Background

When I purchased my Toyota Pickup, it came with a large canopy on the back. It was built out to be a camper, with snap together engineered hardwood floors, and insulated. I was never happy with how it was built, using Reflectix® for the wall insulation and standard fiberglass insulation behind the panels built into the bed.

I tore down out everything that was in the canopy, as I wanted to replace it all with plywood sheeting for the walls, and put in my own equipment. It was a hassle because the previous owner had used a cardboard type material for the walls, which had gotten wet from the roof vent leaking, causing it all to come out in chunks.

I was then left with an empty aluminum box. I was ok with this, not using the truck to go camping in for quite some time.

Yesterday

I just finished my first year and 1 summer session at WSU, leading me to be left with nothing to do over the summer, mainly due to the ongoing COVID-19 predicament. I figured it would be a good time to build out the back of my camper with a full summer with no itinerary.

Starting with the floor, there was already a piece of OSB that had a cut-out for the wheel well, so using that as a template, I cut up a piece of plywood of the same thickness. Luckily, I only had to remove the material around the wheel well, and cut the board down to length. I did not take a picture of this step, but I do have one later in the process with my bed platform sitting in the back.

Today

The picture above shows the first step in building a bed for the back of my truck. I already had a mattress pad that my grandfather had made for his camper that is now my dads. The pad is 48" wide by 70" long, and folds in half. Being 6'2", this is a little bit of a problem, but its a decent mattress that I really don’t want to rebuild.

I made the bed platform 24" wide so that I could still have some storage in the back. I cut a piece of plywood 24" x 70", and made a frame from 2x4’s that were laying around my parents house.

I overhang the plywood top enough so that it would sit on the bed rail. This worked out fairly well, making the bed a comfortable height to sit up on without hitting my head.

The platform sat nicely in between the two clamps holding the camper down to the truck bed. It also is at the perfect height to fit two storage bins underneath it.

The pad fits on top perfectly, but in testing the weight bearing capacity, I found that the way I had built it was not strong enough. placing a support in the middle would remedy this situation.

I am not close to being done, as I still need to get some 1/8" plywood for the walls, and plan out an electrical system, but I am happy with how this bed turned out.