Converting Guest Twins To Full

[Sparky1]

While checking on my 58 today, I was thinking it would be nice to convert my guest stateroom from it's factory double twin set up to a single full/queen. This of course would require positioning the berth with the head of the bed to port and the side of the bed against the rear bulkhead.

As best I recall, the guest stateroom size is the same as on a 53MY or 58MY. Have any of you done such a conversion?

 

[Nonchalant1]

You can have it both ways! There's a 58YF in the BVI that has a convertable mid stateroom. They have two strong bedboards the same size as the mattresses under each mattress when used as a twin. To convert to queen, you pull the bedboards out and put them sideways across the bed rails together and put the mattresses together with a queen sheet that makes it into one queen bed athwartship. There are some special blocks to rest the bords on next to the inside and outside walls and a foam piece to protect the bed rails where they rest on it, but it's a pretty simple and useful convertable.

It does limit the use of the drawers under the beds when used as a queen, but the tradeoff of ease of use and conversion is a huge offset.

Doug Shuman

 

[Angela]

The boat in the BVI is a 1976 58YF, McGregor, owned by Tim Miller. I've asked him several times via email to share his secret as to the renovation so all of us here don't have to reinvent the wheel, but my inquiries have fallen upon deaf ears. They can make up that room as twins or a queen. It's the twin guest room, not the master SR. From what I could see in the photos, somehow the nightstand between the two twin berth has to lay down because in the "twin position" the night stand stick up between the two beds, but in the queen set up, the mattress is flush with the top of the mattress frame.

McGregor is the most successful motor charteryacht in the BVI, by the way. It's booked consistently a year in advance.

 

[Passages]

You may need to book a charter with him just to learn his secrets.

Hey, you could write it off as a business expense - market research.

 

[SeaEric]

You may need to book a charter with him just to learn his secrets.

Hey, you could write it off as a business expense - market research.

That's actually a heck of a good idea! Go for it Ang!

 

[Capt K]

Hey Randy, that's possibly a good idea. You can convert all the staterooms to full size berths and rent them out by the hour. Of course, this would only be until you have enough cash for the engine repair.

Hey, you even have the red light. Just dock her port-side to the shore when open for business!

K

 

[ThirdHatt]

So Randy, going with that B&B idea after all huh? Well, at least it's some type of decision. That's a good start I guess and I'm just glad to hear you got on the boat again. By the way did you happen to get any work done while you were there, maybe got that new used battery charger installed?

I bet if you make it a dungeon-type theme with a little B&D flair you could possibly attract one of our favorite HOF members down from the cold to fix your engine for you if you're still interested in fixing it. I bet that galley will look really cool with the black lights installed!

I can see the ad now: "Freebird's Red-Light district/dock in Tennessee's Heartland! Come help fund a future engine repair for a two-boat owner and get your groove on all at the same time!"

 

[Sparky1]

You can have it both ways! There's a 58YF in the BVI that has a convertable mid stateroom. They have two strong bedboards the same size as the mattresses under each mattress when used as a twin. To convert to queen, you pull the bedboards out and put them sideways across the bed rails together and put the mattresses together with a queen sheet that makes it into one queen bed athwartship. There are some special blocks to rest the bords on next to the inside and outside walls and a foam piece to protect the bed rails where they rest on it, but it's a pretty simple and useful convertable.

It does limit the use of the drawers under the beds when used as a queen, but the tradeoff of ease of use and conversion is a huge offset.

Doug Shuman

That's an interesting concept, but I'm thinking it wouldn't be too comfortable when used in the queen configuration. We rented a condo in the panhandle for our last vacation which advertised a king bed which turned out to be to twins shoved together.

Many kings consist of two box springs and one mattress, but this was simply two twins with two mattresses. It was not only shorter than a king (as would be the case with the queen set up you mentioned), it was very uncomfortable to say the least. You could forget about a meeting in the middle. In fact, when I brought it to the attention of the management company who rented us the condo, they moved us into a nicer one with a real king bed.

I haven't looked at it to see how they're installed, but how difficult is it to remove the pedestals with the drawers? I'm thinking I have a couple of options for their use after a reconfiguration. I can put them together in the master to make a queen/king platform and still be able to use the drawers, or I can use one of them in the guest stateroom on the open side of the berth.

The PO removed the original pedestal in the master and replaced it with some cheap mobile home grade junk which I plan to remove. I may not have the capability to do the engine work on the boat, but I can sure do this much until I can get things going on the engine.

Oh yeah, regarding the photo, I removed all that junk from the dinette the first week I owned the boat. That wasn't the worst of it I'm afraid.

 

[Angela]

You may need to book a charter with him just to learn his secrets.

Hey, you could write it off as a business expense - market research.

At this point in what I've done and learned, I'm sure I'll figure it out when the time comes to do this to Sanctuary. I don't like the idea of two mattresses stuck together for the same reasons Sparky mentiond. In a perfect world, I'd like to be able to bring in a queen mattress and take the twins out when I have a charter calling for one or the other. Now, where to store the extra mattress(es) will be a challenge!

 

[Sparky1]

At this point in what I've done and learned, I'm sure I'll figure it out when the time comes to do this to Sanctuary. I don't like the idea of two mattresses stuck together for the same reasons Sparky mentiond. In a perfect world, I'd like to be able to bring in a queen mattress and take the twins out when I have a charter calling for one or the other. Now, where to store the extra mattress(es) will be a challenge!

Swing them out the aft deck and hoist them up onto the bridge for an alfresco stateroom. Think you can handle that by MIBS?

 

[SKYCHENEY]

I like that painted hand saw. Nice personal touch. Maybe you could use it to cut out those twins.

 

[Nonchalant1]

The boat in the BVI is a 1976 58YF, McGregor, owned by Tim Miller. I've asked him several times via email to share his secret as to the renovation so all of us here don't have to reinvent the wheel, but my inquiries have fallen upon deaf ears. They can make up that room as twins or a queen. It's the twin guest room, not the master SR. From what I could see in the photos, somehow the nightstand between the two twin berth has to lay down because in the "twin position" the night stand stick up between the two beds, but in the queen set up, the mattress is flush with the top of the mattress frame.

McGregor is the most successful motor charteryacht in the BVI, by the way. It's booked consistently a year in advance.

Ang,

I think that the nightstand stays. The queen setup just butts u against it with the sides of the bedboards and mattresses. There's enough room. McGregor II is booked up because Tim and Julie are VERY good. There's a picture of my daughter learning how to scuba dive from Tim on his website.

Doug

 

[Walter P]

Ang and Randy,

Put your heads together and figure out a hybrid "Murphy Bed" setup.

Walt

 

[Sparky1]

Ang and Randy,

Put your heads together and figure out a hybrid "Murphy Bed" setup.

Walt

That's a hell of an idea Walt, never thought of it. I'm afraid there just isn't enough room to make it feasible though. If there were enough height above the two singles, it may work to have a queen/king mattress folded into a boxed area on the aft bulkhead.

The twins would have to be moved away from the bulkhead the same depth as the mattress, but that would allow a quick conversion from two twins to a single queen/king with no mattress storage issues.

You're the master woodworker, you come up with something for us.

 

[jim rosenthal]

Randy, can you post something that shows the current layout? I had to do this on my previous boat, a Striker 44? You aren't talking about the V-berth, you're talking about a second stateroom that has two (separated) single bunks that you want to be able to convert to a double or queen bed, right?

(the solution to the V-berth is a permanent offset double, which I did, but that is another and different problem)

 

[Sparky1]

Here you go Jim, from the brochures archive (Angela's is the same way):

 

[SKYCHENEY]

There is exhaust under the outboard berth and on the 53My/58MY there is a water tank under the inboard berth. This makes it almost impossible to actually cut the berths out. You would have to do as Doug Shuman suggested and run them sideways over top of what is there. The 58TC may be different.

 

[Sparky1]

Sky, I may be wrong (yottsmanwillie can chime in on this), but I don't think that's the case on a TC, at least not with the water tank. I'll check next time I'm down.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

Sky, I may be wrong (yottsmanwillie can chime in on this), but I don't think that's the case on a TC, at least not with the water tank. I'll check next time I'm down.

Based on YB's pictures of his refit, I don't think you'd have the water tank issue, but you'd still have the exhaust on the outboard side. Of course, if that is the side with the dead engine, I guess you could remove that too.

 

[Angela]

Mine is not EXACTLY like the Bird's. The foot of the outboard berth goes up against a full length closet. I have cabinets overhead the head of the beds, a water tank underneath the inboard berth and an exhaust tube under the outboard berth. The nightstand between the two berths does stick up considerably, abouy 4", (flurries...did I just hear "flurries" on the local news? Surely, they weren't talking about Miami) between the two beds so that just laying a bedding foundation over the existing foundation does not fit. The brochure for my boat shows one thing, but my nightstand sticks up an additional 4 inches and has 4 drawers as opposed to the three shown in the 58MY brochure. I suspect the brochure is for the first year's model (1977) and mine is a 1980 - things change.....McGregor's photos of the twin setup show a raised nightstand, and that is absent in the photos of the queen set up which led me to wonder if the nightstand somehow laid down since the bed does not appear to be propped up.