HAVE TRAILER--WILL TRAVEL!--Part 17: Beds! DFO812-17 14/7/79
1. WELL, WE'VE COVERED ALMOST EVERYTHING ELSE, SO I GUESS NOW IT'S TIME TO GO TO BED. Now bedding down in a trailer is quite an art, I'll tell you! And it can be very simple & very easy. Of course all of your, nearly all of your tables, dinettes & seating space have a dual purpose of being used as beds at night. So it's very simple if you use my simple system of bed-making, then you'll find it very very easy to do.
2. ODDLY ENOUGH, I'M GOING TO START WITH GETTING UP IN THE MORNING & then explain to you from there, because that's going to make your making of the bed at night much easier. As my Dad used to say, "Tomorrow begins tonight!" (See Gen.1:5,8,13, etc.!) In the morning you've been sleeping on the bed already made & you get up, & then of course there's the bedding to be removed immediately so you can raise the table & fix the seats so that you're ready to sit down for breakfast.
3. NOW THE SIMPLEST WAY TO DO THIS, & I've done it for years, is to make a bed-roll of the bedding. For your sake, please do not take it off cover-by-cover & sheet-by-sheet, folding all the bedding up separately & then tuck it away under the seat! This is a lot of unnecessary extra trouble & extra work & takes a lot of time, & you hardly have room to do it in such a small space.
4. DO NOT FOLD UP YOUR BEDDING! YOU DO NOT FOLD IT--YOU ROLL IT! First you take the sides--the bedding that's hanging down on one side of the bed & on the other side where it can't hang down, because there's a trailer wall there. But anyhow you take the sides of the bedding first & fold'm over onto the bed.
5. YOU SHOULD ALWAYS USE A BED PAD underneath the bottom sheet, then a bottom sheet & a top sheet & a blanket or two. In hot weather you might not even need a blanket. But always remember to please use a felted or quilted bed pad underneath the bottom sheet, so that there's no way that the lovely upholstery of your beautiful seats that you use in the daytime can become stained with the activities of the night, if you know what I mean!
6. IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN WHO ARE STILL PRONE TO BED-WETTING, THEN YOU MUST ALSO USE A PLASTIC OR RUBBER SHEET underneath their bed-pad to protect the lovely seats of your dinette & your living room from being stained & smelly all day long! There are all types of bed stains that can occur--seminal stains, menstrual stains, bed-wetting, the runs or whatever! So please use a good thick bed pad, preferably the quilted type; or if you haven't got a bed pad, just use an old quilt or an old blanket underneath your bottom sheet (plus a rubber or plastic sheet if necessary) on top of your lovely cushions that you use in the daytime.
7. ANYHOW IN THE MORNING, YOU FOLD IN THE SIDES of the sheets, covers, bedpads & all so that they meet or overlap a little bit in the middle of the bed. Then starting at the head with the pillows still in the bedding, roll up the bedding tightly from the head, folding the head of the bedding inside with its pillows, roll it up tightly, as tight as you can, clear down to the foot--& this usually only takes a moment.
8. NOW YOU'VE GOT THE WHOLE BED OF BEDDING IN ONE TIGHT ROLL that you can quickly slip under one of the dinette seats into the storage space provided beneath the seat. Usually it will just fit very beautifully under one of these seats, & may not even occupy all the space. You can still use some of the space towards the back for storage. Sometimes if the seat is heavy or the cushion is not off, have someone hold it up for you while you tuck the bedroll under the seat.
9. THEN AT NIGHT WHEN YOU'RE READY TO GO TO BED IT'S ALL VERY SIMPLE! Most of the new trailers have push-down tables, & some have a table that's fastened to the wall under the window & has a folding leg. With either type, you take it down. You either push down the table, or you fold the leg up & detach the table from the wall, & place it down at seat level where there is a little ledge at each side that the table edges rest upon, making a long flat surface the entire width of the trailer.
10. THEN YOU USUALLY TAKE THE SEAT CUSHIONS FROM THE BACKS OF THE SEATS & PUT THEM ON TOP OF THE TABLE, & there you've got a perfectly totally cushioned wall-to-wall bed with its own lovely mattress--hopefully foam rubber or some type of plastic foam that's comfortable & firm to sleep on & light to handle. You may say, "You mean you don't even have a bed spring nor an inner-spring mattress?!--You've just got a foam rubber mattress, that's all, sleeping on that hard wood?"--Yes!--And it's very good for you & very comfortable, & I've done it for years! That's all we had in the Ark for ten solid years, just a foam rubber mattress on a piece of plywood, & that's all you need & it's excellent for your health, good for your back, cool in Summer & warm in Winter! You'll find it very comfortable. These cushions from the dinette, the seat cushions & the back cushions, make your total bed-cushions clear across the top of the table, seats & all!--And you've got your bed.
11. OF COURSE, BEFORE YOU GET'M ALL DOWN & SPREAD OUT LIKE THAT, YOU'VE PULLED OUT YOUR BEDROLL from underneath your seat. Put the seat down again, & put the cushions across. Then starting with the bottom of the bed, you put the bedroll at the bottom so it will roll out across the bed until it reaches the head. Unfold the sides & tuck'm in a bit & your bed is made! That can all be done in about one minute! You can make up your beds in the morning that way in about one minute with the bedroll method, folding in the sides & rolling it down from the top & throwing it under the seat; & you can make it down at night in about one minute just by pulling it out & placing it at one end & rolling it out across the bed & unfolding & there you have your bed already made & you're tired & sleepy & want to go to bed & you don't want to have to make the bed every single night, to have an unfold blankets & spread them out & unfold sheets & spread them out & unfold other blankets & spread them out & tuck them in & all that nuisance! Trailer bedding-down can be made easy if you do it by the bedroll method, so don't forget to use it in making up your bed & in making down your bed. (Put head at high side of trailer.)
12. NOW SOME OF THE NEW TRAILERS HAVE AN IN-A-DOOR BED that fits into sort of a hole in the wall. It is hinged at the head & it's in a box that's the size of the bed & the bedding & pillows, & that serves as one of the interior walls or partitions of the trailer. The bottom of the bed is finished so it looks like a wall, & you unfasten this & pull the foot down at night. It consists of a bed spring & real mattress on a frame with a leg or foot that keeps it up at the bottom. It's already made, the bedding is already on it, the pillows are sometimes strapped to it, & there's your bed already made up. All you have to do is pull it down at night & it's already made & ready to go to bed.
13. AN IN-A-DOOR BED has its advantages: It may be a little more comfortable, softer & springier, if you like lots of rhythm when you're making love. But you will find that the trailer itself bounces quite a bit & gives you all the rhythm you really need. So the only real advantage it has is that it's already made-up.
14. OTHERWISE, IT HAS ITS DISADVANTAGES IN THE DAYTIME! First of all, it's just that much extra unnecessary weight! That bedspring & frame are heavy, & the hinging mechanism to which it's attached in the wall is made of heavy iron & steel & hinges & a lot of extra weight, plus that big piece of plywood that its bottom is surfaced with.--Plus all that wood wall-box that it's encased in when it's raised vertically, plus about a one-foot-deep space trailer-high & half-as-wide!
15. IT'S A LOT OF ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY UNNECESSARY WEIGHT & WASTED SPACE! It's all taken up by a bedspring & mattress that you don't need, an extra mattress that you don't need, an extra mattress & an extra bedspring that's not good for anything in the daytime, but is only excess weight & excess space & in the way! It crowds the trailer, cuts it in two & makes it look smaller with not so much open space & not so much floor space. These wall-beds are an absolute nuisance as far as I'm concerned, & only extra unnecessary weight & wasted space that's totally useless in the daytime!
16. YOUR DINETTE-TYPE OF BED IS THE VERY BEST & MOST USEFUL KIND OF BED THAT A TRAILER CAN HAVE! It's used for living room & dining room & seating space & cushions in the daytime, & then used as a bed at night with no extra weight or space! Part of your bed is the table, the table you use as desk & dining table in the daytime & as a bed at night. The seats you use in the daytime as seats, living room & dining room seats, & then they become your bed at night.
17. THIS IS THE IDEAL, MOST PRACTICAL, MOST USEFUL DUAL-PURPOSE-TYPE OF BED that you can possibly have in a trailer, & leaves lots of storage space under the seats for bedding & all the rest of your junk! The new in-a-door bed that lets down with a heavy bed frame & spring & extra mattress is totally useless in the daytime & just takes up extra space & adds extra weight. It's just totally unnecessary & foolish, & is one of the most ridiculous innovations in new trailers that I have seen!
18. I PRESUME THE WALL-BED'S A SELLING POINT TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE NEVER LIVED IN A TRAILER who see that nice made-up bed with its bedspring & mattress that you don't have to make up in the daytime--you just fold it up into the wall. It looks good, but it weighs good too, & it is not good, because it takes up unnecessary space that is totally useless in the daytime. Otherwise your dinette & sitting room & dining room double for your bed-room & your beds at night in the dinette-type of bed. So by all means do get a trailer with a dinette type bed, not the in-a-door bed, or what some people used to call a wall-bed or a Murphy bed that was kept in a closet & that you open the closet at night & fold it down.
19. IF YOU ALSO HAVE A LITTLE BUNK ROOM, usually the top bunk folds down & makes the back of a comfortable couch in the daytime, where you can sit privately. The two adults who live in the bunk room, or the two children, have their own little private sitting room where they can study, pray, play or nap in the daytime. So that has other uses as well.
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family