Galley

Continuing the tour of the "rooms" in my motorhome, allow me to conduct you to the galley ( or kitchen, for those of you still attached to an immobile foundation). Along the way, I'll have something to say about the equipment I'll use, and cooking outside, too. Please step this way...

Living Room

Would you believe that a roughly 100 sq.ft. space can be divided into five rooms? Well, that's the way I think about my Sportsmobile (SMB) design. To me, there's a distinct living room, kitchen, bedroom with a closet, bathroom, and a basement. Would you believe that I intend to devote an entire post to each of them? If you've read my previous, occasionally obsessive, posts, that's probably not hard to believe at all. But I do have a reason - or rationalization - for this attention to detail. The time is approaching to submit my final design to SMB. Writing these posts will give me a chance to review everything one last time. It will also give anyone who cares to read, a (very) thorough tour of my motorhome, and a chance to chime in if they wish. Let's start with the living room.

Steady State

In June 2013 I paid a visit to the Sportsmobile factory and liked everything I learned about them and their products. Aspects of my design that I expected to be problematic turned out to not trouble their designer at all. But my design was overweight: it exceeded the cargo capacity of the Sprinter van. Their designer had pointed out that possibility, and by diligently working to prove him wrong, I had proven him right. The alternative was to use a Sprinter with dual rear wheels, but that hurt fuel efficiency and intruded on my interior space. So, I set to work cutting weight out of a design that I had regarded as perfect.

The Source

In late June of 2013, I took a long-planned trip to the Sportsmobile factory in Fresno, California. This would be my first chance to see for myself some conversions they'd done, and also to present my own conversion plans for their comments. My daughter, Kelcy, home from college, came along. It was only a small detour along the way to see the Lazy Daze factory, too, so we made a stop there. This post recounts that trip, and describes how my discussion with Sportsmobile forced a major revision of my plans. A long post with lots of pictures ahead!