20. The bunk area.

 A lot has happened inside Lorca over the months since I bought her, and so what I'm posting in this post may have been seen in other posts. But this one tells the story of the bunk area as the focus. 

I like to sit up the back of the van and ponder. Just look at things I want to do, and think the whole process out in advance. Then think if there are any alternative ways I could do the thing, and weigh up which way I want to go.

Long before the floor was cleaned, de-rusted, and painted; before the sub floor was installed and the floorboards were laid, we had this:

The brackets were attached with rivnuts to the vehicle frame, and the cross beams were installed on the brackets. I added some ply sheets.

And after a whole lot of drilling, chamfering, and painting (and after the ceiling install had begun, and the MaxxFan Deluxe was installed), the bunk area looked like this:

My toilet and fridge were delivered, so I put them under the bunk just to store them until I was ready to properly install them.

The carpet around the rear doors was installed, as was a hefty steel handle over where the back courtesy light was.

And the rear fibreglass shelf was painted, along with the back doors. My fancy folding magnetic thermal window covers also arrived.

I noticed a problem. After the roof install I changed plans a little, and this change meant the gaps between the ceiling panels were now in a place where they would be seen. I thought about how to fix this for quite a long time.

You can see the join I'm talking about in the top of that last picture. Here's a closer look:

I know a lot of people wouldn't bother hiding them, but they have been driving me insane. So I bought some little speaker covers:

I cut out some headliner carpet circles to put under the grilles:

I made some mounting templates:

I used some steel brackets to attach the ceiling panels to each other, and test fit the mounting rings around them:

The geometry of the mounting holes and the ceiling slats was proving challenging to align. So I used some offcut ceiling slat pieces to make some shapes:

I shaped them to conform to the speaker grille mounting ring edges:

...and once mounted in place, they disappeared (which is what I was hoping for!)

Now all of the joins are hidden!

I bought a mattress for the bunk.

I really didn't like those sticky-uppy corners, so I cut them off and folded the fabric over them. I also made a little switch panel, hung up some flowers and a picture, and mounted the recessed LED lights.

Here she is:

With the corners gone, I found a beautiful thick bedspread in a relaxing colour scheme on ETSY...

...and I put it in:

There's still a lot to do back here, so I will update when I do it!