About to embark on a DIY micro-camper conversion to occupy a bit of time before we’re allowed to take it anywhere.

Got my plan worked out, just a bit stuck on bed support beams.

Needs to sleep either one or two people for a night or two here and there and pack away when not in use. Plan is to have a wheels-off bike garage (for two frames) on the floor with bed above. Bed base made of wooden slats joined by webbing for easy folding up. Aiming to keep support beams as space-saving as possible.

Bed width 1.2m, length 2m. Raised above bike garage by 84l sturdy plastic boxes at the head end, sitting on a simple piece of studwork timber near the foot end. Need three support beams for the length of the bed (one at each side, one up the middle).

Ideally, I think I’d have telescopic square section steel support beams the slats could sit on, that would pack away neatly and be small in section. Cannot find anything like this, could be I just don’t know what to search for!

Am I making this overly difficult by thinking of metal support beams? Timber would be simpler for sure, but I do want to be able to pack it away easily.

Someone here must have done exactly this – any STWisdom gratefully received!

Telescoping beams sounds a bit niche. Could you put an intermediate support in middle of the 2m length and use either timber hinged in the middle (hinge supported on middle support) or same thing with either steel box or aluminium extrusion with joint in the middle?

For an alternative view Google “pipe cot berth” used on racing yachts.
Fold right away.

https://www.metals4u.co.uk/materials/mild-steel/mild-steel-box-section
You could make telescopic sliders out of these, maybe a couple of holes, put pegs through to keep them in/out as required?

For an alternative view Google “pipe cot berth” used on racing yachts.
Fold right away.

I’d thought about that before except I didn’t know it was a thing apart from stretchers!

Brilliant!

I would just go with timber and use a hinge down the middle.

Can you use the storage boxes? That’s what we do, part of the bed is fixed with storage boxes underneath. At night we pull the storage boxes out, place a wooden block on top to raise the height and fold a flap over from the fixed section. Works well for us but may not suit your set up.

The ‘standard’ approach is to use IKEA extendable bed supports for elevated beds. They telescope so might be ok?

https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/skorva-midbeam-galvanised-90124534/

Now why didn’t I think of Ikea? That looks just the ticket.