Hi there! this is a video about how we converted our 2010 Toyota Sienna minivan into a camper.
We started this project in the Spring of 2021 as a Covid project.
We got the idea from some vans we had seen on a trip to Vancouver Island
so we watched some YouTube videos to get more inspiration. I want to give a big shout-out to a
few people: Eric Enjoys Earth and also Bruce Parks and some others who helped us with design ideas.
So our basic idea is that we wanted to turn our van into a camper instead of tenting
or towing or buying an RV. We wanted something that had to be non-invasive so there's no drilled
holes or permanent fixtures. We wanted to be able to switch between the van and the camper.
We didn't want to compromise safety: everything is secure
and we didn't want anything to block the normal driving sight lines. We also wanted a design that
was simple: no complicated plumbing or electrical systems with second batteries anything like that.
Our purpose was for camping, not necessarily boondocking or stealth. Some people do
that but we were quite happy to just go to normal campgrounds and we didn't need something
that was indecipherable as a camping van. And the the last consideration is that this
is for two people max. I think some people do vans that hold more than two people but
with our kids grown up and at university now we just needed something for the two of us.
So the first thing we did is we removed the middle and rear seats to maximize our space.
In the Sienna the rear seat folds into the floor so removing that rear seat offers us
space at the back as well as that wheel well area.
The first bit of construction that we did was the floor. The floor is just a single sheet of
plywood with some extra supports underneath. Then we attached some sticky vinyl flooring to it.
The floor itself attaches to the floor of the van with a U-bolt that attaches to seat anchors
so it's very secure in there — it doesn't move around. So we really like that floor:
it's easy to keep clean and it provides a stable flat surface for the rest of the structures.
The next thing we built was the side cabinet. We made it out of a sheet of half inch maple plywood
and we cut the side sections along the contours of the van's side. Once the frame was done we
attached a quarter inch plywood front sheet with the holes cut out for access to the different
cubbies. The cabinet is secured to the van with a U-bolt at the bottom and it
also has a strap attached to the top gripping handle and it sits securely in place there.
Next we built the sink cabinet. This holds our drinking water and our grey water tank as well as
storage for food. The sink we bought second hand and it uses this little battery-powered faucet
which is great. It doesn't have a huge water flow but that's all that we really need. It has
a rechargeable battery on it and we've hardly ever run out of charge on that. It goes for a long time
without having to recharge it. The cabinet itself is attached to the side cabinet
and it's also attached to the floor so everything in that area is is nicely secured to the van.
And then we have the bed frame and platform. The frame itself is made from 2x4's. It has four legs
for stability. The bed platform is made from four sections of plywood and the front section also has
legs attached to it so that when the bed is laying flat then those legs provide that extra stability
support at the very front of the bed. The bed platform is 44 inches wide. That's the width
of the bed so it's pretty tight, pretty narrow but it's fine for the two of us.
It has four sections that are hinged together and it's attached to the frame by the small section.
The hinges allow for the platform to be put up into couch mode or
you can lay it down into bed mode. The rear section has ratchets attached to keep this section
raised when we need to gain access to the trunk area. The bed mattress is actually cut into four
sections. It's a three inch mattress give or take and my wife made covers for them and then we put a
sheet over top all of them. The mattresses are kept in place with front and rear mattress guards.
We find that when we sleep on the bed these sections stay together really well
so there's no problem about separating those mattresses when you sleep.
We store our food and our kitchen box under the front section of the bed in two Rubbermaid bins
so you can pull these out and get anything you need to from underneath the bed.
The table we use was made from a section of the plywood we used from the bed. It has an aluminum
table support on one side that can allow you to easily attach and remove the table. We have
the receiving end of the aluminum support of one section on the inside and we have another section
on the edge of our bed frame which allows us to use the table outside the rear of the van which
we do sometimes if we like to eat outside from the back of the van. The table has an extendable
fold-away leg that can be set up to different heights either for inside or outside use.
So that's basically it. We really love our van really think this was a fun project to do. We can
easily convert it between the regular minivan and the camping setup in about 30 minutes and nothing
is permanent — everything can be easily removed or put back in. We really like that everything
is accessible in the van; there's nothing we have to pull out to get at anything else.
And none of it was particularly difficult to make — we used mainly a jigsaw and a circular saw
and screws and bolts to hold it all together. The whole project took us about three months to make
and we've been using it successfully for the last year or so. So thanks very much for watching!