It's a Team's Life

Building an ARI Sleeper

By Linda Caffee
Posted Jul 19th 2018 7:36AM

Talking to ARI has been a vastly different experience because we are dealing with a different company with a different mindset.

Our salesman Brandon keeps amazing us with the questions he asks. His first questions of “What do you want in your sleeper, and what are the most important items in your sleeper?” You mean we have options? We told him what we wanted, what we did not want, and a few odd things we needed such as a cupboard for our composting toilet, and an enclosed area that we can use for Squeaky, the cat, his dining area and his litter box that has to be separated. Brandon’s reply no problem, let us get this drawn up and I will send you the drawings to inspect.

We had decided to provide a few things ourselves such as the sink, faucet, and the Espar heater and there will be no problem working this into the sleeper. Once we had our first drawing we went over it with a microscope and changed a few of the outlets, moved a couple of cupboards, made the hanging closet a little shorter and added drawers. What fun we are having putting this jigsaw puzzle together and maximizing the space for what we feel is important.

Colors were discussed as well as the stain on the cupboards. Having Texas, the dog, we knew we wanted a floor that would not warp if water was spilled, and we want neutral colors so that we can add the highlight ourselves. We are not getting a TV in this truck and we are also not getting a cooktop. One of the options was a Corian countertop and we decided to downgrade this due to the price.

The shower will be fantastic and huge since the toilet unit will not be in the shower. It has taken us years to decide we were ready for a shower and part of the hang-up is getting a good supply of water. Another problem was how to dump the cassette for the toilet as we do not go to Flying J’s unless we have no choice. We have done a lot of research on the composting toilet and have a friend who has been using

The final spec’s have been gone over and approved and now we are waiting for our truck to be built.

This is NOT our sleeper but it is similar to what our sleeper will look like. Instead of having a 5th wheel we will have a dry box