In designing a housebus fit-out from scratch, one of the greatest challenges is how to bed down a family without interfering with the necessary living space during the day. With a stretcher-bed hanging over the seats at the front, we have a generous bed for sleeping times without it impacting the other useful areas during the day.

Delaney and Brioni in the bed in The Gifted Gypsy, October 2012
The girls are already adapting to sleeping together with me on the stretcher bed.

Before I built this in our Toyota Coaster, I had only seen the concept online in European camping vans. Here’s how it works:

Stretcher bed over the front seats of a bus, October 2012
Brackets are mounted to the walls of the bus to support the bed frame.

Stretcher bed over the front seats of a bus, October 2012
The pole holding the side of the canvas bed has corresponding holes that drop neatly onto the bolts.

Stretcher bed over the front seats of a bus, October 2012
A self-inflating mattress slides into the custom pockets sewn into the canvas bed. Although it inflates by itself, I've discovered that a few extra breaths of air give it a bit more cushion.

Stretcher bed over the front seats of a bus, October 2012
When in place, the bed *does* sag a bit in the middle, and we'll test it out for a while to see if it affects the way we sleep at night.

The children access the bed by climbing first onto the dashboard at the front. I usually climb up directly from the body of the bus.

The width of the bed is 1700mm and the length is 2400mm, so it’s big enough to fit all five of us if we sleep sideways. We’re rarely organised to sleep side-by-side like peas-in-a-pod, and so the generous length is great to ensure no one falls off the ends.

Packing away the bed is really easy — it has to be! I unhook it from its mounts and roll it up.

Stretcher bed over the front seats of a bus, October 2012
After removing the inflatable mattresses, I roll the canvas up to one side of the bus.

Stretcher bed over the front seats of a bus, October 2012
Once rolled up completely, the canvas bed is held in place by a couple of elastic straps and disguised with a crocheted webbing. At this height, it's over the head of the bus driver and out of the way of the passengers.

I’m still not sure if one large inflatable mattress would be better than three small ones because it may reduce some of the sagging. It’s also possible to take the canvas back to the sail-maker who sewed it up and ask him to tighten the fabric. In the meantime, I have been sleeping well with up to three children in the bed with me!

There are also a couple of extra spots available around the bus for people to sleep if they want some more space. A cupboard at the back is designated as a bed-space (and holds all our bedding in the day-time), the bench-seat at the back is big enough for a child to use, and I’ll get a spare mattress to lay out in the middle of the floor for late-night insomniacs.

Aisha sleeping in the back cupboard, October 2012
One night, Aisha sleeps in the back cupboard of the bus.

Now that we’re moving into the bus, it’s feeling a lot more like home. Sharing a bed with my girls is a privilege I have recently embraced — especially now that I’ve lost one of my children and would give anything to sleep alongside him again — and I’m glad to be able to do this in The Gifted Gypsy.