I was up early again on Sunday morning and back at Lowes for paint and some industrial carpet, after which I got straight to work.  Sunday wasn’t the unmitigated success that Saturday was, although it started out well enough.  I began by installing the hardware on the drawers, first the runners, and then the handles.

This is the storage part of the assembly, all put together.  The drawers slide in nicely.

The next step was to try it in the FJ, this time including the rest of the sleeping platform.  Unfortunately, although it may not be obvious in the picture below, the pressure of the wheel wells on the sides of the frame means that they bend in slightly near the back.

I probably should have made the frame about half an inch narrower, or else used a base to keep the sides square, but now that I have the drawers made to fit this size frame, changing it would mean starting from scratch.  Hmm.  But the good news is that the drawers actually slide in and out nicely on the floor mat, and don’t really require the runners.  So, although it’s not as elegant a design as I’d like, I’ve decided that the best thing to do is to remove the runners for now.  I can possibly add some small casters to the bottom of the drawers later if required when they have weight in them.  The other good news, though, is that the part of the sleeping platform that extends over the rear seats fits perfectly.  You can see it in the picture above, and here’s a view from the side doors.

The total length of the platform, including the part over the drawers plus the hinged extension, is 66 inches, which should be fine for me, although a tall person might have to sleep at an angle.  In this picture I haven’t yet installed the hinges that will attach the platform extension to the storage drawers. As I mentioned earlier, the platform will rest on the folded rear seats as shown until I can remove them, and so sits at a slight angle, although it’s very minor, and I don’t think it will affect my comfort when sleeping on top.  Although there will be more storage when I remove the seats, you can see that there’s still a fair bit of room under the platform even now to store less used items, and they’ll be accessible by lifting the platform extension on it’s hinges.

Right, so except for the issue with the runners above, it’s all looking fairly complete, so time to paint it!  By this time it was incredibly hot again, and I was literally dripping sweat, but I decided to forge ahead and get as much done as possible.  In retrospect, maybe I should have realized that the humidity was very high, or that it wasn’t as sunny as it had been.  But I can be a bit blind and single-minded when I’m on a mission like this, so full steam ahead!  I got all the hardware off, and all the pieces out onto the lawn so I wouldn’t get paint on the garage floor.

And I got all the surfaces that would be visible painted a nice neutral matte black.

Now, if you remember, I mentioned the high humidity, and the fact that the sun had gone behind some clouds.  If I had actually been thinking, I might have realized that those are signs of impending rain.  I had just completed all the painting and begun to clean up when the rain started… and kept coming…  and then thunder and lightening started… and kept coming… it rained torrentially for about half an hour.  If I moved the wet pieces into the garage I would get black paint all over the floor, so there was really nothing to be done but get another root beer, watch the rain, and speculate about how bad the damage was going to be.  Sigh.

After it was over I checked the damage and the verdict was… could have been worse!

Some of the paint was washed off, but the boards themselves didn’t seem to have absorbed much.  I made sure that all the pieces were off of the wet ground on blocks, brought them into the garage when they had partially dried in the evening, and crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t discover any swelling boards in the morning!  But nothing else could be accomplished at that point, so thus ended another day.