Upcycled Crate/Pallet Minivan Camping Bed

When looking for a new car, we started considering a minivan, and I saw it as a chance for a micro-camper setup. We did not want to spend much money until we prove it out we like the idea of van camping, and right now, the constraints were that nothing could be modified or attach to the vehicle, and the seats all have to stay in the car, ideally with the second row still usable. We wanted room underneath for storage, including the cooler and the inflatable paddleboard + kayak plus associated gear. This design is a split-bed design with foldable/removable legs to minimize garage storage needs when not in use and provide good flexibility while in the van.

I wanted our bed to be a "green" build where I turn trash into treasure by upcycling pallet crates thrown out at work. One can almost always find these types of things for free on craigslist or your local dump, but it's best to get them before they have been outside for a long time which destroys some of the plywood. One of the advantages of using a crate is that it has plywood already attached, which provides a base for the bed. Larger crates will generally have at least 3/8 5-ply, and some will have 3/4 in plywood.

This instructable will walk through my build process with some insights and tips. The first step, maybe even before you get the crates/wood, is measurements, design, and remeasurement. While I provide my plans/measurement below, you are encouraged to adapt the design to your minivan or SUV. For older vehicles, there are plenty of websites with both measurements and design – almost any of them based on wood can be adapted to crate/pallet-based builds. Once you have your measurements and design, you can start looking for crate/pallets that can be easily adapted with minimal cuts and support elements in the right position.

The steps:

1) Measure, design, measure, validate the design.

2) Collect materials, and redesign as needed to make good use of the crates you find.

3) Cut down crates and disassemble pallets for other parts (2x4s).

4) Assemble parts to build both bases, add legs, and connecting ties.

5) Dry fit and check for level and stable positioning, adjusting as needed

6) Add any additional supports and carpet.

The available length, width, and heights are important. I started with key measurements, summarized in the photo below.

Supplies/Parts/Tools

You’ll need enough crates and pallet parts. They are easy to find for free. The build herein uses 2 crate sides (54x36) plus legs made from 2x4 scraps from pallets (two 2x4x14” pieces and two 2x4x10” pieces), and two 2x6x10” legs (2x4 would work, but the 2x6 provides more stability). For the tying-board, I used one 2x6x30”

We also wanted it carpeted for comfort, protecting the new van and because it hides the ugliness of the crate wood. We just happened to have a scrap of carpet in the basement, though again, carpet scraps can be obtained for free.

The only parts I had to purchase were the bolts and wingnuts used to hold the legs -- about $.25 each for 15 bolts and $6 for 50 nuts (though the design only needed 12, the bulk pack was cheaper than 12 individual ones).

The build also uses some nails, and while I did recover/reuse some from pallet disassembly, it was not enough but had plenty of those laying around. And I used a bit of wood glue that I also had in the garage. I used 3” nails for connecting the 2x4 structural elements and some small tack nails for attaching the carpet. (I tried a staple gun but only had very short 1/8” staples which did not hold well because of the sag thickness).

For tools, I used a drill (1/4” bit for leg bolts and some smaller bits for nail hole pilots and around nails for removal). I used and a circular saw, with plywood (80 tooth) and general 24tooth blades. For smoothing wood edges, I used a rasp plane but could also have just sanded.

The available length, width, and heights are
important. I started with key measurements, summarized in the photo below. Pdf of PowerPoint plans are attached (1cm=1" and very close to scale) and updated to match the final build. The plans are captured in a photo as well.

The 2021 sienna has non-removable second-row seats, so we needed
a design that would fit behind them. Many designs try to make the bed into a bed/couch, but since the seats will be staying in the vehicle and super comfortable, we decided to make the bed design to allow us to push the seats back and use them instead of incorporating a couch in the bed

For height, I recommend test-fitting to measure what will work for you if you want to sit up or how comfortable you will be at the level of being bent over – e.g., putting a cushion under a seat. I wanted to have room for the cooler under the bed and test fitting with the cooler a bit of measurement from it; I knew we could be around 16” high to the top of the build. That also would allow it to be high enough for our cooler to fit under it.

I studied many many designs, but with the constraints, I was not quite satisfied with any I found, but I did adapt ideas from many, so thanks to those that have posted their designs, and I share mine in the hope that others will find them useful. Because we wanted to be able to use the chairs, I went with a split-bed design. Like many minivans/SUVs, the floor is not uniform, so you want to design where your “legs” will be. Because of the ridge on the floor of the sienna, I wanted legs along that ridge with other legs mounted along the van walls. While there are many advantages for permanent installations being wedged against the walls for structural support, we wanted a gap so there could be no scratching the new van. So we initially settled on 44" wide and 68" long for the actual frame, but reduce length t 64" given the measurements then ended up cutting the length again after the dry fit. The plan images are updated based on the final length.

Even before we owned the van I had a basic design worked out and was keeping an eye for crates/pallets at work. When I saw the 54x36 crates with decent plywood I grabbed them. Crates and pallets are often thrown One can almost always find these types of things for free on craigslist or your local dump, but it's best to get them before they have been outside for a long time which destroys some of the plywood. One of the advantages of using a crate is that it has plywood already attached, which provides a base for the bed. Larger crates will generally have at least 3/8 5-ply, and some will have 3/4 in plywood.

I did have multiple choices of crates and chose these particular ones since when cut, they were closest to the design and also provided 2x4 framing. These pallets did influence my design since I already had 3/8" plywood on 2x4 framing. These particular crates, like most, are from the sides of shipping items and have edge framing, not strong supports. To make it strong enough and to fit the design choices, I cut off the ends and then nailed them back into the 2x4 to form the cross members providing structural support.

My original two-piece design was to be the full 64" length behind the of my initial design. I decided to go with a two-piece overlap edge design. After building that in my dry fitting, I found it too tight to the chair's back, making working on it inside a closed van hard. Since I wanted the cooler under the deck, I could not have a 2x4 end brace, making that last section weak unless the cooler was there. Realizing the cooler itself would be good enough to hold a mattress, I cut it down to 56" total length (and kept an optional 3rd piece I could hinge if I wanted). there is a 2x6 which is the tying board, and the shorter piece has three 4" carriage bolts facing down that mate with holes drilled into the tying board to hold the two pieces tightly together but still allowing one to pop the second piece up easily and put it on top for increase usable interior room even with chairs slid all the way back

Crates provide the core plywood with supports, and from pallet you’ll also need some 2x4, and my design wanted 2x6s in a few places. I note that some of the 2x4 and both the 2x6’s came from more traditional pallets. Taking apart very strong pallets, which is the only place you’ll find 2x6s can be more difficult. If one just tries to hammer them apart or use a pryboard with leverage, it will break the 2x6s as the long twisted nails used in them rarely come out easily. There are special “core” bits to drill around a nail, and you can DIY one, but I just used a technique of drilling multiple small holes around the nails (or using a chisel) so that the wood would break around the nailhead more easily to release the nail. Once the 2x6/2x4 was released, I could more easily get the nails out with the pry bar. Doing so allowed me to reuse many of them.

Some tips for cutting up crates – there are many many nails, and along the edges, they are often nailed at angles to connect the support members. Smaller crates will often have smaller nails, but bigger ones will have larger nails, so try to assess your nail risk and remove what you can. If you try taking apart crates to remove the plywood is difficult not to destroy the plywood. So I cut to keep the structure I can reuse, just it knowing I’ll hit nails. Thus I used my old blades and took it slow with two hands to address any kickback when you hit nails.

Second, if you use coarse blades (few teeth), it will shred the top of the plywood. Not a terrible issue if you are going to carpet, but it also reduces strength. You can score it with a knife and tape it, but I prefer to cut twice – one with an 80tooth plywood blade with a depth set to cut just the plywood, and then the structural members cut a second time using the coarse blade. The plywood blade will not encounter too many hidden nails; the coarse one is more likely to do so and has larger/stronger teeth. The photo below shows the first cuts on a pallet with the plywood blade.

One other issue with crate-pallet, especially side wall crates, is that they often use very cheap plywood, and so even though it is nominally 3/8 5-ply, there are so many voids you may not expect to reach the normal load rating for such plywood. So on the underside, I take scraps and reinforce sections of the middle where I can, using wood glue and a few short screws to attach the scraps. Since I don’t know where voids will be, I go for the expected weakest areas -- farthest from supports. In two of the photos you can see two layers of plywood (the second for reinforcement) and still how much thinner it is in the middle. I also show some reinforcement attached to the underside. It's not pretty but also not visible when in the van. When using “free” wood, one sometimes has to adapt. I did consider using a full additional layer of 3/8 on top (after finding some crates with a single span big enough for that), but after testing this, it seemed to hold well enough I saved them for another project.

The legs were designed to be removable legs so I can fold them down to make this more compact for garage storage and make the second base fold up to take less space and sit level when on top of the main base. All legs mounted with 4" bolts and wingnuts. Offsetting the leg just a bit from the 2x4 and then rounding the corner allows them to rotate around one of the bolts while staying attacked. I mounted the block and put a second hole, so the bolts have a place to hold them in place while their section is folded flat. I found that another hole through the leg/frame allowed me to get it closer to level than the mounting block. to ensure the holes line up, I drilled the leg first, held it in place and then started the hole in the support. Since I don't have a full 4" long bit I had to then take the leg off and finish the holes. The hole for rotation is as level as I could reasonably get, for good rotation. THe hole for the second bolt is at an angle so there more tension and support off axis of the leg.

The second base attaches to the main via a 2x6 tie board via carriage bolts in the top/second base piece and holes in the tying board. The tying board is nailed to a main base underlying 2x4. It provides the mounting for the center 6" legs, which are mounted transversely. Not wanting to use 8” bolts long enough to make it through the tying-board, I used the same 4” bolts as other legs, with a middle-mounted wingnut in a cutout as shown in the montage above. The end legs are 2x4s mounted parallel front-to-back of the van. The center legs are mounted transverse-mounted since the high-ridge line goes side-to-side, and the unlevel floor would make mounting across it difficult. The two different leg directions also provide different directions of support against shifting.

To make the connection with 2x6 tying board, and the second base has three 4" carriage bolts facing down that mate with holes drilled into the tying board to hold the two pieces tightly together but still allowing one to pop the second piece up easily and put it on top for increase usable interior room even with chairs slid all the way back. To make sure the hole line up, I put the second piece in place and drilled through, removed the second base and finished the hole. I then drilled using 1/2" bit to provide a counter-sink region on both halfs so the regular hex nut I used he carriage bolts would not keep them from sitting flat. The larger opening also makes it easier to align the bolt and hole.

The next step was dry fitting and checking for level.

My original two-piece redesign was to be the full 64" length behind the of my initial design. I decided to go with a two-piece overlap edge design. After building that in my dry fitting, I found it too tight to the chair's back, making working on it inside a closed van hard. Since I wanted the cooler under the deck, I could not have a 2x4 end brace, making that last section weak unless the cooler was there. Realizing the cooler itself would be good enough to hold a mattress, I cut it down to 56" total length (and kept an optional 3rd piece I could hinge if I wanted, which you can see in one of the photos.

My legs were a little off (I cut them a little longer, to begin with, to allow trimming since the exact fitting was unclear given that crate boards are not generally true. Because they are easily removed, I left the bed in place, taking one leg off at a time to adjust. I trimmed and refitted until they were very stable. I used a mixture of rasp planning and sawing to trim them.

Next step was carpeting. I happened to have a scrap of old shag carpeting in the basement that was 36x144” so it was more than enough to cover the whole bed. I wrapped the edges to provide protection to the vehicle and covering more of the ugly pallet wood. Because the base was 36” wide, wrapping meant leaving part of it uncovered and I made the second piece’s carpeting extend to cover it. This also had the advantage of making the carpet stretch over the connection making the joint less noticeable. Finally, since I decided to use the cooler as the support for the last bit, I left the carpet extending over the end, so the carpet covers any gap with the cooler (in case we don’t use the air mattress.

I tacked the carpet with small nails (I tried stape gun but did not have long staples. Corners are cut and folded to sit tight. I also use this as the time to glue down my added support scraps and use the wood glue along the cut edges of the carpet to reduce fraying.

The final build installed in the van was the teaser for this Instructable and is below with multiple other shots. Nothing is tied down, but it still quite stable (though only tested while parked. I can easily use straps to tie it to the seat hooks under the tri-fold mat, but it lifts the edge of the mat if I tighten it down – It so stable on its own we’ll test it without the straps tight but attached (to stop it from flying in an accident). While I can install/assemble it myself, we have been using two people to load to ensure nothing scratches her new van. Side view inserted showing how close it is to folded chair -- full extension is 69" counting cooler, leaving just a few inches to get the cooler in and out. As can be seen, we designed the legs to fit well within the tri-fold-mat of the back and middle legs and on the interior all-weather mats in front just inside the slide rails for the second-row chairs.