I started sleeping in my car in college to save money. It always made sense to me for a lot of reasons- more protective than a tent, but still mobile. It just works great for the dirtbaggy-trail-builder-traveler-backpacker lifestyle I lead. 

Back in college I had a tiny two door Toyota Yaris hatchback (still managed to sleep in it comfortably for months at a time!) When I bought a new car, I had my eye on a Subaru Outback because it seemed like the perfect car to sleep in. In some ways it is: large trunk area when back seats are folded down/removed, sunroofs, nice and flat. It does have downsides. It has a low ceiling, and especially once I built the bed, headroom wasn’t as abundant as I’d like. 

Here is my method for building a bed in the back of my Subaru Outback Legacy (it’s a 2004 L.L. Bean Edition.) My goals were to keep weight down, price down, and maximize both headroom and storage space underneath. 

I started by looking and measuring inside my car, seeing how wide I could make the bed and at what heights, taking into account the wheel wells. I completely removed the back seats before installing the bed. I wanted the frame to be hinged, so we could lift up the back of the bed from the trunk to access storage underneath. Therefore my design would include two independent frame sections to be hinged in the middle. 

Next, I mocked up the design with cardboard in the back of the car to see if it would really fit before I committed. 

Once I was happy with the frame design, I chose materials. I opted to build the frame from 2x3 stud pine. It’s not the hardiest material, but the bed would be low slung, and not have a large mattress on it. More importantly, the 2x3 was light and cheap (I paid less than $15 for all of the necessary lumber.) Two small hinges where the two frames attached- they would not bear weight and didn’t need to be large. 3 and 4 inch screws to fasten it all. I borrowed a lot of tools from my Aunt and Uncle- I highly recommend borrowing tools if possible.

(Note the gloves- it was 9 degrees out when we built this.)

Once the two frame boxes were completed, I mocked up legs to determine how long to make the real legs. To figure out how much head space we’d have, I took into account the additional inch added by what would become the top of the frame, and the depth of our mattress. 

Then we leveled it all out, and measured the depths on what would become the legs. 

Ultimately, the legs were about 6″. Combined with the additional 3″ added by the frame 2x3, that gave us an underbed storage heigh of 9″- not astronomical, but still left us over 2′ of headroom. I popped the two hinges into the middle to attach the two frame boxes.

The photo below shows how the front legs rest on the area underneath where the back seat used to be. I made sure that the legs rested on a flat, sturdy surface. Removing the back seats gave us a lot of additional storage area under the bed near the front; here, we had about 2′ under the bed.

Next, I made the top of the frame. A lot of people use plywood for this. I highly recommend not using plywood. It’s really heavy and unwieldy. My cousin Karl, who built a beautiful bed in the back of his Honda Element, recommended to me something called HurriGuard Hurricane Sheeting. It’s also known as triple-wall polycarbonate hurricane paneling. It’s strong enough to hold a couple of people, and much lighter than plywood. Plus it looks cool. It was definitely the most expensive material for this project at $116, but worth it.

I had to order it special through Home Depot. I used a 48″x72″ sheet.

It was easy to cut with a circular saw, but did blow a lot of plastic shavings everywhere. I cut two pieces to fit onto the two frame sections, leaving some overhang where the car allowed. For example, the polycarbonate sheeting conformed to the curve of the trunk hatch, whereas the frame just squared off.

Don’t forget your ear and eye protection, ladies and gents!

Also at my cousin Karl’s suggestion, I simply used velcro to affix the pieces of polycarbonate sheeting to the wood frame. This enables me to easily dismantle the bed, or remove the sheeting to access storage if I want. 

In the above photo you can see where the polycarbonate sheeting extends past the bottom of the bed to give us a little extra foot room. Additionally, behind the front seats, I was able to gain a little more width on the polycarbonate toward the side doors once I cleared the wheel wells. 

It lifts!

We opted for a relatively thin 2″ memory foam mattress, and made some privacy covers for the back windows. 

My goal was to create enough storage underneath that we could always travel with everything under the bed so that if we pulled up to a spot to sleep, we could just climb into the back without moving anything or adjusting anything or getting out of the car at all.

Success!

We plan on doing a lot of road tripping during our time in Canada, so to save having to find a motel or set up a tent along the way, we decided to build a sleeping platform for our ford explorer.  This would mean we could sleep stretched out while being able to store our stuff underneath us - keeping everything as orderly as it can be on a road trip!

We had an overnight bush festival to go to, so we wanted to hurry and get it done in time for that.  So we went to Home Hardware on Friday night and a great guy called Garrett helped us out a LOT.  He got right into the idea and helped us measure out the space, discussed the pattern with us - what would work and what wouldn't, and then he went ahead and cut out the two sheets of plywood we bought into the exact shapes and sizes we needed!  

We drove home really happy, with instructions and pre cut pieces all ready to go for the morning.  Louise had also asked the Panorama carpenter, Colin, if he had some scrap pieces of 2x4 to use for the legs, and wonderfully helpful man that he is, he cut us six uniformly sized pieces.

Everyone is so helpful and friendly here!!

In the morning we went around to Lisa's place and while she cooked us breakfast (yum, bacon, egg, cheese and tomato sandwiches!), Lou & I plus Sirus the dog sat outside in the sun drilling holes and putting in screws.  

This piece goes in like a table - super sturdy and the main support for the bed.  That's why we have the plywood screwed to the 2x4 legs - to give them maximum support.  We don't want the screws wiggling loose if we move around too much in our sleep.

Once that's in place, the second piece slots in and rests on the main table - we left two inches worth of the three support beams sticking out a bit so this other piece can rest on it.  It gets held up with another length of plywood (below) which slots in between two runners.  The whole thing is then braced together by pushing the front seats back as far as they will go - this is just to make sure it doesn't slip off when you wriggle too much. When we were driving, we just had the passenger seat pushed back to brace it and it stayed together fine.

The join where the two pieces meet.

Us giving it a test run

Job well done, time for more coffee!

Then we went to Canadian Tire and bought a dense foam, 4 inch thick camping mat.  It was almost the perfect size, mould resistant and super comfy. 

With a fitted sheet over the whole thing it was good to go.

And here's us testing it out at the festival!  We ended up putting our heads up the other end because there was more head room.  It was just enough room to roll over and cuddle, but not enough to get on hands and knees - getting in and out made you feel a bit like a snake! 

And here's me the next morning, happy, comfy and warm!