Change number one : More head room

This is my first blog post on this blog so I'll keep it short and to the point so that I actually get this posted.  I've been having fun modifying our trailer for comfort.  The first project I did was take a look at the inside as it was made up into a bed and think to myself "hmm... I'm going to whack my head several times on the storage space cabinets above my head."

There were a series of cabinets along the back wall that were very convenient for storage but when the setup was made into a bed, the headroom was a bit lacking.  Yes, we could sleep with our feet at that end but then my head would be hanging off the edge (not acceptable).  Here is a picture of the cabinets in a different trailer (off of the manufacturer's website of the same model):

I thought to myself "I wonder how hard it would be to drop those" and it turns out with about ten screws and a razor blade to cut some silicone sealant, the cabinets drop right down like this:

One difficulty was trying to figure out how to get the cabinets out of the trailer without cutting them since they are too wide to turn.  Turns out there isn't an easy way so I had to cut them to get them out.  No going back now. 

Then it was just a matter of cutting the cabinet section up so that I could put the speaker/light corner units back up.  I glued/screwed in some small pieces of wood to support the exposed side:

The exposed side was covered by a piece of wood that was a separator between the cabinets.  The hardest part was taking a razor blade very carefully along the back wall to remove the silicone sealant still on the wall without cutting through the veneer.  When it was finished, it looked like this:

I think this looks pretty good.  Still had to put some silicone sealant around it to cut down on any rattles and fill in some screw holes on the back wall.  Here's what the back of it looks like now:

Another change I made at the same time was to remove the small 2" x 2" board along the front of the storage area there and replace it with a larger 1"x5" to make it taller to increase storage. 

The 1"x5" is a nice piece of maple and I finished it to match the interior wood.  The only problem is that for strength I have it dropping down on the existing plywood a bit more than the 2"x2" and so now when I need to lift the cushion up to put the bench back up, my fingers get caught on the wood.  I'll need to possibly fix that somehow.  I also put a small piece of trim along the back wall since the factory hadn't put a trim piece covering the plywood end.  This can be seen in the picture as the darker wood at the bottom of the back wall above the storage.

Anyway, I think it turned out well and it feels much more spacious.  The storage will be missed but that's what we have a pickup for as a tow vehicle. 

We head off to Utah next week and at the very least we will have decent headroom.  Safe travels.