I was thinking more along the lines of a built-in contraption, but the concept is along the lines we had in mind. The down sides for your suggestion are where do you store it when not in use and the desk surface is only 20 inches deep, not much room for many crafting projects or serious office type activities. The deepest fold out desk design we have seen is 24 inches but the Murphy bed concept I saw had a desk surface that was 30"x48" more than adequate for placing a sewing machine or doing other similar projects.  So there is hope that something will fill the bill.

Brian - interesting concept. Question for you, is this something you want for just occasional use or every day?

While we never considered the bed area to be convertible into a desk, we did seriously consider a foldable work space inside what used to be the laundry closet. We eventually nixed that idea for a couple of reasons: 1 - if the table was folded out, accessing the bedroom would be impossible, accessing the bathroom would be difficult. 2- because we both still work full time, the thought of having to put everything away each night was not appealing. Now, not everyone works the way we do, I'm pretty good at putting my work stuff away each evening or at least having one small stack left on my desk, but my laptop is almost always left out. Dale frequently has work projects that are a bit more time consuming to put away, more tools, etc. and has found it more convenient to have a work bench with a tray that slides in where he can leave all the work in process, not to mention his stack of supplies, etc.

For occasional use, I think it would be a great idea, I can see using it for my scrapbooking. Today we use a folding 4x2 table for the occasional projects that can be set up in the bedroom or outside. It's the same table we use for outdoor dining when we don't have a picnic table, so it gets a lot of use and is easy to store away when not used.

Ruth, that's an interesting thought. I've been kicking around some designs as concept and we've seen some IKEA stuff that may work. Fortunately, we have lots of time to work out the details.  We don't have Josie curiousity issues, so I doubt we'll have to worry about her using such things as chew toys. She knows which are hers. Whew!!!

I agree. The Zoom Room bed in stock form is definitely taller than the available space in almost every 5er's front bedroom, especially if using it in a slide.... However, the stock unit is 24 inches deep. using the same basic idea but make bed retract in to about 18 inches in front of the unit and then flipping down a desk to rest on the bed's footboard for support would reduce vertical requirement by 18 inches, so now it might actually work.  If the unit is in a slide, the height issue becomes more of a problem. My biggest concern still remains the quality of the mattress that will work in the design.

I haven't paid too much attention to the space available inside the front bedroom slides from top to bottom and I suspect that will be the critical dimension to work with.  If it's at least tall enough to tip a king mattress (but more likely a queen) on it's side then I can see more options for desks or tables mounted under it, that fold down from the bed after it has been tipped on its side. It's definitely a solvable engineering problem, and I think many people would be interested in it as an new RV option or a retrofit.

Diana and Jim wrote:

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If the back of the unit attached to the face of the slide, it might work. Our Sleep Number mattress is really flexible, and I think it could work in this situation....although a 90 degree flex every day might destroy the foam sides.

Jim

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 In addition to the foam sides surrounding the air bladders, there would also be an issue because of the air pump and the hoses from it to the head of the bed.  One would also have to deal the power cord for the pump.

There's no way this would work for us because I like my bed firm.....like a setting of 100 firm.

Terry

I used to like having a desk to do office type "work" at home.  Back then I had a tower CPU etc and paper files and so forth. As the times have gone digital so has the need for all that space shrunk to the point where can do just about all I need on a laptop sitting on the sofa. Cindi likes having a desk more than I, but then she is more the professional than I am. Plus she does crafting projects than require space to do. Having dedicated space for this helps. So a permanent desk is also under consideration. This thinking exercise is my attempt to work outside the typical box, something I enjoy doing.  My love of designing and building things to fill a need has been a rewarding activity. I just gotta know how things work so disection and construction of a better way is fun... to me. Cindi has mentioned her concern that doing her crafting in the living room space would interfere with my watching TV (when I'm actually doing that) and I have reassured her that we'll find a workable solution. Cindi says I should channel that engineering talent into being an RV tech when we retire... getting a formal certification seems like too much "work" to me. So I'll continue to look at the ways things are and find better ways to use what is there or redesign it to fit the need the need.

Like you, I had envisoned ripping out a couch and replacing it with built in desk for Cindi. The front living room 5ers out there have more square footage for doing that without crowding the other activities that typically go on there and we were initially drawn to them, but lack of basement storage concerned us. Now some of the those offer storage under the rear bedroom so that problem has been mostly eliminated. Cindi wanted more food prep and counter space plus pantry storage space than the kitchens in the front living models had so we are looking at ways around that issue. Since the kitchen is her "baby" (I personally place priority on function over space), what Cindi wants in this area, Cindi will likely get. Like you, I know Cindi does have some issues with small spaces but they are not insurmountable.

But I digress. with rear bedroom in the 5er, there should be more room ther for a full blown murphy bed type arrangement. I'll need to get some dimensions next time we look at a couple of them.

Terry, we like the sewing center idea and it is also under consideration.  We have had many conversations about space and the ways we can configure it for our particular situation.  Even this morning we talked about it in the framework of being "banished" to the bedroom while a sewing project was going on.... My reply, "You know there is a pause button on the DVR or thankfully TV shows have sponsors so I can use the facilities or fridge surf during the commercials." We had a good laugh.