, she sleeps in bed with our kids. Maggie is not yet 1, so she is still happily sleeping in the crate at night.
They both wake up… with the sun. At home, I can get them to stay in bed till 7am. In the camper, 6am and they wanted OUT. I need to find a solution. Thankfully, the internet provided me with lots of ideas. I follow several camping Facebook pages, and saw how other people built their campers to accommodate crates for dogs. My goal is to do this renovation on a budget.
Our camper was in the repair shop for several weeks, for the awning repair (this was the only thing we broke on our test trip. IMO, we got lucky). As soon as it returned to our driveway, we could start to measure and really plan. We soon realized the loft frame was about 3 inches too wide in its’ current size. Jason cut the legs to the correct height, then had to cut the width of the whole thing down by those 3 inches. We measured the height of the crate to make sure the dogs would be comfy down there.
We are concerned with the weight we are carrying in the front of the trailer, because the “tongue weight” on the front hitch has a limit. The more we cut from the wood, the better, but it still has to be strong.
Historically with home improvement projects at our house, there is a moment where Jason says “OH Sh*t…..” This might be the first project that there wasn’t an OH sh*t moment! I have complete confidence that Jason can do things like this, and man, he really came through with flying colors this time. The bed is perfect! I scored a really good Memorial Day sale on a new mattress… so this futon mattress will be replaced- and the new one will be lighter in weight so that’s an advantage too.
Total Cost: $106 on the mattress (not shown, it didn’t arrive yet)! The space under the bed will be used to store our bins when we are on the road. These next few weeks will involve ordering supplies, making more camping reservations, reaching out to friends along the route, and figuring out activities…. I am getting so excited to hit the road! 😍
Weinstein Travels 
Leave a Reply