ABOUT THIS PHOTO:
The spare tire is visible at top, with a plywood shelf attached thereto. I later figured out how to store the tire in the seat well under the floor.

ABOUT SYSTEM 3:
My third system was created in 2007 after I sold the station wagon and bought a Toyota Sienna mini-van. This system, like the previous one, involved a custom plywood floor. Again, I had to remove seats, but unlike working with the Subaru, handling the Sienna’s seats was difficult due to their weight (about 55 pounds [25 kg] each) and the way they were attached to the floor. Moving those beasts into the house required a hand truck.

Once the seats were out, I had lots of room inside for sleeping, but the Sienna's floor was not level (it sloped down toward the front), not flat (there was a dip in it), had metal seat anchors sticking out of it, and a big "hole" in the back that was designed to hold folded-down back seats. The custom floor solved the problems of the dip, the anchors, and the hole, but in my rush to build it I did not make it level. Thus during trips I tried to park in places where there was a slight gradient to compensate for the sloping floor.

In spite of the Sienna's roominess, I still had to move stuff around to create a sleeping space. (Did I mention that I take too much stuff with me?) The hood of the Sienna is sloped too steeply to act as a storage platform, so I decided to design a new system.