Framing my Dreams

A bed

You have but slumbered here,

While these visions did appear.

Every piece of furniture in my van begins with a stud frame, a basic box shape that will transform into a shower or a cupboard, a kitchen or a bed as required. Stud frames are simple in design, and basic enough to make, relying on careful and precise measuring and cutting. The important part is that they need to be strong. These are the structures that are going to hold my home together, are going to support my life, contain my food and clothes, give me places to sit and to sleep.

I began building my bed over last week. Our beds are important items of furniture. They are where we spend huge portions of our time, sleeping and dreaming, our subconscious processing our waking lives, our fears, and our hopes. What they look like and how they feel is hugely important for our comfort and health.

The very start of my bed

There are two main choices in a van, a fixed platform bed or a bed you construct and deconstruct to create a daytime space. When designing my floor plan, the choice of a fixed bed was a simple one. I know myself well enough to know that constructing and deconstructing my bed would simply be too much effort, and so a fixed bed is a better use of space.

One of the benefits of a platform bed is the epic amount of under the bed storage.  It is the perfect place for the water, gas, and electric systems. For many this is also where they keep their mountain bikes or surfing gear. As my only outdoor equipment is a pair of hiking boots and a camera the bed will be where I store art equipment and supplies. With this storage function in mind the bed needs to be equal parts strong enough to carry my weight, and well enough designed to leave sensible storage compartments that can be accessed with ease.

One side of the stud frame fixed in place

Building my van turns is a little like doing a puzzle. I have a picture of the final image and I have the parts, but exactly what order to put it all together in is largely guess work. As the bed is the largest structure in the van, and will contain so much of importance, it seems to me that having the basic shape in place before installing or constructing anything else will be helpful. And so, knowing that my electrics will be going in at the end of the month, with the gas and water systems following quickly behind, I have created just enough of the stud frame to map out the storage spaces for them, but not so much as to make is tricky to get these parts into place.

Testing the back of the bed, ready to fix into place once the electrics, gas and water are in place.

As I build, I can’t help but imagine future days spent reading on my bed with the back doors open to some incredible view, afternoons watching films as the rain beats down on the roof of my van, or nights spent dreaming in the comfort of the bed I made. I imagine my Pendleton blanket, bought for me by my mother at a powwow in Seattle when I was ten, spread out over it. I dream of my future dog getting mud and fur all over it. I imagine opening the back doors of the van to pull out knitting needs, camera film or carving tools from under the bed after a day’s hike.

Like so much in the van it is a smaller version of a bed, not quite long enough or wide enough to be a full double, but certainly big enough to hold my future dreams, cosy and contained within the wood and sheep’s wool world inside my van.

Next week, seating and wires. See you all then.