Do you love travelling independently and always having a roof over your head? Vanlife is hugely popular right now. The only catch: fully converted campers are very expensive and currently hard to come by. Why not simply build your camper furniture yourself? It's easier than you think!

VanSite helps you along the way and explains:

• which material is best suited for building camper furniture

• how to secure the finished cabinets in the van

• which challenges await you

Let's get started!

The right tools for building camper furniture

Maybe you have your own little workshop or a garden where you can work undisturbed. Ideally, find a spot that's sheltered from the weather. Since you'll probably make a bit of noise, you should be considerate of your neighbours.

To build camper furniture yourself, you only need a few tools:

• Jigsaw

• Cordless screwdriver, bits and drill bits

• Sandpaper

• Pencil and folding rule

With these few gadgets you can build anything you want into your van. If you don't happen to have these tools at home, it's worth asking friends or family members. They'll surely lend you their equipment for a while.

That way you save yourself the costly expense of buying new.

Tip: Feel free to ask the owners of your rented pitch whether they'd like to support you with tools and know-how.

Wood, screws, brackets: which materials are suitable for building camper furniture?

Before you start building your furniture, it's worth thinking about where it will end up. Wall cabinets should be built from material that's as light as possible. Furniture anchored to the floor can be a little heavier.

For hanging cabinets and those that won't bear much weight, the following are suitable:

• Plywood boards

• thin 17 x 36 mm roof battens in spruce/fir

For camper furniture such as the bed, kitchen and floor-mounted cabinets, it's best to get:

• 30 x 50 mm roof battens in spruce/fir

• Multiplex boards 13 to 15 mm thick

• Phenolic plywood boards and glued laminated boards

Of course you'll also need suitably strong and long screws (preferably in lengths of 12 mm, 30 mm and 60 mm).

Brackets are particularly well suited for building furniture frames and ensuring long-term stability. You should also get a few simple furniture hinges (2 per cabinet door).

So the contents of your cabinets don't fly around your camper while driving, you can fit push-lock buttons or barrel bolts.

Foto von Callum Hill auf Unsplash |

Cabinets for the van: creating your own building plan

Before you start building your camper furniture, you should ask yourself the following questions:

• Where will each piece of furniture go in the van?

• In which directions should flaps and doors open?

• How much weight do the cabinets need to hold?

• Is there a particular order in which the furniture should fold out?

• Should the furniture be accessible from outside?

Once you've noted down the answers to these, you can start planning. Make a sketch in which you note all the dimensions of your van.

Then you can calculate the exact dimensions of your furniture.

Tip: Build the camper furniture piece by piece. When a cabinet is finished, secure it in the bus and see how much space is still available. That way your little living area slowly but surely takes shape.

Building camper furniture yourself: these challenges await you

There's probably not a single bus with even ONE right angle in it. For you, that means you have to adapt every single piece of furniture to the curves of your vehicle.

You should also know which steps you want to take in order to use certain features of your fittings.

If, for example, you have a fold-down bed that rests on part of the wardrobe, you need to keep that in mind during planning.

Note: So you can adapt your camper furniture to the conditions of your van, you should first make a cardboard template that fits exactly against the bus wall.

Other challenges when building the furniture are:

• laying out and getting the electrics working

• a smooth water supply (without leaks)

• securing the contents while driving

• legal questions (e.g. reclassification as a motorhome)

• storing the gas bottle safely

It may look a bit more dramatic than it actually is. Still, it's worth checking these things in advance and getting properly informed.

Securing cabinets safely in the camper

Your furniture is finished. Now you might be wondering how to mount it so that it and its contents withstand your adventurous driving style for the long haul.

Well... if you have a floor panel, you can anchor standing furniture to it nicely. Using brackets, you can securely connect the kitchen unit, the bed and the wardrobe to the floor panel.

The prerequisite for this is, of course, that your floor panel can't shift while driving.

Wall cabinets and very tall cabinets are best secured directly to the wall or to the ceiling. Often there are spars running along the inside that you can use perfectly for this. Just drill holes into them, protect them against rust formation and rivet a few metal brackets to it. These form the basis for securely fastening your camper furniture.

Foto von Clay Banks auf Unsplash |

How can I fit standard furniture into the van?

Maybe you don't have enough handyman skills, or you've found a few cheap pieces of furniture in your flat that would work great in your van.

Note: Right angles are rare in your van. That's why you should think carefully about whether using a ready-made chest of drawers or a small cabinet makes sense in terms of space.

A small chest of drawers could be integrated well by the sliding door, for example. You can turn it into a small kitchen unit that you can use from both outside and inside. You'll find more tips on how to build a kitchen in your camper yourself here.

A small Kallax shelf from IKEA is well suited for this, with a few matching baskets placed in it. You could use lashing straps to secure the baskets while driving and fasten a small worktop on top. Of course, you should still be able to get in and out through the sliding door without any trouble.

Here's how to fit ready-made standard furniture into your camper:

• use an existing partition wall to attach a cabinet to it

• remove the back panel, stabilise the piece of furniture with angle brackets and extend the existing shelves towards the back so they reach the van wall

• cover any resulting gaps with a bit of plywood

• fit bolt latches or similar to secure the contents while driving

• if needed, use only parts of the cabinet by taking it apart or sawing it up

Conclusion: building camper furniture yourself is no walk in the park, but it's doable

In fact, you only need a few tools to kit out your van with self-built furniture. That gives your travel companion a unique flair that fits your needs exactly.

A small plan helps you keep the right measurements when building your camper furniture and get all the necessary materials in sufficient quantity and size.

That way you stay relaxed while building your furniture and can focus fully on your project.

Alternatively, certain standard furniture are also a good way to create storage space in your van.

We wish you lots of fun converting your camper!

Want to turn your camper into your little home? Take a look at our blog category Van conversion .