Ingenious Storage Ideas You Need To See | We Built a Custom Foot Stool For Our Airstream

Hi, welcome back to Stuff for Travels. I'm Randy and I'm Diane and in this video we thought maybe we were done doing the modifications to the inside of the Airstream, but we're not. We have a couple more to share with you. We've got some great storage ideas and we want to highlight the footstool that we built for the Airstream when we did the upholstery work. So stay tuned and we're going to show you that stuff next. We recently purchased these steel bags that were sold through Airstream Supply and they're designed to fit the under the couch and bed storage areas of our Airstream. And we thought they're such a great design that we wanted to share them with you in case you're thinking about getting some for your Airstream. But also you can also just buy these from steel and use them in whatever type of RV you have. So you don't have to get the Airstream branded ones. Steel does sell bags of different sizes. And so if you measured out your compartment or whatever, you could figure out what fits in there. This happens to be the under the couch storage compartment. And this will replace what's underneath there now, which is basically your under bed bin. And I think we can put a lot more in this than that bin. And we're going to pull that bin out next and show you the differences between the two okay so this is one of the three bins we have underneath this couch and as you can see we actually end up storing some things on top of it because there's just not a lot of room but we also this one happens to have a bunch of shoes and such in it a few other items so what we're going to do is we're going to transfer these items into this bin and let's just see how much room we have left also these bins do not come with your Airstream which ones these these did oh these did yeah oh i didn't think they did yeah they came they were they were underneath there oh okay well i guess they were i noticed these seem to be mostly your shoes why is that i don't know why is it i don't know but that's fine could you wear most of your shoes and some whatever okay so we're just set this aside and now we share this new this bin and as you can see a lot of extra room in there so some of the stuff that we were storing on top could actually find a home inside we wanted to this and then there was whatever this is a wine bottle holder we have a lot of wine bottle holders we don't drink that much we don't drink a lot of wine i know but anyway so again so we're not crammed in this right but we've got everything in here a little bit more organized and we could still probably put some more in here i think if we really thought about what we wanted to put in here right we could do have a little more room maybe a couple more backpacks or yeah we have another backpack that's sitting on top of the other bin that's down there so that easily could go on top of here i really think when we get done we will have additional storage space in this area now i only bought two of these bins two of these bags two of these bags even though we have three bins because we use one of the bins for food storage kind of like a pantry right and i thought i didn't know if i really wanted to put that in here um in case something opened up or whatever you know right i didn't want to have spaghetti sauce or some other type of liquid that would stain the cloth on these bags right right but i think this is a great solution for especially for clothing and items that you know you just need to store and make better use of that space what i really like about these is they're square you know if you have a under under the couch bin or under the bed bin like we had they taper in the sides go up on an angle and usually that the they flip out a little bit because of the lid and this doesn't have any of that so this obviously will you know take better use of that space down there and i think as you really start to pack one of these it will really do a great job wear very well they're a tough rough material or a very sturdy and uh tough material yeah unlike the plastic that could break or um you know just chip away these are very strong and i think they're a lot more durable than the plastic bins right i don't know if you've ever heard of steel canvas and basket corporation they're out of massachusetts they've been around for over 100 years if you've ever been to some place where they have like an industrial laundry or you know like a hospital you'll see these containers on wheels rolling around picking up sheets and towels and such that's what really their bread and butter business but Airstream connected with them to make these bags and you can see the bottom of them are all lined with vinyl so they don't help the wear um and they're gray to match the Airstream yeah yep they are Airstream branded on them um they're really a quality item that will probably last as long as the Airstream and and they're also like the Airstream they're kind of iconic you know this type of you know when you look at one of these you kind of if you've seen this type of material this type of bag before you know it kind of registers that it's you know it's been around for quite a while. And the cost is pretty reasonable but it depends on the size of the basket that you do buy. Yeah now Airstream has these size you can order them by the different models so if you have like we have a 28 foot Flying Cloud this is the bag that fits under the lounge on a Flying Cloud 28 foot Flying Cloud they do sell them in sets so there's three containers underneath the couch in here you can order a set of three but what i did is i found the dimensions on the website for each of them and then I found out where they sold them individually and I only ordered two because I didn't want to replace all three. I've also ordered ones to replace the under the bed storage and that's a little bit bigger storage and that one I only ordered two and I'm we're kind of going to show you the the differences between those next. This is what Airstream gives you for under the bed storage and they've been using this bin for 50 years probably more you know my parents Airstream which was from the 70s had these in it the exact same ones and they're fine they're lightweight they're really what we always liked about these is you can pick them up carry them in the house pack them in the house carry everything out you know you don't have to mess around with having something to carry things in which is really nice which we should be able to do with the new containers just as well but they're they're limited because they don't fill the whole storage area and they do wear they do wear towel that yeah and if you're like us if you happen to put them near a heat register they do warp and we have broken one yes um they do repair well with duct tape though but anyways you know that's again they're not using the space available very well. So this is the bag that will go in that area. And as you can see, bring that one back and we'll hold it up just on top of it. You can see in comparison, much larger. It's probably another couple inches taller. It's got more sides out to the side because it's squared. This literally fits that area exactly. And if you look at this and you think, wow, what can I put in this? Well, I'll show you the one I've already packed. I have five pair of slacks, eight shorts, eight long sleeve t-shirts in this section, a swimsuit, and a couple other things in there. And it is, it is full, but they were just giving you an idea what you can store in one of these things. And I'll show you that bin in a minute. So here's my, not even fully packed, but packed bag and as you can see here all the stuff I've got in this and I think just for the fun of it I'm going to take it all out and put it in that bin and we'll see what it looks like in comparison okay so slide this over I'm going to put this right here I think I can pull all these out one handful and as you can see it's overflowing yeah so really you could only fit maybe four shirts yeah like randy said probably half of what he's got into the basket there yeah now these do have their place i like them for stuff that we get out on a daily basis socks underwear type that type of stuff so i'm we're going to keep two of these and we're going to put two of these in the back for this more bulk storage that we would have for things that we are not going to get out as often it would be slacks and shorts and things like that swimsuits or whatever and we will kind of pack things that way so we're each going to have one of these and one of these for our storage area but i think it's going to increase what we can carry significantly which means i can take more shirts and she's been planning on that already as part of our reupholstering job we did have a footstool that we used as storage but it was kind of getting dilapidated worn out and so forth so what Randy decided to do was to make another one from the extra material that we had so this is the design he came up with I have to say putting this band around it in the contrasting color was my idea but one thing he wanted to do so it really would be a footstool was to make it the same height as our couch and it works out very nicely and it also is can be used for storage as soon as I can lift the top up just like this and then there's a big storage area that still needs to be finished off so Randy thinks he's going to do that as part of this video but it turned out really nicely it was really he followed you know this this the dimensions of the other one and if I move my leg I can put the top on and it's much easier than it looks so yeah it turned out very nicely and it's a good feature to have in your restroom. Welcome to the Zephyr Travels Secret Bunker Workshop and I want to show you some of the unique features of the footstool that I built compared to this is a standard one. This was bought at Target some time ago. Biggest thing you notice is the difference in the height. This is four inches taller. When you put one of these in there, you really don't end up using it that much because the height difference really affects your comfort. So I wanted to build one that was the same height. I happened to have a piece of foam that was four inches thick. It was a piece of foam from when we re-foamed our existing previous upholstery. So I use a piece of that foam here. Now this whole thing is put together without any sewing. So you can see here my edges are folded and I use two-sided tape to hold them together. And then everything is stapled along the bottom and then this bottom piece is put in here. You can see in here maybe a little bit better how this is all just stapled around. So this footstool is built out of half inch plywood. It's all glued and brad nailed together. There's a base and then below that there's actually a riser. So this section here is about the same height as this, maybe a little bit shorter. I added a two inch riser on the bottom of the footstool because this went in line with how the benches for the dinette were built. They had a little bit of a riser. Now that was finished in a veneer, but this I ended up wrapping it in the material. this is Diane's suggestion to wrap a border around the top to give it a little bit more of a decorative look and you can see here I seamed it again not sewn this is all done with two-sided tape everything is padded I use batting on the whole thing to give it some you know comfort so let's show you how I'm going to cover the inside and that will give you an idea a little bit more of how I put this together so this is how we're going to upholster the inside I have this material here that I've used I use this on the back sides of the benches for the dinette I've cut it to size I have the nice straight edge here that was from the factory and we use that to start at the top now may make it a little bit difficult to see because I'm using some of the same material on my workbench just to keep everything clean because it does have a tacky side I have this cardboard material that's a half inch wide I'm going to staple through this, through the material here, and into the plywood. This will give me a nice finished edge. I'm going to start putting a staple in here. I'm using short staples because I want to make sure that they don't go through the material. And I'm going to put this about an inch from the top. Then it's just a matter of adding a series of staples and repeating this for each side. I'm going to just take you guys a little closer so you can see. See, I'm stapling through the cardboard and what will happen is this will fold in and that will leave a nice sharp edge for the material it keeps it looking very finished okay now we're just going to fold the material inside and once i've got it nicely folded on us on the side i'm going to put a few staples at the bottom and then work my way around to get all the sides done there now for the bottom i have another piece of plywood that i will cover and we'll slide that in it is nice to be a very tight fit you see once it's in there it gives it a very nice finished look that's how we upholstered this basically use the same principles on doing everything something Randy did a while back which makes it a lot more convenient to get under the sofa is that he divided the what was the big door in half so he just you know cut it in half and that makes it a lot more convenient a lot easier you're not you know fumbling around to open the big door and you don't have to get into the whole thing if you don't need to. Yeah I don't know why Airstream didn't do this. It does make it much more convenient. This is really something that if only if you had a 28 foot flying cloud or a 30 foot flying cloud that you this would be applicable to. But if you happen to have one of those this is a great update and it probably would only take you 20 minutes on a table saw to cut these in half. Right. And then you add one more hinge everything else is there. So now we're going to see what we're going to pack both these bags up and see how much extra space we've got. So I'm going to take, this is our second bin, and I want to transfer what's in here into here. This is mostly our medical supplies. While Diane was in the hospital, we stole all their medical, no, they gave us all this. They were given to us. Yes. So we got here an emergency medical kit for our dogs we weren't given that no we didn't get that from the hospital but no we had a wonderful nurse that on the day i was being discharged he gave us all these medical supplies because really if something's in the room they pretty much just throw it away as part of the you know cleaning out the room the protocol that they go through when someone leaves yeah this is actually pretty cool i mean i emptied everything out of here set a couple things aside i could toss them in here just for demonstration purposes but we've used almost just a little bit over half of that container and that container was fairly full yeah and we have space in here for other stuff we've got we're a little bit more organized on the medical supplies i mean and not i don't want to say organized organized but they're in one area and we've got our dog supplies here i think we could put more dog stuff in here if we wanted to have their stuff yeah did we kind of end up underneath there yeah we could move some of that here move this someplace this bag can sit on top of the other one this one this one's a water bag water bottle that we use for when we walk the dogs if we want to hike so that can stay in here with some of this stuff there's some other hike items the bear spray and other things but yeah i think this is cool we we saved room yeah we got a lot of room both bins are underneath here and they have a nice handle pull them out get at what you need slide it back in same thing with this one much better organized they do slide a little bit better when they're full but still much better i like this well so what do you think of these updates i like them yeah i think they're they're a nice addition to the airstream um you know a little little bit more updated in addition to our all our upholstering you know some change change is always good and adding something different is i like it yeah and we're not affiliated at all with airstream supply we we bought these bins out of our money because we thought it would help improve how we travel and what we carry so they are they're probably pricey compared to a plastic been. They are definitely more pricey. But I think they're very well good. Very well good. I think they're very good quality and they should last a long time. They should, yes. And I'm not sure, can you wash them? I think you can. Okay. I think you can. I'll have to look, but I think they are cleanable. Okay. That's another nice feature. If you can, you know, wash them, either hand wash them or throw them in the washer, we'll have to check it out and maybe we'll update you in a future video what we find out right and so we'll put links in the description for for both airstream supply if you're looking to get it from there or from steel uh bag and container corporation and if you're looking for these you know i we would recommend them we have no you know like affiliate program or anything like that so we can't save you any money or get you any type of discount unfortunately hopefully someday airstream supply if you're watching this video reach out talk to us we're here we like your stuff we spend a fortune there at least this summer we did yeah this summer we spent quite a bit yeah so check it out and i guess until the next time what should they do see everybody down there oh sorry if you like this video please give it a big thumbs up and if you haven't subscribed to our channel already we would appreciate it you subscribing to zephyr travels and remember to hit that like button it really helps us out so until next time leave a comment down below and we will see you down the road. Take care everybody. Bye.