The Pea Project – Part 3: Improvised, Not Perfect

 

                 

 The paint wasn’t even properly dry and we carried straight on.

Interior build.

For now we skipped insulation completely. Same with a roof vent and side windows — mainly because of time, not because we suddenly decided we don’t need them. Quite the opposite. But for the first trip they weren’t life-or-death items.

At that moment, two things were non-negotiable: a bed and a kitchen.

Let’s start with the bed.

Somewhere, there was a slatted bed base lying around. Naturally not one that fit the van. But it was far too big for its new job — which made it the perfect starting point. Four hours of sawing, drilling and swearing later, everything fit that previously… didn’t.

What was still missing was the mattress. And that turned out to be less trivial than expected. Because the bed isn’t a standard size, we had to improvise. A custom mattress will come later — once we’ve given the whole “bed concept” the green light and know it actually works. But not now.

For now we’re dealing with 176 cm in length and 140 cm in width. And we need to find out if — and how — we can live with that. Especially because I’m 178 cm tall. Two centimetres missing from the start. A promising beginning.

Maybe it’s fine if you lie slightly diagonally.
Maybe it works.
Maybe after the test week we’ll have to rethink everything.

Which, to be fair, is exactly what the test week is for.

I thought about it for ages, searched online, and also rummaged through my personal “treasure storage” — until the idea finally arrived: IKEA.

Not “drive there and buy something”.

We already have IKEA. On the terrace.

There’s a patio seating set out there with big foam cushions. Large, flat, and surprisingly hard. Almost mattress-hard. The only problem: a bit too big — and at the same time a bit too small. Size: 120 × 120 cm.

But before you reject something in theory, you test it in reality. So I did exactly that.

Three cushions in length give 180 cm instead of the required 176. Four centimetres squeezed in — and the first half of the mattress was done. Add the next three cushions, and the second half was sorted too.

For the first test week: absolutely fine.

The remaining gap of around 20 cm between the two mattress rows I filled with sleeping bags and blankets. Temporary. Improvised. But all within acceptable levels of madness.

Not pretty. Not perfect. But functional.

And that was the goal.