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Apr 19 2021

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Cuddle cubby kitchen

You can read the back and forth below but I think Elina and Dave have some winning ideas. We can do all of our food and drink prep/distribution out on the back porch. When we get to a place to chill for a spell, we will take tables and chairs on to the playa and serve food completely off the truck. And I love Elina’s idea of a “Murphy” bed up in the cuddle cubby. So very “Speak-Easy” 😉

Our crew is so smart! Brilliant even.


Ulan wrote:

We are waaaaaaay premature but…

Torben is about that welding life

The section we welded on tonight is deep enough to fit a standard queen size mattress. It is 60” deep and 96” wide.

Currently the idea is to install a mattress up there so folks can sleep when we are out all night.

That being said, I would like everything on the truck to fit into the theme of a Juke Joint. As such, I am thinking this “cuddle cubby” area is going to be themed as a “kitchen” or a place to create and serve food. I know this sounds crazy since it will function as a place for people to sleep/relax.

This is where your creative mind comes in. I want you think about how to make this rectangle both feel like a kitchen/dining room/hang-out space but ALSO be appropriate as a place to sleep.

I have no idea if this is possible. If you can not solve this challenge, please don’t feel bad. But I do need to solve it. If you can figure it out, great.

I’m not sure if you guys ever went out with us when we hosted “Feed The Artists”. The week BEFORE the festival, this camp cooks hundreds of meals and distributes them to the crews that are building art deep out in the playa. We would take Unaverz and Farfalle out starting around 7pm and drive around feeding everyone we could find only to return between midnight and 2am. We would do this two or three times before the gates opened on Sunday morning.

I mention this because the FTA folx would load 5 or six super large pots on our truck and scoop everything out of them. I can see this “cuddle cubby” space being used like this. Maybe we have a plywood barrier that we set on top of the mattress when we are serving food and take the plywood away when we are not. Maybe the cover for the mattress looks like a stove.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that we will almost always have some food on the truck to feed visitors. And this food is going to live in this “cuddle cubby” area.

If you have any thoughts, I would love to hear them =)

Then Elina wrote:

Wow! About food for builders – it’s brilliant!!!

Do you want for that sleep area looks like a kitchen or transform to the kitchen table or something like this?
Actually I have an idea;)

Look at the picture.

This is upper folding bed in the train. I think it’s possible to do it’s for 2 sides and fold it to sides and get a kitchen table for example.

Bottom of this folding bed easy to decorate like a kitchen walls

Then Dave L chimed in:

Hey! Thinking about this space again. My personal opinion is not to put the kitchen up there especially if you’d like a mattress up there. For a few reasons… hang with my thought for a minute. It seems like there needs to be a space to hang, chill, hide, while at the same time party. This space adds to the travel experience of that in much the same way on Unaverz and Farfalle. If it becomes a place you either cook or serve food then it kind of cuts that space out. It’s not tall enough to properly cook. It would feel cramped once you add a cooking area. And it could become really messy and dirty pretty quick. It could be a place where you add some coolers to access and bring food down. Or even chill and eat up there. But cooking, food, utensils? Seems like a big task to manage.

I like the idea of having a bbq hanging off front or even on the porch out back. It’s accessible, simple and easy to keep clean if it’s not hid away up top. The main area won’t have a lot of room once the bench and possible piano. So the added area up top really can become a cool lounge area…And partial storage for food when you plan to fire up bbq or grill. If you had a grill off porch, maybe you could have foldable round cafe tables/chairs to place on playa hanging off back. I like the idea of having food out there to serve, but for convenience, cleanliness, and accessibility seems like it would be better down below, on porch, or front grill or even on side with a faux kitchen backdrop painted. It can’t be everything. I just think how messy kitchens get. Driving around with one could be a hassle. Unless it’s just a few round tables and chairs up there, no roof.

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3 comments

  1. Levi

    What is the passenger seat area being used for? Does it have to contain a passenger? I’ve been considering a fold out kitchen for the back seat of my little truck, and part of the reason why it’s such a good placement is the seat/floor and the door form a 90 degree that makes it relatively easy to create a stable fold out surface (or a heavy drawer slide system can be used). The area directly on the floor provides room for a cooler/storage, the door itself can be set up with a storage system for the basics, and now you’re cooking over the ground instead of inside your vehicle (which I recognize is actually a downside in some ways on playa, but that can be easily resolved with a mat of some sort)

    If the passenger seat is free to be modified I’m happy to try and plan out a solution.

    Having a kitchen and a sleeping area inhabit the same space is certainly a design challenge. The side by side fold out beds definitely sound like the minimum viable route, but I’m still inclined to think that cooking in a small space, above a party, is less than ideal. You also have the issue of combustibles/heat/steam/oil splatter/etc in a small space. I’d expect a fair amount of spilling of food while transitioning it down to the lower level and the conflict between the uses of the space would likely really reduce the functionality of both uses- someone is going to need a hot bowl of ramen at 5 AM while someone else is in need of a nap, but you can’t do both at once.

  2. Dave Lloyd

    You could add two long seating boxes along the sides up top – wide enough to fit coolers in. Under the seating is storage for coolers, food prep, etc. On top of the bench you have cushions and pillows. The middle floor area could have cushions that could be moved out of the way for dining with a fold down table (similar to an RV). The area could become a dining spot, or fold table up and place pillows back on floor to make it a cozy lounge area. Add the BBQ or cooktop on left corner of porch. Food could be brought down from up top. You could have intimate dinners up there along with placing collapsible tables and chairs on playa. Just some more thoughts on how to make it work, while realizing the challenges of cooking out on playa.

  3. Christine Ann Wolheim

    I was thinking of counters on the sides with storage underneath, all the same height. a fridge, goes under, mini fridge size, cook top would be removable to stow under or in cupboards/counters. along with propane tank, etc..there could even be a small sink with a pump. Then there is a platform that fits on top of these counters and exactly into the space crosswise, and holds a mattress on top of it. Rather than a murphy bed it could be raised up with a pulley system (if there’s enough height) the U shaped floor space underneath serves as extra storage when bed in “down”.
    The Murphy bed will eat some of the standing/working area and this would eat some of the height. So those are considerations.

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