2019 Tacoma long bed kitchen drawer build

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Here’s some photos and videos. Apologies that it’s just a random assortment. I didn’t document this well. It’s what I’ve got.

Basically I wanted a kitchen setup so that I could stop fussing with bins and setting up the table and stove and everything else when I camped. But I wanted one that would maximize space and could easily be removed and stored in the garage on a shelf. I use my truck for truck stuff and need the empty cargo space.

I also wanted it to be fairly light weight and I wanted to be able to remove the stove in case of bad weather. (This turned out to be a good idea… my wife and I cooked with the stove inside the truck shell just the other day because of rain.)

I made a rectangular box exactly as tall as the wheel well (with the Toyota mat in there) to put another piece of plywood onto the top of it so that friends could sleep in there bunkbed style. The extra piece of plywood attached with a few screws and typically comes off when I remove the box.The 26" wide top is perfect for a 25" trifold mattress and even when not sleeping someone else it works great as a couch. Nice for getting out of the wind and sun. We used it a lot that way on a recent trip down Baja.

I didn’t document much of a how to, but I’m happy to answer questions or share the Sketchup file.

Parts:
25" wide trifold mattress
13.5" thin slide for left side of drawer top
14" slide for right side of drawer top
60" slides
Camp Chef Everest Stove
5lb propane tank

Some other pics of Baja are on a recent/pinned IG story. More pictures of the truck/drawer on there.

I build some other stuff and generally document it better.

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One major note for anyone looking to replicate this:

So a big constraint I had was the drawer height and the clearance into the back 10" or so that are tucked away. In order to slide my pots or cast iron and bowls into there I couldn’t have anything hanging down. This meant that most sliders wouldn’t work, nor would a coffee table hinge. I needed zero clearance.

In the end what I decided to do was that 13.5" thin slide and fixing it to the sides of the plywood. Plywood engrain won’t take a screw very well though, so I attached beech to it and screwed to that.

Making things even more complicated, I had to modify the slide to get the travel I needed.

It works. But it’s not amazing. And it was complicated to create. I intentionally screwed the top pieces on and didn’t use glue because I wasn’t sure about it. Someday it’ll probably get replaced.

You could do a similar zero clearance setup without a slide. Just do a rabbet on the plywood. Or attach a fin of flat aluminum stock to the movable plywood that slides under the fixed plywood.

I also installed the right slide for the movable top vertically, as that’s how they typically go. But I could see doing it horizontally. It would give more stability to the top as it slides in and out, and besides, it’s not meant to take much weight.

Oh, and if it’s not clear, the cutting board fits into the drawer and helps keep stuff from bouncing out of dividers.