Creating an RV hot water heater rv bench

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Sheri and I tried the built-in bench in the Tiny Texas Tumbleweed.

Yuk.

Not comfortable. Not usable. Couldn’t seat two people sensibly and watch TV or even talk. Felt like you were being pushed right into their face. No place for a table (the TTT is tiny for sure). Couldn’t lay down. Simply unusable.

The benches looked nice. See the first two pictures in the gallery on this post.

So we did what anyone with bad planning skills would do: We tore out the bench with absolutely no plan on what to do next.

Then we ran into a little bugaboo. The hot water heater was under the seat. That hot water heater was going to be the “driver” for the overall design.

So we thought a little bench would be a great idea.

First things first, we have bought several self powered staple guns. They are all pretty bad. Except the Stanley T150. It is good. It will bury a staple. I liked it so much, I put a link here.

We took the materials from the original bench, and cut them down and formed a little box around the hot water heater.

Next, we found a really nice piece of plywood, 3/4″ thick from Home Depot. Then we bought a piece of foam rubber at a local hobby store – Hobby Lobby I think. It was cheap.

Then we had a somewhat worn out memory foam mattress topper – we cut out a piece to match our seat size.

You can see how we stacked the material. We wanted a good match of memory foam and regular foam. Together they make a better combination of firm, flexible, and comfy than each by itself.

Finally Sheri went out and bought some ULTRA TOUGH upholstery material – a good 20-30 inches bigger in each direction. IMPORTANT NOTE: Sheri and I know absolutely nothing about upholstery, so I’m hoping you cut us a break!

When we had all that, we simply put the stack together, pulled it tight, and stapled it together. The pictures chronicle the little baby project.

Sheri and I love our little bench!

BTW we’ve done a couple little projects up to this point:

• What the TTT Looked Like Before We Made our Modifications (like RV Shades)
• Video: Installing an RV Shower Surround to Create a Higher Quality RV Shower