"Button Down the Hatches!" Part II

Coming to you from a very rainy Denmark, we're back with Part II of our tour of our not-so-wee-little-motorhome.  And next up is the bathroom: the "wet bath" with a twist (which includes twisting the body slightly in order to gain entry):

The wet bath: as you can see, the toilet, the sink, the shower and the shower drain all share the same cozy space...along with some cupboards and some shelves that are visible in this photo.

Now this is a space-saving feature to be sure, but one that raises some legitimate questions such as "where the heck do I put my towel?" since everything not tucked away in cupboards or drawers during a shower will get wet.

Here's where the twist comes in ("twist" meaning "surprise" in this case).  I'm sure other RV manufacturers have come up with various solutions to the wet bath dilemma, but the manufacturer of our camper van (Defflepps in Germany) has devised what we feel is a rather ingenious one:  a folding shower INSIDE the bath.

Here's how it works:

First, unfold the REAR panel until its magnetic catch secures it in place (in front of the toilet and the cupboards around the toilet, thereby blocking the water spray from reaching anything in that area):

You can just see the "ghost" of the toilet behind the shower panel.

Next, unfold the FRONT panel until its magnetic catch secures it in place (behind the sink, its cupboard and the sink's counter):

You now have a shower booth that will hold you and the shower, while all surfaces that you would prefer to stay dry actually do:

"Mr. Bates, is that you?"

Clever, convenient and yes, cozy.  But whereas we have become accustomed to showering in our little wet bath "cage," there is what we consider a MAJOR design flaw in the construction of the shower: there is no - I repeat NO - shut-off valve right at the shower head. 

And as you can see in the following picture, the handle to turn on the shower is situated exactly right (or wrong) and can be way too easily bumped (thereby turning the shower on) while one is sitting down and...um...conducting one's business.  Or it is way too easily snagged by a short sleeve on a shirt.  Or it is just simply in the way when one is drying one's self off after a shower (this being the least offensive of the various scenarios since one is already somewhat damp…but it is still terribly annoying):

We have tried various methods to prevent this accidental bumping, but we've also wanted to leave the handle still  somewhat easily accessible.  So duct-taping the whole blasted thing was out of the question.  We even positioned and secured the shower head to the floor so that when we did accidentally bump the on/off lever, the resulting water would simply head down the drain.  But instead, the hose would escape its bonds and skitter across the bathroom floor like a wild snake, resulting in wet shoes.

And since this RV is a rental, Art was not allowed to do what he wanted to do (which was to install the much needed on/off switch on the shower head, like we have in our RV at home).  So we decided we just had to learn to live with the darn thing.  We do have a towel permanently draped over the shower head to minimize any "water damage" during accidental bumps, and during the course of our now almost six weeks in the rental motorhome, we have been able to train ourselves to keep a wary eye on the handle.  But it’s really challenging in the middle of the night when one sleepily staggers into the bathroom to remember to keep one's distance from the stupid thing. 

But in spite of the shower wand, there's nothing like having your own shower in your rig.  Right, Gene and Sally?  ;-D

Finally, we conclude our tour by sharing with you some of the other features of our little European home-away-from-home that we have become so fond of.  No doubt these features are available on some American-made RVs as well (we hope so), but we have not had the opportunity to see them.

The very easy to clean looks-like-wood floors

The built-in fan shades for the front, driver and passenger windows...see the following sequence of photos

 

Now the sequence for the front window...

And we really like the clever and easy to use pull-down or built-in screens and opaque shades that are on all the windows, the sun roof and the vents (except for the bathroom vent):

Start with a window...

...then pull down the built-in screen.

For privacy, pull down the built-in opaque shade.

Here's the open sun roof.

You can deploy the built-in screen over the open sun roof...

...or pull out the built-in opaque shade.

Here's the coach door, closed.  Notice all those bins and shelves...RV heaven!  But...

...here's the door open with the built-in screen partially deployed.  Hey!  Where are all my bins and shelves?  Outside?  Okay, that's...um...interesting.  But useful, too, I guess...depending upon what you put in those bins and shelves.

Now the screen door is fully deployed.

And finally, the reason for the subtitle of these tour posts: all the drawers and about half the cupboards have a press-in button that basically locks the drawer or cupboard in place during transit.  We have loved this "button down the hatches" approach:

One more final note (the final final one): as happy as we have been with the camper van, we have been disappointed with how poorly equipped it was by the rental company with the stuff one needs to live in an RV. For example, we had to buy a butane lighter to light the three-burner stove!  Wouldn't you think that might be included?  Also, whereas two bags of deodorant tablets for the black tank were included, we had to buy our own toilet paper.  Couldn’t they at least have given us a starter roll?  And in an earlier post, I mentioned that we had to stop at an IKEA to buy, among other things, a broom, a good kitchen knife, and some dish drying towels.  We've since added a thermal coffee carafe, a couple of coffee mugs, a cheese grater/slicer, a knife sharpener and a decent sauté pan.  If we’d only been renting the rig for a week or two, or if we had planned to eat out more, we would’ve tried to get by with what the rental company provided.  But six weeks in a European camper van is simply too long to go without a decent knife or sauté pan!

But even though we’ve been disappointed with the rental company, we really have been very, very happy with the RV itself (despite the shower wand from hell).  And when it comes time to replace our beloved Lazy Daze (and that day will come, but not for some time yet), I am hoping that we'll be able to find something similar to this in the states.  Maybe Lazy Daze will get back to building a small rig with a permanent bed?  One can always hope!


P.S.  To our friend Jon who had some questions about what he called “guy” stuff: the camper van is made by a German company called Dethleffs on a Fiat chassis.  It has a manual transmission and Art has not yet calculated the MPG (or the KPL…kilometers per liter!).  And I forgot to mention that it came with a wonderful back-up camera.  At first we didn’t think we would really need to use it, but at the time, we weren’t thinking about how handy it would be on all those narrow streets in Europe!

If anyone has any questions about our "not-so-wee-little-motorhome" please send them along.