Bedding storage

Hello all.  This is my first post on the Autosleepers Forum, so please forgive me if I haven't followed the correct procedure.  My wife and I are anxiously awaiting completion purchase of a Nuevo EK 2012 motorhome and have been working out how to fit in all the things we need on board.  As we will have the model with a front sunroof rather than an overhead locker we are concerned that the duvet(s) we have might be a struggle to fit under the seat where the leisure battery and water heater(?) is. Has anybody got any suggestions and or tips that we could use regarding this. Thanks for any advice in advance to two "newcomers" to these fantastic Motorhomes. Chris & Sue

Hi Sue &Chris
Welcome to the forum from sunny Bridlington .
Boaby

Hi Chris and Sue, and welcome.

We opted for the overcab storage, simply because of "where to put the duvets", but the damn things still wouldn't fit in the locker, which is much smaller than in our previous Nuevo!! Or to be more accurate, one of them wouldn't.

Oh calamity!! Panic reigned for a while until I suddenly realised what a prat I had been for several years. (I have to take the blame. Mrs Gromit is innocent - for once!! ) We had always carried one thin duvet (4.5 Tog) and a thicker one (9 Tog), and put whichever one on top depending on the temperature. The other one was used underneath as a sort of mattress topper.

Light finally dawned when I realised we only needed two thin 4.5 Tog duvets, both of which would go in the locker and leave room for a sheet. Now we use one or both duvets depending on the temperature, and the bed is perfectly comfortable with just the sheet on top.

Don't know if this will help you at all - but I do feel better now I have confessed!

Dave


P.S. Get the leisure battery moved into the far left corner (as you look into it) of the locker. If the plonkers at Autosleeper fit yours the same as ours, the dozy gits will put it right in the dead centre of the locker - just where it's as inconvenient as possible. As you are still waiting for yours it may be possible for your dealer to phone the factory and get it put in the corner before you take delivery.

Welcome from N.E Wales   

Hi there,

Welcome to the Forum. 

Why duvets? 

Sleeping bags come with a "stuff bag", provide options with regard to use (zipped together or on your own) and provide all round warmth regardless.

Believe me, when the van warms up in summer or cools down in winter very few couples are compatible with the "comfort zone" for sleeping conditions, so flexibility is a decided advantage!

Hope this helps. 

Best regards,

Hello Gromit and thank you not only for your welcome but very good advice. I will have a word with "Senior Management" later and suggest this. Dutto.....thank you too for your reply......we will need to have a meaningful discussion about the sleeping bag alternative...........methinks this will be tricky one to have! thanks again Chris.

Have to disagree with Dutto on this one. (If I win the argument he's buying the beer! )

It's a simple one - sleeping bags are far more difficult to wash than a duvet cover, and anyone who uses sheet sleeping bags must be a masochist or descended from Harry Houdini! They would need all his skills to disentangle themselves, and going for a quick pee in the middle of the night is just not possible!

Our duvets also have a "stuff bag" each, bought from the Pound Shop on one of Mrs Gromit's frequent forays into the bargain basement. (Old 'uns on fixed income, remember Ian?  )

Each to his own as always, but our sleeping bags went when we graduated from a tent!

Dave

HI, welcome to this ,as I have discovered very informative and amusing forum! We have the exact model as you are soon to own , ok there is not huge amounts of storage, but  we can put  under the passenger side sofa ,levelling blocks, sat tripod,double duvet, 4 pillows ,and a sheet! The drivers side under the sofa ,as mentioned earlier A/S has somewhat spaced out the "essentials" which isn't helped by us having a conventional water filler fitted, so is not as useful storage as it could be ,but it can still take quite a few of the odd items we all carry around with us !We carry our chairs in a purpose made waterproof bag,in the shower space when travelling and they live under the M/H when on site. I hope you enjoy your Nuevo as much as we have,you will soon work out the best places to store things that suit you. Best of luck enjoy!!!      Kind regards        Paul

Welcome to the forum. 

With our last van, severely hampered by having the only " clean" underbed locker full of a badly sited water and space heater, we rolled our two single duvets lengthways and I made 2 sausage shaped covers for them. They fitted along the back of the bench seats and made them more comfortable to lounge on. I bought 6 contrasting cushion covers  and they took 2 small pillows each and 2 folded fleecy blankets for lounging on  cold evenings or for extra bed covers. These replaced the scatter cushions and seat ends provided. We put a single fitted sheet over each bench at night and these went in a drawer.

No underbed storage needed at all and the bench seats were much more comfortable to sit on.

Welcome Chrisjohn.

We're pretty new to all this as well so still working on "our" best solution. I say "our" because what suits us will almost certainly not suit you or anybody else.  We have the window as well and have gone the duvet route with a mattress protector and sheet on the bed when made up. They (and pillows) all fit easily into a couple of large plastic boxes under the passenger side seat. There is still room for our two Outwell camping chairs which fold "long" and other bits and pieces. The positioning of the leisure battery under the seat on the drivers side is a nuisance but we can still store a telly, walking boots, rucksacks and several large bottles of drinking water in there.  To be honest, we have not found the storage space a problem..........yet

Hello Askit(?)

Many thanks for your very informative reply......this certainly sounds encouraging! It looks like I will have the problem licked before sundown today! Mrs Brooks will be very impressed and brownie points earned, thanks to my new found friends on the Forum! Thanks again and kind regards to you all. Be careful out there! Chris.

Quilter wrote:Welcome to the forum. 

With our last van, severely hampered by having the only " clean" underbed locker full of a badly sited water and space heater, we rolled our two single duvets lengthways and I made 2 sausage shaped covers for them. They fitted along the back of the bench seats and made them more comfortable to lounge on. I bought 6 contrasting cushion covers  and they took 2 small pillows each and 2 folded fleecy blankets for lounging on  cold evenings or for extra bed covers. These replaced the scatter cushions and seat ends provided. We put a single fitted sheet over each bench at night and these went in a drawer.

No underbed storage needed at all and the bench seats were much more comfortable to sit on.

Hello Quilter, many thanks for this reply, this is also a brilliant idea! thanks so much for the wisdom!  Chris.

Hi, we have a devon so not sure of your storage ,but I agree with Quiller, Chris my wife has made covers to fit single memory foam mattresses in these are ideal If you require extra padding as I do! When folded into 3 They can then be used as back rests or extra support for sitting on. We also use quishons which are like duvets but zip up into a cushion size. Again a matching cover over them keeps them clean and neat. Small water filled pillows take up a little less room. I am not a salesman for these products by the way. On our previous vans we left the long back rests at home and just used bedding, pillows etc in covers as back support.

Hi, we have a devon so not sure of your storage ,but I agree with Quiller, Chris my wife has made covers to fit single memory foam mattresses in these are ideal If you require extra padding as I do! When folded into 3 They can then be used as back rests or extra support for sitting on. We also use quishons which are like duvets but zip up into a cushion size. Again a matching cover over them keeps them clean and neat. Small water filled pillows take up a little less room. I am not a salesman for these products by the way. On our previous vans we left the long back rests at home and just used bedding, pillows etc in covers as back support.

Doh! I posted twice. Her indoors is struggling to find quishons now on the interthingymybob but I guess duvets folded in cover would do the same job.

Tell her to look up quillows. Cross between a quilt and a pillow. I made 2 for the van. They are an American invention and very easy to make from patchwork quilts, blankets or fleeces.

"Have to disagree with Dutto on this one. (If I win the argument he's buying the beer! )"


Win the argument!!! You'll  never get a beer from Dutto..

Hi there. We have a Duetto and use feather filled single duvets. These compress really well when folded and pushed from the top into the rear of the under sofa storage area. During the day we use fleeces to protect sofa and chair and spread these on bed bases at night, covered with single fitted sheets. Like many others, we use cushions covered with pillowslips at night. We also store spare towels in bottom of sofa area.

The front of our under sofa storage area has a drop down door. We have  put 3 cardboard boxes on their sides here in which we can push shoes.  Wine boxes are a great size. At end of trip they are easy to remove for a quick Hoover to remove bits of dead grass etc.

rose49f wrote:"Have to disagree with Dutto on this one. (If I win the argument he's buying the beer! )"


Win the argument!!! You'll  never get a beer from Dutto..

Hi there,

Oh, how not true that is!!  

Supplies are a bit short at the moment because we are going away for the Autumn.

As a result we only have enough supplies to last us until we catch the Portsmouth > St Malo ferry in a few weeks time.  i.e. The beer keg is down to its last 20 pints, cider supplies are down to less than 30 pints, home-made wine is down to just under 4 gallons and we are on our last 10 litres of French wine! (Which is why it is imperative that we get back to France!)

But, up until we leave, it will still be a case of "Come in.  Sit down.  What are you drinking?" 


To return to my recommendation of sleeping bags ....  

.... my beloved Sister-In-Law is an absolute whizz with a sewing machine so, at our request, in 2004 she took eight double cotton sheets from John Lewis and converted them into four single liners and two double liners for the boat; and we are still using them in the motorhome.

The slits down the sides are "custom made" to fit our rather generous frames so wrestling in and out of them just doesn't happen. 

For a sleeping bag, I use one of these ....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vango-Sonno-Comfort-Sleeping-Bag/dp/B00ARCZI2Q/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1438805005&sr=8-4&keywords=vango+sleeping+bags

I have been comfy with an external temperature down to -5 degrees and it has a zip opening in the bottom to allow my feet out when it gets too warm.

Using a liner means that the sleeping bag itself only needs washing once per season; which is no problem because it is hand washable and dries within a couple of days when hung outside under the lean-to.

When it is really warm I don't bother with the sleeping bag at all and just use a liner.  It's a personal fad.  I just cannot sleep, no matter how hot it is (including the desert regions of Saudi Arabia), unless I have something I can pull up over me!

Note:
I have kept this response to "I" because my better half refuses to spend money on a new sleeping bag; so "she" (who is Scottish) sleeps in an ancient down-filled sleeping bag that we bought back in 1986!

It started as a "four seasons" sleeping bag but, having moulted over the years, on cold nights "she" has to supplement it with an almost equally old sleeping bag bought from a Police Sale in 2002!

Luckily, my sleeping bag opens out sufficiently to cover both of us if we need such luxury ....    

.... which, unfortunately, happens less and less as the years go by!     

Best regards,

Yep - I clearly win the argument!

Obvious innit!!

I'm cheap enough Ian. A glass of ale would be more than acceptable - plus a good old natter of course!

Dave

Gromit wrote:Yep - I clearly win the argument!

Obvious innit!!

I'm cheap enough Ian. A glass of ale would be more than acceptable - plus a good old natter of course!

Dave

Dave,

I concede so drop in any time that we are here .... 

.... the bar is always open!!  

Best regards,

Ian