Custom 829

Rebuilding a damaged camper to have a better layout

May 2014

One of our 823 campers was hit by a commercial truck on its off-door side, damaging the rear and side walls, and much of cabinetry inside. Since we needed to install new cabinetry during the repair anyway, we took this opportunity to change the layout for the better.

Custom 829

The main problem with the 823 layout (like that of the 207 and 207SE) concerns the location of the galley and sofa compared to the fridge and dinette. When the galley is across from the dinette, anyone sitting at the table needs anyone working in the galley to move before they can exit the dinette (and if someone is working in the kitchen, they're back-side is pretty much in the face of anyone at the dinette). Also, the fridge is on the other end from the galley, which makes the "kitchen triangle" a stretch.

Simply switching the galley and the sofa locations solves this problem. Now the sink and stove are near the fridge as they should be, and more than one person can navigate the galley at one time. The sofa being across from the dinette places the seating in one area, so more people can be together for meals or game time.

One other benefit is that when the sofa and dinette are made into beds, instead of laying front-to-back on either the 6' dinette bed or the 5' sofa bed, one could lay side-to-side across the dinette and sofa to have an 80" long bed (6' 8") like the beds on the ends of the camper.

Here what we started with: