Truck Camper Mod: Eagle Cap 1165 Buffet Storage

My wife and I purchased this 2015 Eagle Cap 1165 truck camper in 2019, which we’ve named, “Our Backpack.” After using our truck camper for a year with all of its OEM components, we realized that even though the Eagle Cap has three slide-outs, there didn’t seem to be enough room to comfortably move between the dinette and the kitchen peninsula. Plus, there really wasn’t any place to store our small appliances, like our toaster and coffee maker. It also seemed like there wasn’t enough storage. We usually ended up tripping over things that had to be stored on the floor or under the dinette table.

The original dinette that came with our camper. Note the narrow walkway between dinette and kitchen.

So, I decided to remove the dinette and replace it with a buffet and a bank of drawers.

Fortunately, I was still able to keep the outdoor storage behind the bottom bank of drawers. Originally, this storage area was accessible from both the outside and the inside of the camper. It was incorporated into the dinette benches. In building the buffet, I combined the two separate storage areas into one large storage area keeping the two outside access doors. I rebuilt the entire floor by removing some of the old floor that was showing signs of rot, and covering the entire surface with 1/4-inch Luan. The outdoor storage was treated with Flex Seal and it is holding up better than I had hoped. As can be seen from the photos below, I cut off the slide floor to match the left and the right sides making it one continuous, straight edge, giving us ample room to move around. Now we can access the bathroom without opening the slide which we couldn’t do before. I also had to reroute the wiring that originally came up through the floor.

Existing outdoor openings enclosing the outside storage area

Bathroom can be accessed with slide closed. The drawer frames are built from 1 x 2-inch pine and I used heavy duty drawer slides. There is a total of seven drawers. Four of the drawers are quite deep…deep enough to hold our coffee maker and tall bottles.

We wanted to use butcher block counter top because we couldn’t match the existing kitchen countertop. I had to consider the added weight so I decided to remove some of the material from underneath by leaving a 2.5-inch edge on all sides and cutting slices 1.5 inches deep the chiseling out the extra material. I also added outlets with USB charging ports on the back.

The Butcher Block counter top was finished in stain and polyurethane with two outlets. I added handles with push button locks to keep the drawers from opening while traveling down the road. I also incorporated a slide out table into the buffet for those rainy days when we need to eat indoors. The table makes a great workspace too.

This was the first of many modifications we made to our truck camper, and it remains our favorite. It’s so nice not to be tripping over anything stored on the floor.

– Robert Hallock