re posting id 1075

Hi Stephen and Deborah,

We have found our layout to be very practical and heaps of space both inside and outside the cupboards. By splitting the oven and sink area we have pretty much ensured that we are not working on top of each other's space.

We have a 20foot with a double bed. The double bed allows enough walk around space and gap between the bed and benches without cutting corners. Make sure you get the full length foot lockers as we have found this another valuable little storage space.

We are very happy with our space allocation but we are looking at making the hanging space on Ivan's side of the bed into shelving as we have very little hanging clothing.

Not sure if you can see from the pictures but we opted for the highest height cupboards available (I think 960mm height) and this was good. Also I didnt know at the time but we could have opted for 400mm depth cupboards instead of the 300mm we ended up with. BT didnt tell us as they have this thing about people hitting their heads on the upper cupboards but as I am short it wouldnt have worried me and Ivan would have only done it a few times before learning his lesson. Hope this helps. Come back with any other questions about the layout.

Angie

I thought an island queen bed would be the way to go, but we ended up with a queen bed across the back of the van - takes very little space leaving us lots of room in the 18 footer. Still has a storage/shelf bed head. I don't mind having to crawl across hubby if i want to get up in the night - about time i woke him up for a change. 18' seems HUGE for me to cope with towing and backing - so didn't want anything bigger.

We have a Queen Sized island bed in a 21ft van and there is no way that we would change to one that was against the wall. They are just so much easier to make up and get in and out of. I agree with Angie re side step length. We have just had ours extended to be the length of the bed.

As for towing length, I think if you can tow a 16 ft van you can tow a 26ft van. Once it is behind you the front section that you can see in the mirrors is the same, no matter what length they are.

The only real difference caused by van length is that a longer van cuts in more than a shorter one on corners, so you just have to take the corners slightly wider.

Brian