Customer Build: Glen's Space-Saving Extendable Camper Van Bed
A Bed That Grows When You Need It
In a camper van, every centimetre counts. A full-size bed is great at night, but during the day it swallows the space you need for cooking, storage and moving around.
Our customer Glen solved this with a bed that slides out to full size for sleeping and tucks back in when it's not needed. It's simple, sturdy and smooth, and he built it with just a few lengths of our 4040 T-slot profile, some hardwood slats and a clever little trick with end caps.
The Inspiration: Good Idea, Room to Improve
The pull-out slatted bed is a popular idea, and there are plenty of designs online. Most follow the same pattern: two frames of interleaved slats that slide past each other, so the bed telescopes from a narrow daybed into a full-size sleeping platform.
The catch is that almost all of them are built entirely from timber. Timber frames are heavy and bulky, which eats into headroom and storage. Wood-on-wood sliding surfaces can stick and bind, especially as timber swells with heat and humidity. And getting long timber rails to stay straight and true is harder than it looks.
Glen liked the concept but knew it wasn't good enough for his van. So he set out to improve it.
How It Works
Timber ledges on the walls. Glen bolted a pair of hardwood rails along each side wall of the van at bed height. Each one forms a ledge that the bed frame sits on and slides along.
4040 crossbeams instead of a timber frame. In place of a heavy timber frame, a handful of 4040 profiles span the full width of the van, resting on the ledges at each end. These beams are the whole structure of the bed.
Interleaved hardwood slats. The slats are screwed down to the top of the 4040 beams. Alternate slats are fixed to different beams, so when the beams are pushed together the slats mesh into a compact platform, and when they're pulled apart the slats spread out into a full-size bed.
The result is a bed that slides between a compact daytime position and a full sleeping position in seconds, with no hinges, legs or fiddly parts.
Minimal Materials, One Clever Trick
What we love most about Glen's build is how little it needed. From us, it was just:
- A few lengths of 4040 T-slot profile, cut to the width of the van
- Plastic end caps for the cut ends of each beam
- Fasteners to fix the slats to the profile
The end caps are the clever bit. A bare cut end of aluminium can catch and drag on a timber ledge. By fitting plastic end caps, Glen gave each beam a smooth, low-friction pad to slide on. The beams glide along the ledges without sticking, and the caps protect the timber from wear as well.
Why 4040 Beats an All-Timber Frame
Straight and true. Aluminium profile won't warp, twist or swell, so the bed slides the same on a humid summer night as it does in winter.
Slim and light. A 40 mm beam carries the load of a timber frame at a fraction of the bulk and weight, leaving more room for storage underneath and keeping weight down in the van.
Easy to fix to. The T-slots let the slats be screwed down anywhere along the beam, so spacing them out evenly was simple.
Easy to change. Want to adjust slat spacing or add a beam later? Just slide the fasteners along the slot.
Good On You, Glen!
Glen took a good idea and made it better with minimal materials and a lot of smart thinking. It's a really impressive build, and we can't wait to see what he comes up with next.
Planning a camper fit-out of your own? Whether it's a slide-out bed, a fridge slide or a full storage system, explore our 4040 T-slot profile, end caps and fittings and get your next build started.
