How we added the bed rail upstairs in the campervan

I’ve been waxing lyrical about this bed rail for a while now, it is definitely the best addition so far in a liveability sense.

Since getting it sorted we can have the kids asleep upstairs and use the kitchen, lights, couch and bed downstairs without waking anyone up.

We can also get them snuggled in and asleep and go and sit by the fire knowing that they are safe and aren’t going to hit the deck at any moment.

I googled the bajesus out of this when we first got the van trying to find something ready made that we could just buy and put in and came up with nada.

Then I tried searching forums to see what other parents were doing and was equally unsuccessful.

I then went to Bunnings, with the van, and the kids and harassed every staff member I could find to come check it out in the car park and tell me what I needed. No luck!

So there I am, sitting on the floor of Bunnings, surrounded by bits and pieces and a measuring tape, yelling at the kids to bloody sit still and who should walk around the corner but a friend of ours who happens to be a builder.

Long story short he rocked up the following week with all the right equipment and knocked up the bed rail with minimal fuss.

I’ve attached the pictures below so you can see what he used but basically it was just an aluminium angle (exact size in pics), a couple of hinges, a piece of timber and some screws.

It folds down under the mattress when the roof is down and you simply pull it up into position once the kids are in bed.

The steel angle is what is keeping it from tipping out away from the kids and the combo of the hinge being tight and the mattress and pillows on the other side keeps it from tipping towards them.

The only downside is that the added weight on the upstairs bed base means that I don’t get away with having as much bedding up there when the base is in the lifted position.

It just gets a little bit heavy for the arms that hold it up if I have two pillows and two doonas up there plus the bed rail and it slowly lowers itself.

It’s a good reason to keep the timber you use as light as you possibly can which is something I wasn’t onto at the time.

So, this is what the van looks like with the roof up.

The image below is looking at it straight on when the rail is up.

The image below is looking at it from above when the rail is folded down. The black arm you can see is the arm that lifts the bed base and isn’t related to the bed rail at all.

Below is a picture of the aluminium angle we used.

If you have any questions ask away 🙂

Lily x

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