Micro Camper Build Phase 1

Initial Planning (or lack of) and Framing

After selling my last RV, I decided to attempt a DIY build for a micro camper. I wanted this for a couple of reasons:

Travelling between snowbird homes in WA and AZ. I used to use the RV for the primary trip back and forth, could take my time and have a place to stay along the way. Then fly back and forth for holidays, etc. But I do not like flying, unless I am at controls or can easily can get to controls, and airline travel has really started to suck besides.
To use as a get away to the woods vehicle either in WA or AZ. I love the outdoors and especially fishing, so this becomes my mobile fishing cabin.
Easy to setup, take down, and get moving. Decided against tent because for one thing I am getting too old, for another I have always been kinda lazy. So with this all I need to do is stop, crawl in and go to sleep.

Besides the reasons I use to justify it above, I also had some primary goals:

Inexpensive
Easy to build with limited wood working skills. I am not a carpenter and do not possess those skills. Most of the experience I have is building my living quarters in Vietnam and doing handyman work around the house.
Not require a lot of fancy woodworking tools. I had a drill, jigsaw, circular saw, chop saw, and a few handtools. Wanted to be able to build this with just what I had.
Fit into the garage. In the past I had to rent a storage slot for the bigger RV in AZ, didn’t want that hassle.
Curious to see if I could build one that would work for me and meet my basic needs.

Mistakes along the way:

My original idea was to keep it very basic, just a place to sleep and store camping items, thus inexpensive. I had watched numerous YouTube videos on DIY campers and thought I could get by with just the basics. But as you will see as we move along, watching the YouTube videos was a mistake, my wish list starting growing and getting bigger and thus my cost went up.
Shape. I curved the front and back, because I thought it would look good. Wish I had left the back square. The curve interferes with the top shelve and takes away some storage space. It adds nothing, therefore a waste.
When building the roof, I went from outside in, should have been the reverse and things would have flowed better.
No overall design. I am a invent it as I go guy, so while I had a basic idea, not plan. So things just kinda of happened as I thought of them. All in all it turned out OK, but could have been so much easier with a plan and an idea of what to do when.

Design concept:

Sleeping accommodations for 1. Very doubtful my wife wants to go out boondocking without the basics of bath and kitchen. Also doubtful she wants go while I go fishing somewhere. So its just me.
Small basic rear galley. Just me and my cooking needs are small, so mainly an area to store food and cooking tools.
Lightweight, going to put it with existing autos, so less than 1500 lbs GVW.

Getting Started:

Trailer: I looked for used trailers on line, but this is a service area, especially yard services, and used trailers were as much as a new trailer. So I decided on a Harbor Freight trailer and got the 1400 lb model. Got 25% off so think it was around $250. Assembled it in my garage in about 2 hours and the game was on.

I then tried to figure out how much and what wood I needed. I had to order it delivered due to no more pickup and wanted to get as much as appropriate on one load. I decided on 3/4 inch plywood side walls and floor of trailer, 2×3 front wall and roof studs, 1/4 inch luau wood for roof, 1/2 plywood for front and floor, plenty of 2×2 for supports, and 1×2 furring for trim. Placed the order and got it delivered. Remarkedly I did a pretty good job of estimating here. I have had to return to get some basic items, mostly hardware and some more 1×3, but these all fit into car so no more deliveries.

The build:

So now it was go time.

I had a bunch of paint and roof sealer on hand already. So I coated a 3/4 plywood in Flex Seal for water protection, flipped it over and used it as the foundation flooring.
Put down 2×3 studs along edge of floor, recess 3/4 inch to along for side walls.
Cut the side walls with curves in front and rear.
Cut the door. Careful here. I had decided to build my own door as “inexpensive” was still a primary goal. I wanted the cut out section to fit right back in as the door. Then all I would need to do is trim it to be a good seal and would have a door. Since I had not decided while windows to use, I did nt cut them out at this tiime.
Glued and screwed the side walls to the floor studs. Used scraps to keep alignment while drying.
Decided to make an under bed storage area and marked out the place for the galley.
Finished roof front wall studs and applied roof and front wall covering.

This will end Phase 1. The album below contains photographs of the framing phase. I went pretty well and I was able to complete it in 2-3 days.

The second set of photographs shows the build up until its maiden voyage and some of the revisions I started after that.