Garage upper bed platform

Our Fuzion 429 has a 13' garage area. Two queen-size beds can be utilized there. The upper bed is a mattress on top of a platform that can be raised out of the way when storing items in the garage and then lowered for guests to sleep on.

We notice that the platform was sagging so we took it apart. It is mostly covered by a thick material that reminds me of landscaping fabric. After removing that, we notice that a couple of the wooden cross-members, basically 2x3s, were cracked due to having knots in them.

We rebuilt the platform. If you've had a look the "Underbelly support" in the "RV Improvements" section of our website, you will recall that we used "V" shaped metal garage door support struts (search for "Garage Door 2-1/4" x 16' Steel Horizontal Support Strut"). Well, we had a couple leftover so I strengthened this upper bed platform by laying two of them across the length of the bunk. In the picture below, imagine them installed right alongside the wooden studs you see.

Again, looking at the picture below, you see wooden studs across the length of the platform. These studs started out as regular 2x4s. However, notice that the garage struts are listed as 2-1/4". So we had to use a table saw to rip the 2x4s to match the height of the struts.

With that infrastructure constructed, it was simply a matter of screwing the two pieces of MDF back on top. We then covered everything with landscaping material, reusing what was already there and supplementing where necessary. To make the underside look nice, we attached some simple "painter's cloth tarp".