buildout

Truck and Topper

I upgraded my truck is a 4WD F-150 with a regular cab and has a regular bed (6.5’). I added a cab-height commercial aluminum shell by ARE, with windowed side and rear barn doors, security screens, and a ladder rack.

Construction

This camper build-out is a sleeping platform of a full-length drawer, and storage hatches, and a side cabinet.

Starboard Side

On the starboard side, I again boxed in the wheel and at the fore, made a nightstand with one drawer and a cubby for a camp toilet underneath. A sliding door covers it all. Further aft is a cubby for a 5-gallon jug and a small drawer fixed with a magnet. Tying it together is a countertop of white oak veneer tongue-in-groove flooring, trimmed in white oak.

Floor, Walls, and Ceiling

Under the floor lies a pull-out table trimmed in aluminum. The raw plywood edges of the floor and drawer box are trimmed in whitewashed white oak.

The side walls are a coroplast skin over a simple cedar frame.

The ceiling is insulated with foam board, skinned in coroplast, fixed with whitewashed molding.

Materials and Finish

I used 3/4" Baltic birch plywood for the drawer and drawer box, with 1/2" for the cabinets and floor.

The sub-floor and pull-out table are 1/2” prefinished ACX ply reused from the first iteration of this build. Under that, in the valleys of the floor ridges, is ripped strips of cedar fence boards. I ripped the ceiling molding from a 2x8 of doug-fir. The ceiling insulation is 1” RMAX foam rated R6.

The whole buildout has an oil-stain whitewash. The exception is the colored drawer-fronts and magnet hatch, which are ink-stained Prussian blue. The other exception being the starboard white oak countertop which is sealed but unstained. The large drawer's interior is treated with boiled linseed oil, being a utilitarian coating. Everything else is sealed with a matte-finish polycrylic.

This project is all new materials other than the TNG countertop and oak trim, which are scraps from a home renovation. 

Conclusion

I designed this project, chatted with a carpenter and other friends on various construction and design details, borrowed the tools, took over the garage,  and built this project myself. This is my first big solo project. Ihave done one shake-down cruise and found it to be fully functional.