DIY Overland Kitchen Build for my Subaru Forester

Hey everyone, I hope you're doing well through the virus crisis and staying safe and sane and home. I've had a lot of requests to show how I built my new sort of do-it-yourself overland kitchen setup, so let's take a look at it. I normally would have liked to have filmed this out in the wilderness someplace, but here in Oregon we've been asked to stay home and so that's what I'm doing. So apologies for the mess in the background. So first I'll just show you the completed project so those of you who just want to see the build to get some ideas for yourself and don't necessarily need to see how it was built can watch the first few minutes and be done, and then I'll go back through and show you step by step what I actually did. Part of the idea here was to make this sort of a semi-permanent installation. This can all come out of the car fairly easily, but my hope is that it can just stay in there. I wanted to make a reasonable platform here that would serve as daily driver cargo space if I needed it, and ultimately that's already more than enough space to carry what I would normally carry in the car as in my usual day-to-day life. With that in mind, I didn't want to have a big ugly plywood box that looks like a coffin riding around in the back of car all the time, so I went ahead and carpeted it with some indoor-outdoor carpet that I found at my home improvement store. It's very very reasonable and it sort of helps it look a little more like it's part of the car. It's a close match to the carpet that's in the car already. Even though the kitchen drawer is only about four feet deep, it comes to about here, I wanted a complete six-foot platform so that it was still possible to sleep in the car even though I'm now using a tent. That way if I roll into camp late and it's pouring down rain and I don't want to set up the tent, I do have a place to sleep inside the car all ready to go. It also gives Lucy a place to sleep even if I'm in the tent and she can sleep in the car, which she generally prefers. There's plenty of room for Lucy to sleep right here. Underneath the carpet I've got a layer of sort of dense foam just so there's some existing cushioning right there. I think if I was going to sleep on this I would put another pad on it. In a pinch you could sleep on this and it wouldn't be too too terrible. I've got some latches on here to keep the drawer from shifting while the car is moving. This old leg I salvaged from a tripod. It serves as a support and allows me to adjust the height according to whatever the ground is like. I designed the drawer around this Camp Chef stove that I picked up used for a very very good deal. I have storage for pans and dishes inside here and this can be a work surface. However, this surface is hinged and I've got another little piece that is hinged right here as a support to hold that so that I've got double the surface. I've got access to stuff through this little opening here, but for easier access I've also got this hinged with a hinge that just holds it open. Behind the stove I have space to store some assorted dry goods, spices, coconut oil, vinegar, things that I use regularly for cooking. The kitchen drawer and the cooler platform have a little space underneath them. Because the floor of the third gen Forester slopes from the folded down back seat to this point, it's necessary to elevate the back end of anything that you want to sit level in the car. To support the drawer box I'm just using the same couple of scraps of two by six that I was using under my old sleeping platform and there may be a little inadequate. I think I would probably brace those up with more supports at some point, but they're holding for now. I repurposed some of the parts of my old kitchen to maintain the panel in the back and use my old stove slide out to make a slide out for the new cooler. It's not strictly necessary to pull this out. I can still open it and get in and out of it just fine, but it's nice to have the ability to pull it out if I want to dig deep. These are just basic little L brackets. This cooler was a Christmas present and the brand is Snowball. You can find it on Amazon. This actually had better reviews on Amazon than the more well-known name brand of a similar size. I'm still using the Aquatainer seven gallon jug for my water and you may recall that I was using my air compressor to pressurize it in order to have water flow. Using the compressor to pressurize the water jug however was problematic in a number of ways. It was really noisy. That was a problem late at night or early in the morning. Also it just wouldn't hold pressure for very long, so I'd have to constantly repressurize it if I needed to get more water. So I've added a small 12 volt water pump to the side of the drawer box. The water basically goes into there and then runs back. This just clips onto the back edge of the drawer. This is nice because I can now pull out as much water as I need without worrying about running out of pressure in the pressurized tank. The pump has a built-in sensor switch that starts it running when the tap is opened and stops pumping when the tap is closed. For the moment I've got sort of a temporary wiring setup. It is hardwired to the battery and it goes down through the front of the car and out through the firewall. I haven't put in any kind of a kill switch or anything like that yet. I just am keeping this connector disconnected except for when I'm actually wanting to use it. This pump is a little noisier than I hoped it would be, although it's definitely exacerbated by the fact that it's mounted onto a hollow wooden box. There's probably some things I can do to mitigate the noise on that, but for now it hasn't been too problematic. Because the pull-out kitchen drawer is only four feet long, but the platform drawer box is actually almost six feet long, I wanted to take advantage of this space up here for a little bit more storage. But I needed to be careful not to compromise the structural integrity of the box and so that's why I've got a couple of small holes cut with these baskets that sort of work as drawers where I've stored some stuff that I frequently access when I'm camping. On this side of the box I've got another compartment cut in with another little basket with some gloves and some extra walkie-talkies, air down tools, stuff like that. At the front end of the box I made a little cubby that's accessible from the driver's seat. With the kitchen drawer box installed, one rear passenger seat is still accessible. When I'm by myself I can also run it like this and it's a little nicer to store things on this platform. I've got my AC converter and my various chargers for the chainsaw, the drone, my camera all hooked up back here. Eventually I want to mount all these on the panel, I just haven't got that far yet. For now they sit just fine in the space between that panel and the back seat. I added two tie-downs on each side of the box and have bungee cords permanently attached. This makes it quick and easy to strap down the gear that sits on top of the box while driving, such as my cot, my tent, my sleeping bag, as well as gear for the kids if either of them come along. I think that pretty much completes the walkthrough of the new kitchen build, so if you're just looking for ideas for your own build you can stop here. If you want to see the steps that I took to build this and hear me talk about some of the choices that I made with materials and sizes and stuff like that, keep watching. I'm going to show you some of the construction process. I watched a ton of videos on YouTube to get ideas, but this drawer build from Third Coast Craftsman was the one I referred to the most. His design is simple but solid and he's clearly a competent builder. I didn't emulate every detail of his design, but this video was tremendously helpful in guiding me through my own process. This is not a how-to video. I'm just showing you what I did for my build. I'm in no way qualified to instruct you and there are no doubt better ways to do everything I did here, but this is just what I came up with using the tools I have, reasonably priced materials, and my amateur skill level. Also, I didn't film every single step of the construction process. If I can clarify anything at all though, please don't hesitate to ask in the comments below. Like the guy in the video, I'm using quarter inch plywood for the bottom of the drawer. If it's good enough for him and all his heavy tools, it should be largely adequate for what I'm carrying. To make the sides of the drawer and the interior divisions, I'm using just basic cheap 1x8 pine. The guy in that video that I referred you to, he built his box first and then built the drawer, but I'm not quite as skilled a craftsman as him and I can just see me building the box and then building the drawer and realizing the drawer is not going to fit in the box. So I'm going to build the drawer first and make sure that I've got everything the way I want it and then I'm going to build the box around the drawer. Not having a table saw, I improvised to ensure I was making straight square cuts. Now these are 1x8s and obviously they're too tall to be my drawer sides. They'll need to be cut the long ways to be just a bit smaller. A 1x6 was going to be too short and so I had to go with a 1x8 which I'm going to cut down. I figured out that the drawer needs to be six inches tall to match the height of the stove so I'm going to make some marks along here. Sometimes she helps, sometimes she doesn't help. Now what could I clamp on here as a guide? Hmm... You know I love it. Make sure we're not going to run into those which we are. I suppose saw horses would be better but if you don't have saw horses you make do with what you got. All right quick check on that. Oh that's perfect. That's going to be perfect. One thing he pointed out in the video is that plywood has a smooth side and a less smooth side and so since the bottom of the drawer is going to be just sliding across the bottom surface you should put the smooth side down. I have to admit I wouldn't have thought of that. I'm not quite as confident as that guy in the video so what I'm going to do is I'm going to tack the corners down before I drill everything else out and I'm just going to use these coarse threaded drywall screws like the guy in the video. These are my go-to already. I've already been using these for years and years and years for anything I need to do around the house. They're just so easy to use. The nice thing about these is you can usually just drill them right in without pre-drilling any sort of a pilot hole. I'm going to go ahead and pre-drill these like he did just to make sure I'm precise and to avoid any risk of splitting the wood because I am going into a pretty skinny piece of wood here. I suppose best practice would be to use a fatter bit and just create a little opening in there for the head of the screw. You know what? I think I'm going to do that. I wanted to do it right. I'm going to do it right. All right I'm using a 5 16th inch bit that should make a nice little opening to countersink the head of the screw. Now I've only got a quarter inch of plywood here so I really want to just very gently take a tiny little bit of wood out of there. Just enough so that sits down just slightly below flush because we don't want those screws hanging up as the drawer goes in and out. Very nice. All right now that I've got those four corners tacked down I feel safer about running along and pre-drilling all of the holes at once and then going back and putting the screws in. All right starting to look like something. Obviously I'll have to make a cut out in some way for access to the stove controls. I'm not going to cross that bridge until I've got the drawer exactly laid out how it's going to be. I need to make the end pieces now. I did not want to cut those until I had this part together so I could make sure I got them exactly to the right length of however this came together when it was all cut. All right so I've cut the two end pieces and got them in place. I screwed them in from the sides into the side rails and then also from the bottom so now the box is basically entirely assembled minus the dividers inside. Looking pretty good and it's feeling pretty sturdy. I'm going to go ahead and sand down some of the imperfections. I used some 100 grit sandpaper to sort of round off the corners, take off any of the rough edges, knock down some of the marks from the circular saw and just sort of smooth over a few little fitting imperfections so everything's pretty smooth and uniform on the outside. Now I'm going to use some 220 to make the bottom even smoother and just sort of finish sand everything so it's all a little bit smoother. All right so the idea here is that the stove will be further back inside the drawer so that it's underneath the open roof hatch if I need to use it quickly without deploying the awning. So I made these dividers to hold the stove in place but as I need access to these side latches in order to attach the wind guard I had to cut notches in these boards. So I've secured the dividers from the sides of the drawer. I'm also going to put screws in through the bottom. All right I've got that internal structure all built to hold the stove right here and space to undo the latches. I was going to run a piece all the way across the back here to hold it in this way but I realized that it would become very difficult to remove the stove and so I'm just securing it in this corner and it's very snug fit. I think it's going to be just fine. Now I need to make a cutout on the front so I've got access to the the stove panel. I don't really have a super good way to do this. It's not my favorite thing to do but I think I'm just going to make a plunge cut to get in here and hope I don't screw it up too badly. There's screws in there. Duh. I did not think about that. Got one there and one there. I'll just back them out and put shorter ones in their place. All right here's how that's looking with that cutout now. No problem to get the propane hose on there. This cutout that I made in order to access the panel of the stove, ultimately I wish I hadn't done it this way. This weakens the drawer significantly. I should have left a strip of wood across here and just made openings for the knobs and for the gas hose. You can see it when the drawer pulls out. It really flexes right along this area right here. I may end up installing a metal strap or something across here to give this a little bit more rigidity. So this piece I used for the work surface is salvaged from my old pullout table. I figured well it's already got like stains and whatever on it and it's going to get more so might as well just use that. I found this hinge in the cabinetry section of my home improvement store. It's kind of bulky but using just one seems to be working fine for this small piece of wood. To make the sides of the box I'm going to use some 1x8 at its full height. The guy in the video that I'm basing this off of used 2x material instead of 1x material but he was building drawers for the back of his truck. He was going to be able to put who knows what up on top. Since this is a much lighter duty application it occurred to me that I could probably get away with using 1x instead of 2x and shed a lot of weight from the total build here. I'm using 3 8 inch plywood for the bottom of the box but 3 1⁄4 inch plywood for the top since Lucy or I may sleep on it. Since I already owned some 3 1⁄4 inch plywood which was my old sleeping platform that's going to get dismantled and I'm going to reuse that wood. That just makes the most economic sense. Okay for the moment I've just pinned down the four corners. Before I attach all of the screws all down the length I'm just going to make sure that drawer looks like it's gonna in there properly. Beautiful. Again here I made sure I put the smoothest side of the plywood under there where the drawer will be sliding across. So far I've just been eyeballing where to put these screws in but on this side since I can't see I'm gonna draw a line. Okay so here's the drawer section and at the far end up towards the front of the car I'm starting to divide this into some storage space. I made a little cubby here to access from the driver's seat for a little extra space because there's not much in the front of the car and I still need to figure out how I'm going to use this space. I thought about making this section of the bed platform hinged so I could just lift it up in one way or another but if I've got gear up on top of this that's just going to be a hassle. So I don't want to have to lift this in order to access this. I've finished cutting in the storage cubbies and I've attached my three-quarter inch plywood on top to enclose the box and create the platform. Because I want to at least leave the box in the car all of the time I want to cover it with some upholstery to make it sort of look more integrated in the back of the car. I found this indoor outdoor carpet at my home improvement store that looks very much like the carpeting inside my car and it was about $15 to get a big enough piece to cover top and side of the box. This is some kind of camping foam that I had. I would put it on top of my sleeping platform before for just a little extra cushioning. What I'm going to do is attach it to the box and put the carpet over the top of it so the box automatically has a certain amount of cushioning built in. I've been a homeowner for a lot of years and I've done most of my own remodeling work when it's been necessary and this inexpensive nail gun set including a compressor and an assortment of nailers including an upholstery stapler has come in really really handy over the years. You could probably rent one of these if you don't have a use for one on a regular basis. It wasn't even very much money and it's been a fantastic investment over the years. I'll be the first to admit I don't really know anything about upholstery techniques and what I may be doing right or wrong here but I think for what this project is it's going to be fine. It's not high-end furniture. All right that was the easy bit. That was pretty simple. Getting this on there is I think what's going to be the trickiest part of this whole project for me. I'm not very good with things that are fabric and foldy and floppy. So the idea here is that this will just come from underneath go over the top and then down this side of the box where it's exposed in the car. This side is basically hidden so it doesn't matter. I already see a mistake that I made though. I jumped the gun trying to get my water system installed and it's now actually blocking my access to install the carpeting. So that's something I didn't think all the way through. I'm gonna have to take this back off. I don't trust my ability to get that lined up and have everything come out okay but I've got just enough excess material that I'm gonna just overlap everything a little bit and then trim it to fit once it's all attached. Remember I don't know what the heck I'm doing here so this isn't necessarily the right example. I'm just showing you what I did. All right I've got this all firmly attached down around the sides and underneath the bottom and I'm just gonna cut this extra little flap off. Maybe I'll just tack that down in a few more places so it's tidy. All attached and the little cubbies cut out and there's the front end of it. So there's the upholstered box sort of in daily driver mode. The idea is to leave the box in here so I don't have to take my kitchen in and out but still having some cargo space, cargo space, and still having a third seat here. Oh yeah extra special armrest for whoever sits here. Let's roll. This platform is deliberately a little shorter than my old one so that the passenger seat can stay in a normal position. It's plenty long for Lucy. It's a little short for me if I had to use it but if the weather was bad enough that I needed to use it I think I would make do. I tend to sleep on my side anyway. I was just going to have the cooler sit there on the floor but I realized that the pullout that I had for my stove by just simply reconfiguring the way it's attached to that rear panel I could make a slide out for the cooler and also gain a little bit of storage underneath. I just need to come up with a way to secure the cooler on there so I can just give it a pull with the handle and have it slide on out. These basic L brackets with some self-adhesive furniture pad affixed work perfectly to keep the cooler in place. I only managed to get one camping trip in with the complete setup before Oregon went on lockdown but everything worked as expected and I'm quite satisfied with how this turned out. I'm looking forward to getting out on longer overland treks this year and putting this all to use. I hope some of what I've shown you might be useful in some way. Comment below if I can clarify anything at all and as always thank you for watching. 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