How to Build a Trailer Kitchen

Having your own kitchen in a camping trailer gives you a place to fix meals in the great outdoors.

With a little ingenuity you can have a functioning kitchen in a camping trailer. It will use little electric power and will provide all the comforts of home with a stove, sink, and refrigerator. By using some very simple materials, constructing your own kitchen in a trailer can be inexpensive as well. Building your own galley kitchen with a solar evaporation cooling refrigerator for a camping trailer is a great way to have a place for meal preparation in the great outdoors.

Things You'll Need

• 1 -- 20 inch diameter by 2 foot high clay flower pot with drain hole plugged.
• 1 -- 15 inch diameter by 1 1/2 foot high clay flower pot with drain hole plugged.
• Sand
• Water
• 4 foot long towel
• 1 -- 2 foot wide by 6 foot long piece of ½ inch thick plywood
• 8 -- 2 foot long 2-by-4's
• 5 gallon water jug with spigot
• Drill
• Screwdriver bit
• Screwdriver
• Screws
• Flat Brackets
• ½ inch drill bit
• 2 inch diameter circle cutting drilling bit.
• Jig saw with ¼ inch wide blade
• 16 inch diameter plastic salad bowl
• Epoxy Glue
• 3 foot piece of 2 inch diameter garden hose
• Propane camp stove
• 14 inch diameter plate
• Pencil
• Tape measure

Instructions

Installing the counter top for the kitchen

1. Measure and mark 2 places on the trailer's wall 4 feet above the floor. These 2 places need to be at the same height to make the counter level.

2. Make 2 boxes from the 2 foot long 2-by-4's using the flat brackets and screwing the 2-by-4's together by their ends. This gives you two 2 inch wide by 2 foot high boxes that will be the legs to support the counter.

3. Attach the boxes from step 2 to the trailer wall at the places marked in step 1. These need to be attached where the top beam on the boxes come 2 feet out from the trailer wall.

4. Lay the 2 foot by 6 foot sheet on top of the supporting leg boxes that you attached in the last step. You now have a counter that is 2 feet wide by 6 feet long.

5. Attach the counter top to the supporting leg boxes with screws. Your counter top is now secured to the trailer's wall.

Installing the sink

1. Set the 14 inch plate on end of the counter about 6 inches in from the ending edge and at least 4 inches in from the side edge.

2. Trace a circle around the plate you put on the counter in step 1 and then remove the plate. You now have a 14 inch circle on the counter top.

3. Bore a ½ inch hole into a place on the circle's line.

4. Saw along the circle's line after you have placed the saw blade in the hole you made in the last step. You now have a 14 inch hole in the counter top.

5. Fasten the salad bowl into the hole using the epoxy. You now have a sink bowl in the counter top.

6. Bore a 2 inch circle into the bottom of the sink bowl with the 2 inch circle cutting drill bit.

7. Paste one open end of the garden hose with the epoxy into the hole you just put into the sink. You now have the drain hose.

8. Bore a 2 inch hole into the trailer wall 1 ½ feet down from the counter top.

9. Draw a line on the drain hose 1 foot down from the sink's bottom.

10. Curve the drain hose's open end into a U at this point.

11. Fasten the drain hose's open end into the hole in the trailer's wall using the epoxy. You now have what looks like a question mark on it's side coming out of the bottom of the sink. You have just finished the sink's drain.

12. Put the 5 gallon water jug on the counter top with the spigot opening in the sink. The sink is now completed.

Installing the Refrigerator and Stove

1. Place the camp stove on the counter next to the sink. The stove is now installed.

2. Set the 20 inch diameter flower pot on the counter next to the stove.

3. Fill the 20 inch flower pot with 4 inches of sand.

4. Set the 15 inch diameter flower pot into the center of the 20 inch flower pot.

5. Pour sand into the space between the walls of the 2 flower pots until the top of the 15 inch pot is reached.

6. Saturate the sand with water until it will not hold any more.

7. Soak the 4 foot towel in water.

8. Fold the soaked 4 foot towel up until it is about 2 inches thick and wide enough to completely cover the top of the 15 inch inner flower pot.

9. Place whatever food or drinks you want to keep cold into the 15 inch inner flower pot.

10. Cover the 15 inch inner pot with the soaked 4 foot towel. This finishes the solar evaporation cooled refrigerator. About every 6 hours the towel and sand will need to be soaked again with water. As the water evaporates out of the refrigerator it keeps the inner temperature at a cool 40 degree Fahrenheit temperature.

References

• Tom Swenson.com: Teardrop Trailer Project -- Galley and Hatch
• Popular Home Craft: Wander Pup
• Practical Action.org: How a zeer pot fridge makes food last longer