Sleeping in a Prius is not pretty but.... it can be done!

Well I bet the suspense was just killing you from yesterdays post.. right?

Here is the deal, I have gone to a lot of sites that have talked about camping in a Prius and they gave me some good ideas but... since we have a new 2011 Prius they just miss the mark.

One web site said that they put down the back seats and pushed the front seats all the way forward and then removed the front seat head rests and reclined the front seats back to fill the gap between the front and rear seats.... Hmmmmm

Got some interesting ideas here http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/nest/

Here is the lovey Prius about to be transformed into a camper!

 Well taking the advice of the other web sites I tried the recline all the seats trick.

Looks rather rough for a 5' 8" fellow

Well it sure was a pain in the neck! 

Well that did not work unless I rolled up in a ball. Then were would everyone else stretch out?
So time to reconfigure how this works. I noticed that there was room once the fronts seats were moved all the way forward and the seat backs tipped as far forward as they can go. But how to cover it for an air mattress?

I noticed that the center console was left protruding into the space and I realized that I could use that to support a platform. But what to use?

How about a piece of plywood? So quick trip down to Home Depot and I picked up a handy panel of 1/2 inch plywood that was 2 x 4 feet in size. Using the carpet cover in the rear of the Prius I traced out the carpets widest part onto the plywood and cut it out with a jigsaw.

Worked great but .... carpet bends and plywood does not. Soooo I had to cut it down some more on the sides till it would fit in the back section of the Prius. Then I covered it with a cheap plastic table cloth with the fabric side out and ....

Viola! I could put in the back and it covered the void and sat on the back side of the center console. Hey I'm a genius or just crazy as a fox!

But still an issue has to be solved. It seems that the back seats when reclined do not end up at the same height as the center console. Not smooth to recline on and get some zzzz's.  

Works but needs some fiddling

So I need a 3.5 inch lift on the console to smooth things out... so that's the dimensional size of a 2x4 so.. 

A quick measure found that the console is 6 inches wide and all I need is a 6x6 inch pad that's 3.5 inch high to even things out. Out come the cop saw and I create a block of wood with 4 pieces of  6 inch 2x4's glued together with two side pieces out of the wood scrap pile to keep the blocks all sitting nice on the top of the center console. Then I added some old mouse pads with hot glue to protect the fabric and finish of the center console and this will work. I hope.

Center console lift block

So here it is. I tried some Velcro strips to keep the plywood from sliding around as you got in and out of bed. Didn't work but the spacer block worked like a charm and held on to the upper section of the center console and din't move at all. And no damage to the console. Winning!

Modifications with another old mouse pad and hot glued it to the top of the block with the rubber side up.

Old mouse pad hot glued to top of spacer block

More old mouse pads hot glued to the inside of the block to protect the center console from harm.

Worked like a champ! Nothing moved about and the plywood platform was really steady and firm.

Platform on top of folded down rear seats and the top sitting on the center console spacer block

Looks good

Works good.

Now the first big issue is solved.

Now we need to do the air mattress and sleeping bag. Oh and we also have cover up all those HUGE windows so that we have some privacy and get to sleep in a little late.

Hope that you can hang in there and all my misadventures will be covered in the next post.