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So my partner and I enjoy camping, its great exploring and finding new spots etc. But due to the large number of kids we have somehow acquired, there seems to be a not small mountain of shit that needs to be associated with taking them away anywhere. Gone are the days of just chucking the swag in the back of the car and splitting 10mins after getting the idea to go somewhere. These days its more like "lets spend the next 24-48hours stripping the house and packing the car to the roof till there's literally breathing space only", and its been seen for all passengers to have bags or cookers or boxes of shit on the knees when driving anywhere. And there's also the required clean up afterwards, including storing tents and chilly bins and crap under the house where's its not quite tall enough to stand up. It usually takes me a good 10 steps to straighten my spine out enough to stand upright after crawling out of said under house void. Last year we semi remedied the situation by stealing the in-laws trailer. Its a pretty well built generic box trailer that we've been using while landscaping etc So for summer 20/21 we loaded it up to the gunnels with gear, threw a tarp and cargo net over, and hoped that nothing fell out. Its worked reasonably well but we still managed to have too much shit and the car was still pretty full. It was super handy though, and at one point we had to change camp sites so instead of taking the tent down we threw it on the back and towed to the new site much to the amusement of other campers. Anyway, late last year I decided that our setup was still dumb and that I'd close the trailer in and make it actually work. The whole idea is that it all needed to be removable so the sides etc can come back off and the it can be reverted to tip dump duties etc. Luckily the trailer has the vertical square tubing in the corners that you can see in the top photo so I figured I could make sides that slot into those, then make the ends and top slot into the sides. Here's the loose drawing: Then got to work: Its a bit hard to tell from the photos but the ends have welded on plates with key ways so they slot onto fixings in the longer sides and tighten up. Basically loosen the bolts and then lift the end up and it will pull out for flat packing. The roof has 32x32mm SHS down inside the 40x40mm SHS corner uprights so it can be removed too. I picked up some hinges, door seal, and lockable latches from UES and started to make doors and clad the thing. I was fortunate to be given a couple of fucking huge solar panels for free so slammed one on the top to run the electrics. And this is pretty much what it ended up like. I also got a couple of lockable drawer slides and made up a support frame that runs across the trailer and supports 2x 12v fridge/freezers Ive got. One of them is a very old Waeco which we use as a freezer so put that at the back and the newer unit on the front as a fridge. I bought a solar charge controller from Jaycar, and mounted up a switch board, inverter, washdown pump and large AGM battery that I'd be given, along with some LED lights inside. End result looks like this: So this year we had all our shit thrown into the trailer which took half the time, and hardly anything in the car. It has been a total game changer and now we leave all the gear in it ready to go for next time. We've been a few places so far and looking forward to using it as often as possible. Its pretty much glamping now. Next step is to make a enclosure that fits on the draw bar that holds a couple of 25litre water tanks and houses the water pump rather than pulling it out when we need it, and make a triangle shaped board that a collapsible sink can go it. I'm also going to put a flood light on the front over the sink and possibly look at a retractable awning rather than taking the gazebo. #glamping