Permanent Bed Vs couch/dinette

[JohnIrish]

We are shopping for an RV for the first time... I would like to keep the RV smaller (24 or 26 ft) so I dont need to tow a car. I also want to tow a boat so I think a smaller RV would also be better for that. It will almost always just be my wife and me so we don't need a lot of room.

Most of the popular designs have the bathroom in the back with no permanent bed. The 24 ft Born Free is on my "short list" with the bathroom in the back and the cab over bed. Do most people use the cab over bed or make up the bed every day on the couch? My boss (wife) would prefer a permanent bed such as a Winnebago Aspect 26A or a Phoenix Cruiser 24 ft with the permanent corner bed. They are more of a B+ with no cab over bed. We are both in good shape (i.e. I play racquetball) so think a cab over bed is not bad. Climbing over each other in the middle of the night is not a concern with either the cab over bed or the corner bed.

Just curious what your thoughts are about using the cab over bed (climbing in and out) ... or do you feel it is not too difficult to be making a bed out of the couch every night? I was told by someone that you never get a good nights sleep on the RV couches. Making up a bed every night would seem to get old very quickly?

I know Born Free makes a nice looking RV and I dont want to cross them off because then don't have a permanent bed with out climbing a ladder. What do you think?

thanks!

[Roger H]

First, welcome to the Born Free forums! We're glad you stopped by.

Born Free not only makes one of the nicest looking coaches, they're also one of the best engineered, best constructed, and safest. They have three steel roll bars in the coach that no other coach has. In the event of a roll-over (Heaven forbid...) the coach will not turn to toothpicks like every other coach on the market. They advertise that there has never been a fatality in a Born Free. That's a big sales point.

As for the bed... I've had the rear corner bed in an Airstream 23' trailer and a 32' Airstream motor home and they're a nuisance to make and worse for sleeping if you're over about 6' tall or have any extra girth at all. I've had the cab-over in a Born Free 23rk and while the bed was comfy, there's not a lot of room up there to turn over (or to climb over your spouse.)

It's truly an age-old quandry, and perhaps one that there's no really good answer for... except get the bed that you think will work for you. Each of us has our own set of expectations... and fortunately mine were met with the Born Free I have now. I hope you can find one that meets yours.

Roger

[shilohdad]

Our first RV was a Roadtrek 200 Versatile class B with a permanent bed in the back. We chose that configuration because we felt we did not want to keep making and unmaking the bed. However, climbing over one another to get up in the middle of the night got old real quick.

When we decided to go a little larger, we gravitated to the Born Free line because of its reputation for quality. We opted for a 24RB (now called Spirit). We do not use the cabover bed as we are not that limber anymore, and we wanted to use that area for storage. After talking with Ed Newman, we opted for one incline twin bed and the Villa dinette, which can be turned into a bed. Even though they don't show that dinette option on the web site, Ed tells me it is still available as an option.

The dinette takes all of about a minute to take down or put up. We turn it into a bed just before bedtime and turn it back into a dinette first thing after arising. Since we use the Travasack system for bedding, there really is no "making up" the bed. We stow the sacks in the overcab.

I won't say the dinette or the incline bed is the most comfortable things we have slept on, but they are OK. A foam pad under the Travasack helps a lot and and we stow them in the overcab also.

It is nice having the dinette set up during the day. When we stop for lunch, we just grab what we want to eat and sit down at the dinette. The only other option there is for eating is to have a portable table that you have to stow, and they tended to be somewhat unstable.

So, for us, this configuration has worked out well. Your mileage may vary.

[randallrae]

New Born Frees come with http://www.rvsuperbag.com/Superbags/products/2/ which make setting up to go to bed easy . I sleep in the overhead and she converts the couch (Many trips to bathroom) . There is one post on the forum where they made a removable pad that made the couch wider , and we may do that in the future .

[Dallas Baillio]

I have an inexpensive sleeping bag and memory foam that I use on the couch. The sleeping bag is stored in the larger of the three cabinets over the bed. I store the memory foam in a hassock that fits between the driver and passenger seats in the cab. I invested approximately $70 for the two. It can be quickly made up and broken down.

My 26 RSB has a side bed as well. When I traveled full time for a year with only my dog I found I really liked having a made up bed. Nice to just pull down the covers and crawl in. Making it up each morning was not a problem. What I did not like was changing the bedding. That is time consuming and difficult.

[stevek]

We have a rear side corner kitchen/ bath. 23 feet long/ 24 feet newer model. A very nice floor plan. Wife sleeps in the OH Bed and I sleep in the fold down sofa. No crawling over each other. Very easy to drive and park, since it is so short.
The passenger seat rotates and makes a small dinette as shown in the below floor plan.

I personally would never buy a Class C or B, without an OH Bed. Its bang for the buck length wise. I want as many features as I can get in a short motorhome, including the OH Bed.

[JohnIrish]

Thanks for all the replies! All the comments have us thinking.

After further discussion with with my wife.. she thinks using a Travasack or something similar would be OK.... sleeping separate is not an option for us. She may not like the above cab bed if it is too restrictive. It looks like the couch would be our best option.

Is there a "best" year to look for in a 24 ft? Any significant design changes in the years? We want to keep the cost under $40K for a used RV.

thanks again!

[Steve W]

John

My wife and I are on our second Born Free. Our first was a 22' BFT, which we found a bit small. Also, I wanted a dry bath. We now have a 2007 24' RB, which we like very much. It has the dry bath and the twin inclining beds on which we use foam pads with Travasaks. For us, that is a perfect sleeping arrangement. The table takes approx. 30-40 seconds to set up and at night it serves as a night table between the beds. In addition, we do have the overhead bed which we use for storage and I use as an exercise mat when I do my back exercises. The 2007 was the last of that particular model as in 2008 they went to the "no storage" bumper which I found odd as we keep all our dump hoses and fixtures in. A great arrangement.

As to the quality of the Born Free, I can only say we have had ours 8 years now and aside from a few hiccups, it has been a great RV. We do tow as we have found over the years that the benefits definitely outweigh the hassle of the concept of towing.

[Mike Jean Bandfield]

Trade-offs:
Before the Born Free we had a cab-over pick-up camper. This bed had a full queen spring mattress and room to sit up in bed; and a full cab-over curtained window (which never leaked in 13 years). It also had an emergency exit hatch/window above the bed - great for ventilation and falling asleep while watching the stars. We really loved this arrangement. By comparison the Born Free cab over is cramped height-wise and the foam mattress quickly lost it's support. My wife put up with it for a few years and moved to the rear side sofa-bed when the claustrophobia became too much. I still use the cab-over. All bedding gets stored in the cab-over area during the day.

We spend as much time as we can in the back country. The old camper was 11+ feet tall and 102" wide from top to bottom and was difficult to drive around/under trees and rocks. Our BF is 96" wide at the base and tapers in at the top, and it is <10' tall. For that reason, in spite of the cab-over deficiencies, I would choose it again; my wife might opt for another layout.

The Travasak system does help a lot. Having the sheets and blankets so that you can roll the bedding up in the morning and roll it out at night takes much of the work out of it.

-Mike

[Rob]

We have a 24 rear bath. A year or 2 ago we removed the dinette and installed a single bed. We had the Born Free factory ship us a frame for a single bed to match the frame of the sofa. We went to a local upholstery shop and ordered a faux-leather cushion for the mattress. My husband slept in a Trava-Sac on that bed which we left made up as a bed. I slept on the folded down sofa on a Trava-Sac (along with our 2 little dogs) and finally got sick of that. This summer we took out the sofa (sold it to another Born Free owner). Since the sofa frame was the same as the twin bed frame, we simply installed the ply-wood platform to support another cushion matching the other one. Instead of making up beds every night, we decided to put memoryfoam toppers on each cushion and put sheets and blankets on them. I topped each bed with nice spreads, long wedge cushions for each for sitting against, and we are SO glad we made the change. We removed the bed from above the cab and now use it to store our bag chairs, etc. Coleman has a "double" table that comes apart to make 2 narrow tables. They both have extendable legs to make them taller. We use one of them in the isle between the 2 beds to eat on. We push it towards the cab when not eating and use it as a bedside table for both beds. End result...overcab storage is great; removal of overcab bed makes it feel much more spacious in the coach; underbed storage on both sides of the coach; no more climbing ladders to upper bed; AND WE LOVE IT! If you think about it, most times you eat outside anyway and the "portable" table works great for us. We do not tow, either.
Rob & Joan Beery
2003 24 ft rear bath

[Eric Sandstrom]

This is how we addressed our over-cab bed situation. It has worked great. No climbing over each other and no ladder blocking the forward dining chair.

http://www.bornfreervclub.org/bulletin_ ... +sandstrom

[daryl&mary]

John,

We have a 22' BFT with the twin incline beds. Here is how we handle the table. The home-made base is more stable and less hassle than the folding stand. We store the table top, base, and tube behind the driver seat. Takes about 30 seconds to set up.

http://www.bornfreervclub.org/bulletin_ ... ble#p27347

Although we really like the incline beds, we found them to be a bit hard. So we cut two queen size memory foam toppers in half (30" wide each) and stuffed them in some old bedrolls. Much more comfortable. We started with one topper (1 1/2 inches) but like double thickness (3 inches) much better. We sleep on top in Travasaks that we roll up, but we leave the bedrolls in place. You can see sort of these mods in the picture.

The BFT works well for us, although my wife thinks she would like the full bath (24' RB) over the wet bath. Me -- I like the shorter length (easy to park) and the 350 chassis (nice ride.) With the V-10, duals, and the short length, BFT drives like a go-kart. We do not tow, but may do so in the future. If so, the rear door may become problematic.

Our current travel ranges from weekends to several weeks. If we were to go for months, the 24 with full bath and overhead storage might make sense. But for now, we'll stick with our BFT. Based on your comments, a 24' RB with twin beds would probably work very well for you. But if you run across a good deal on a BFT, take a look at it.

Finally, we could not be more pleased with the quality and service of Born Free. We stumbled across them about five years ago, and we're very glad we did. You won't go wrong with a Born Free.

Best wishes -- Daryl

[CuJo's Pride]

We have a 26' RB. We sleep in the cabover. I put a memory foam-gel 3" mattress pad and use regular bedding and it's wonderful. My hubby built steps to go up rather than the rail. So it is very easy going up and down and our dogs love the steps. We sleep with our heads towards the front kind of angled. I didn't want to sleep towards the nose so we put our feet there.

It's abig decision. It's also depends on how much you want to spend and what's available. Sometimes I wish we would have gotten the bedroom but I would miss my nice bathroom so there are trade offs. Good luck on your quest but if you get a Born Free you won't regret it.

Jo

[RV Life Is A Trip]

Hi Jo

re memory 3” foam gel mattress for your cab over.

My question is — did you ADD that on top of the mattress that came with the Born Free OR did you remove the original mattress and ONLY use the 3” foam gel mattress?

It is already pretty shallow up there. Thanks

[CuJo's Pride]

We actually put a 3 " foam pad up there when we first got it and then we layed the gel foam on to of that. It was way to high with both. We are going to remove the foam mattress and just put the gel foam on of the origional pad up top. There's plenty of room up there. The gel makes a huge difference in comfort.. enjoy..