Also check out our video about building our table.

Having no experience with camping in a van we design and built our removable table to be earthquake proof. It would turn out to be the heaviest table in van conversion history. It's a nuisance to install, remove and store. But it is a steady surface to eat and work on, so it still kinda does what it's designed to do.

We built our interior as an open structure of battens. We filled in the open spaces with plywoods sheets. We are building our table the same way.

I used heavy battens to build the frame. We assembled the frame using wood glue, screws, glue clamps and 90 degree corner clamps.

On the bottom of the table we made a hole to put a table leg in. You can see the absurd amount of battens we used to build this frame. Looking back it's a bit over the top.

We made the table top of a 12mm sheet of plywood. This tabletop will be recessed and aligned within the frame.

Of course I messed up the measurements of the tabletop, resulting in a gap on one side of the table. We decided to keep is and fill it in with wood putty.

As a design feature we are going to paint all the interior battens light blue. The plywood sheets we are going to treat with regular light wood-stain, so you can still see the wood grain to retain the natural feel of the wood.

We secured the tabletop to the frame using woodglue and screws we put in from the back.

We decided to keep the way we mount the table pretty simple but strong. We used lift-off hinges you normally use to mount a door. These are specifically made to quickly and easily remove a door or in our case the table without having to unscrew and remove the hinges.

The top parts of the lift-off hinges we screwed into the back of the table, after drilling the holes in exactly right places.

This took some complex measuring, because the bottom parts of the hinges we had secure to the (blue) battens of the dividing wall between the living area and the garage. Those are much stronger than the plywood sheets. And it looks better.

Although this might very well be the heaviest table in van life history, we are happy with it. Even if it's pain to install, remove and store, but once it's in place it stays put.

Also check out our video about building our table.

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