That Miserable Corner Berth

[nosticks]

The fixed rear corner berth, which is part of the floor plans in many smaller Class ‘C’ motorhomes, is an abomination. I could describe it in more simpler terms but I would be banned from the forum for the use of so many strung together expletive adjectives fitting such a wonder of floor planning and forethought.

First off, it’s neither a Queen nor a Double. It takes Double Long sheets, that is if you are fool enough to try to use fitted sheets on the monster, and even at that with the corner chopped off, it’s a real disaster. Waking up in the middle of the night with the bottom fitted sheet wrapped up around the back of your neck is not conducive to a pleasant morning. You’re probable still suffering from the many contortions, aching muscles, and ripped fingernails you had to endure to put the sheets on the night before. I’ve even thought of standing on a step ladder and going through the emergency exit from the outside as a plausible idea for reaching the top of the mattress, something you can’t do while kneeling on it and trying to secure the sheet.

Moving right along, you have to get in and out of the thing without adding to your injuries or expelling the person next to you on to the floor during that inevitable trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Drawing straws to see who gets the inside and outside wall is another fine but not elaborated feature of this monstrosity. The inside wall winner gets trampled during the nighttime run and the outside wall winner gets to be crammed up against the outside wall, not a problem until the cold weather sets in. Both winners get to scoot in and out on the back of their head, butt, and ankles using their arms like a set of oars, something that once mastered will make getting settled a little more palatable.

Next up, storage. Don’t even think about putting anything you ever want to see or use again in the rear overhead compartments. It takes a different kind of maneuver to retrieve the item. Unless you want to get the sheets and blankets full of whatever your shoes drug in from the surrounding campground, you’ll need to remove them. Then you either crawl in on your hands and knees or use a long broom handle with a hook on the end to fetch the item. If you choose to go in on your hands and knees, you still have to get back out, only with one less hand to help you. If you put an item requiring both hands to retrieve, then you’ll need to roll over on your back and toss it out. Now since you are on your back, refer to the entry exit method described earlier.

Finally, we get to the mattress itself. It’s the best mattress $39.95 can buy. A Sleep Number replacement is out of the question if you ever want to open the bathroom door. A custom is an option, but an expensive one, so you decide to make the mistake of all mistakes with this corner bunk. You buy a 3” or 4” foam mattress topper and cut off the corner to make it fit. If you think making up the bed was difficult enough, you have just made the leap into impossible. Now you sink in and are captured like being in thick mud, able to barely move or crawl forward. It’s even more fun to get in and out of as not only do you use the back of your head, butt, and ankles, but now you’ll need to thrash up and down like you were being electrocuted to move in any direction.

Well, there you have it. Everything you wanted to know and then some about the corner berth.

[JamieGeek]

Well you could always trade it in for a 22B or something like the Vegas/Axis 24.1.

[KNMIB]

I guess that's why they make different RVs. We have no problem with ours it works well for us and we use it a lot for 2-3 month trips. If I felt the same I would be trading immediately. Happy Travels

[Chance]

Originally Posted by nosticks

The fixed rear corner berth, which is part of the floor plans in many smaller Class ‘C’ motorhomes, is an abomination. ...cut....

Could not agree with you more. We rented an RV for a week years ago and hated the corner bed for all the reasons you mention. We put corner beds on our list of "must avoid".

And you are right that it's a popular feature of smaller RVs without slides like we are looking for, which greatly limits our choices. Compared to Twin/King beds like on Axis 24.1 it probably saves about 3-feet on RV length. And that's a lot, but comes at too high a price for us.

That's why I recommend to family and friends to "try before you buy". Without trying it I would have never guessed I'd dislike a corner bed so badly.

[petew]

This is why we love the twin beds in our Vegas 24.1 .
The beds are very accessible and comfortable. I never could understand how that corner bed made any sense unless you were traveling alone.

[saddlesore]

Years and years ago borrowed a Class C with the corner monster.......I thought that the overhead bed in a pickup camper was bad....ugh!
since then a top priority is an island bed and overhead cabinets with STRONG lift arms!

[Mr Sunshine]

Originally Posted by nosticks

The fixed rear corner berth, which is part of the floor plans in many smaller Class ‘C’ motorhomes, is an abomination...

Well stated, but you left out the part about crawling over a sleeping partner to get out of that corner bed. Mrs S and I have been hitched for a long time, but that situation could cause some serious problems. One of us (guess who?) would end up sleeping somewhere other than the inside of that bed.

Before we bought our Vegas 25.2, "no corner bed" was the top item on our wish list when we were considering RVs. One lesson we didn't have to experience firsthand to learn!

[oldgold]

Originally Posted by nosticks

The fixed rear corner berth, which is part of the floor plans in many smaller Class ‘C’ motorhomes, is an abomination. I could describe it in more simpler terms but I would be banned from the forum for the use of so many strung together expletive adjectives fitting such a wonder of floor planning and forethought.



First off, it’s neither a Queen nor a Double. It takes Double Long sheets, that is if you are fool enough to try to use fitted sheets on the monster, and even at that with the corner chopped off, it’s a real disaster. Waking up in the middle of the night with the bottom fitted sheet wrapped up around the back of your neck is not conducive to a pleasant morning. You’re probable still suffering from the many contortions, aching muscles, and ripped fingernails you had to endure to put the sheets on the night before. I’ve even thought of standing on a step ladder and going through the emergency exit from the outside as a plausible idea for reaching the top of the mattress, something you can’t do while kneeling on it and trying to secure the sheet.



Moving right along, you have to get in and out of the thing without adding to your injuries or expelling the person next to you on to the floor during that inevitable trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Drawing straws to see who gets the inside and outside wall is another fine but not elaborated feature of this monstrosity. The inside wall winner gets trampled during the nighttime run and the outside wall winner gets to be crammed up against the outside wall, not a problem until the cold weather sets in. Both winners get to scoot in and out on the back of their head, butt, and ankles using their arms like a set of oars, something that once mastered will make getting settled a little more palatable.



Next up, storage. Don’t even think about putting anything you ever want to see or use again in the rear overhead compartments. It takes a different kind of maneuver to retrieve the item. Unless you want to get the sheets and blankets full of whatever your shoes drug in from the surrounding campground, you’ll need to remove them. Then you either crawl in on your hands and knees or use a long broom handle with a hook on the end to fetch the item. If you choose to go in on your hands and knees, you still have to get back out, only with one less hand to help you. If you put an item requiring both hands to retrieve, then you’ll need to roll over on your back and toss it out. Now since you are on your back, refer to the entry exit method described earlier.



Finally, we get to the mattress itself. It’s the best mattress $39.95 can buy. A Sleep Number replacement is out of the question if you ever want to open the bathroom door. A custom is an option, but an expensive one, so you decide to make the mistake of all mistakes with this corner bunk. You buy a 3” or 4” foam mattress topper and cut off the corner to make it fit. If you think making up the bed was difficult enough, you have just made the leap into impossible. Now you sink in and are captured like being in thick mud, able to barely move or crawl forward. It’s even more fun to get in and out of as not only do you use the back of your head, butt, and ankles, but now you’ll need to thrash up and down like you were being electrocuted to move in any direction.



Well, there you have it. Everything you wanted to know and then some about the corner berth.

Try this out... they make very good mattresses and are reasonably priced. We have one of theirs for our main bed at the house. Not sure what the custom bed size pricing is, but I would figure with these guys it's not much more.

https://www.originalmattress.com/cus...pring/overview

[bevedfelker]

Love our Vegas 24.1 twin bed setup. Easy to make up beds. We both find the mattresses very comfortable. No crawling over anyone (well, except the dog) to go to the bathroom at night. Easy to access the very roomy side and rear overhead cabinets. Just kneel on beds to access cabinets.

The 24.1 floorplan also gives us huge volume of outside storage with an immense rear pass through and storage compartments on each side. We find the 24.1 a perfect floorplan for our needs.

[vkb]

Originally Posted by nosticks

The fixed rear corner berth, which is part of the floor plans in many smaller Class ‘C’ motorhomes, is an abomination. I could describe it in more simpler terms but I would be banned from the forum for the use of so many strung together expletive adjectives fitting such a wonder of floor planning and forethought.


Well, there you have it. Everything you wanted to know and then some about the corner berth.

Our first motorhome was a 1998 21' Starflyte with a corner bed..we lived with that situation for several years, as we were so happy to have moved up from our home made camper van. Since moving on from that awesome little B+, we vowed we would NEVER have another corner bed. It serves its purpose...and we got used to it...crawling over each other .. making the bed..ugh...using oversized sheets...But, we loved it at the time !

oh...by the way...we...now well into our senior citizen years...
LOVE OUR AXIS !! TWIN BEDS AND ALL !! Kinda like our California King bed at home !

Make the most of it until you are truly ready for a change !

[Chance]

Why they have corner beds must be primarily for space savings.

Replacing corner bed with Twins (like on popular Axis 24.1 floorplan) requires adding space to relocate the corner bathroom, which would add about 3 feet to RV length if made with normal US design. While bed may be inconvenient it saves space for other living areas in a 22 ~ 23 foot motorhome.

By comparison Europeans build a lot of motorhomes in that same 22 ~ 23 foot length, but many manufacturers go with Twin beds instead of corner bed. The main differences I see in the Euro motorhomes of same size is that they save space to provide the Twin beds by using much smaller wet baths, and instead of normal US couch or dinette behind driver, they use a 2-person half-dinette.

If I were limited in size to 22 ~ 23 feet, it would be a tough choice between a corner bed with larger corner bath and larger living room, versus more comfortable bedroom but with small bath and tighter living area. Given a limited space, one has to compromise one way or another. In that sense I understand the corner bed. At least it's not as bad as a couple sleeping in Class C overhead bed. We've done that a few times also.

[Oneilkeys]

That is exactly what made the Axis/Vegas such a good choice for us. We added 3' to our prior 22' Class C (without an over the cab bunk) and got a separate sleeping area and much bigger bathroom. I three years I have not wished once that I had not added the extra 3'. I tried to convince my wife that we could add three more feet and looking at all the 28-29 footers out there we could not convince ourselves that we would gain enough to make it worthwhile - so we traded in our Vegas for a new Axis. There were several times this summer during our trip to Colorado and Utah that I was very happy I did not have the extra length and width of an F-53 chassis.