DIY Interior fitout

The aims and goals

The primary aim of owning a motorhome is to be able to travel and live anywhere in a secure, self-contained and comfortable environment.

The interior is often scaled on a minaturized version of our own homes, with sufficient sleeping, cooking, dining, bathroom and recreation areas to suit the number of occupants. To this we add tiny infrastructures of water, gas, power, sewerage, communication, and emergency services, to build our own minute mobile civilization.

Sizing for comfort

Your motorhome will require enough beds and seating for each member travelling. Your kitchen will need to be large enough and suitably outfitted to cater for each person, and they will all need somewhere to sit and dine.

A few rainy days will keep everyone indoors, tripping over each other, and with kiddies fighting and whinging, so if you are taking children on the road, then try to build your motorhome to suit. Luxury furnishings and 2 seater dining may be fine for a retired couple, but kids do better with a long hallway design, open plan, and room to play.

Smaller children can often share a bed (head to toe), and this can be a great space saving in your design, but if you intend to travel for a year or 2, then remember the little darlings will just grow taller and the problems will begin.

Do a time and motion study on how much you and your family use and require the different areas in your house. Use this information along with the ages of the kids, the type of travel you will be doing, destinations etc to help design your interior.

For example: One person uses a bed for say 10hrs out of 24, yet uses the shower for only 5 minutes out of 24 hrs, the dining table for 1 hr out of 24, etc and you can soon prioritize what you must have first. Obviously the beds are important, and with 5 kids and 2 adults perhaps a shower used for 35 mins a day is more important than a flushing toilet.

Younger families often forget having a permanent shower and toilet in favour of an outside shower or caravan park, and just carry a porta-potti for emergencies. They will often build dining settings that fold down to an extra bed, where as single couples may prefer a free-standing table with chairs instead.