Converting a MAN KAT1 truck into a camper: building the kitchen drawers

We have four drawers under the fridge, and we are planning to use three of them to store our kitchen essentials: dishes, cups, glasses, cutlery, pots and pans.

Note that I have said “we plan to”, as we are not 100% sure yet.
I strongly believe that you cannot make a final decision about storage until you have actually done a couple of long trips.

So this is our initial idea, who knows, perhaps we will modify it in the future!

We have two main priorities when it comes to kitchen supplies, in particular those that we use on a daily basis:

1. they need to be reached easily (I do not want to have to move 5 other things in order to get my coffee mug!)
2. they need to be stored securely (they should not break at the first bumpy road!).

Therefore we will not try to fit the maximum amount of items in these drawers, rather we are looking for an easy and practical solution, where everything has its place and where things do not move around while travelling.

The top drawer was easy: it is for cutlery and we have opted for the standard solution with the typical plastic cutlery tray:

For the second drawer from the top we first decided what we wanted to fit in and tested things out a couple of times:

Afterwards we cut out some foam in the exact shape of our plates and mugs:

For extra protection, we cut some shelf liner and we covered the parts of the drawers where dishes and mugs will be placed:

And finally we built a holder which will keep the dishes in place even on the bumpiest roads:

We are curious to see if it works!  We will test it during our trip to Transylvania and, if it works as expected, then we will do the same for the other drawer.

The top cabinet is also ready now:

Interested in more DIY work on our truck?  Click here.