Creating more space in the R-178

We purchased our 2016 R-178 last spring and just love it.  The floor plan works perfect and there’s plenty of room for us and friends or grand kids.  A number of members of the forum have commented that interior storage space in the 178 is at a premium.  That is an absolute fact.  Over the past year we’ve poured through this forum and copied numerous mods from other’s experience in order to use the space as efficiently as possible.

Well, on our last trip my wife commented on how little usable space there actually is with the entertainment center.  I think crappy was the word she used.  You know, that skinny cabinet that takes up space but only provides about 3 1/2” of usable depth.  Well, looking at it I realized that on the 178 the entertainment center attaches to an outside wall of over 9” wide.  Hey, that’s space that’s going to waste.

So, the final mod I made before buttoning up the pod for the winter was a new, deeper, entertainment center.

So here it is with a larger top I made.  What the heck, I got gutsy, took a chance and removed the original cabinet to see how it was made.  I knew that could always put it back.  The removal was pretty straight forward though you have to search carefully for all of the screws holding it in place.  The hardest part during removal was twisting the electrical panel out of the cabinet opening.

I sketched up some plans and used clear pine and pocket screws for the face frames of the new cabinet.  Since I couldn’t find 1/8” plywood locally I opted for ¼” birch plywood for the panels and shelving.

 The actual construction was pretty straightforward.  I just copied the original cabinet’s dimensions and construction methods.  The only changes made were to accommodate the deeper shelves and adjusting some dimensions to for the thicker plywood.

Here’s a couple of pictures of dry fitting the new cabinet in place to make sure everything fits together properly and to check the size and shape.  I decided early during the planning to make the new cabinet in two pieces.  The lower section holding the electrical panel is a direct copy of the original.  Because of the rats nest of wires and cables inside there wasn’t any way to gain any additional usable space by making it deeper.  Also, removing the panel for electrical work from a deeper cabinet was going to be difficult at best so it just made sense to keep it the same.

The new shelving section is now about 8” deep and will screw onto the base and into the walls.

The whole cabinet was screwed together with pocket screws.  This made it easy to disassemble the individual pieces for sanding, staining and finishing.  I had a stain custom mixed at Sherwim-Williams to match the faux woodwork.  Finishing was with a clear polyurethane spray.  This step was pretty labor intensive took quite a bit of time to complete. 

 Once the finishing was complete I re-assembled it with the screws and attached it to the walls in the pod exactly like the original installation.  I made the new top slightly deeper than the cabinet with a raised edge trim to keep small items from rolling off.

This was a relatively fun mod to do and I like the way it turned out.  Hope this gives some of the 178 owners an idea of how to gain some more space.  

In hind sight this mod could have been done much differently.  The lower section of the original cabinet could be cut off and reused as a base for a new cabinet/shelf.  Then a cabinet, maybe with doors and adjustable shelves could be made to sit on it.  Or, just an open set of shelves.  The television can be moved up on the wall for even more usable space.