37FS Pantry options

[RyRoRyan]

For those of you who own 37FS's, how did you deal with not having a pantry? Where do you put your food and kitchen items? Right now, we are putting much of our stuff in the cabinet above the sofa, but that is not ideal for the DW. Thoughts?

[Joe1mc]

We also cram pots and pans into cabinets above sink and 2 seatrr couch. It would be nice to have a pantry. I think someone mentioned the dead space between the bunk bed and fridge; they installed some sort of stand up storage.

[memphis02]

We stow our pantry items under the dinettes. Pots / Pans below cook top, also use the bottom drawer for food items. -We only have 2 kids and 1 dog, though. We hardly ever use all the storage in the bedroom. -In fact, I think that's where I stuffed the extra cushions for the dinette.

[rgolding]

This a constant battle for us, as we basically live in our 2015/2016 37FS full time. We have hardly been in our home since March of 2014 and have been in the Seneca, since October 9, 2015.

Extra shoes, go under the fold out couch, plus some can goods. My large work boots go under the "lounge chair". I find this chair to be a real useless piece of furniture and gets more use as a storage shelf than anything else. Right now the bike bags and helmets are sitting on it.

Some can goods and pots are under the dinette, we try hard to keep heavy items out of the overhead compartments. Dry goods are kept there.

We decided on the bunk model because of our cat and a place for the grandkids, when we have them with us. Those bunks normally hold everything from current projects, like the quilt the wife is working on to the dirty clothes hamper, its one of those collapsible trash cans. The long drawer under the bunk is also used for kitchen items.

Potato chips and other items that can get crushed go in the compartment behind the bedroom TV set.

We have a hassock, that normally sits in front of the couch when we are parked, that holds the dog's food and treats. The cat's litter box is in the shower, except when the shower is being used, following the example of "Mango Bob" (if you haven't read the Mango Bob series, you need to put it on your bucket list).

The front outside storage bins, on each side, are used for soda, beer, water and extra dog food.

Currently, meaning this week, working on a boat hatch going into the wall of the kitchen pantry, as you come in the main door. This flat panel of wood just screams for access into the area under the pull out drawers of the kitchen area. I picked up a plastic hatch cover in black on the internet. Not sure what I will find, when I get this open, but there is a lot of wasted space there.

An area I haven't convinced the dear bride to open up yet, is the floor of all the cabinets in the kitchen/galley and head area. Drives me nuts with all that wasted space in those fancy finished cabinets in both the galley and head. The floor of those cabinets are almost six inches off the floor of the coach.

Now an area that really screams for exposure and use, is the area under the foot of the lower bunk. Its 26 x 28 and 12 inches tall and totally unused and unaccessable. Yep, one day.

The area under the bed, is almost unuseable, as it takes both of us to lift the bed, set the support rod, and then reverse the procedure, once you are done in there. I put springs on the bed platform to lift it, but they failed because of the compartment walls are too thin. Need to re-enforce with heavier wood. I've got most of the wood and hope to also get this done this week.

We are in Cedar Key for a week and its project time, when not watching sunsets.

Read this to the wife and partner and she wants me to add, that we have never found an RV unit, trailer or coach, that did not have lots of wasted space. We come from the world of boats and you use every available space.

[WaltW]

I don't has the 37FS but some of my comments may apply.

Jayco, as well as many other RV mfgrs, do not typically provide for pantry or linen storage. That was one of the reasons why we chose the 36FK floorplan - it had both.

The area over the cab gets used for large food items stored in baskets...like bread and cereal boxes.

The lower section of the linen closet is for crockpot et al storage.

The cabinet above the TV is used for facial tissues, glassware, storage bowls, and other miscellany. In mine this cabinet hinges from the side and with a little rounding of the slide facia the leftmost door can be opened enroute to reach the more frequently used items. With Jayco's redesign of those cabinets this won't work.

Also because I have a tall upper cabinet in the galley, I was able to attach a 2 shelf plexiglass spice rack from the Container Store on the window side. We have 12 spice bottles stored on it. Jayco screwed this up with of redesign of upper cabinets.

Cabinet above micro-wave is for coffees, sugar, creamer, paper towels, toaster.

Bottled water is on floor in dinette pushed all the way to the wall. Other side of dinette floor has a 6 bottle wine bin (looks like a milk crate and holds bottles upright). Sodas are in pull-out drawer below dinette seat. With slides out the water can go on floor behind driver seat.

Drawer below fridge is for pots and pans. We use separators to keep the noise down en route.

Wish Jayco would have extended cabinets above sofa and dinette all the way across. That would add a lot of storage.

[rgolding]

So, I guess this article inspired me to install the boat locker door, today, in the wall of the 37FS kitchen cabinet, as you come in the cabin door. Not as open as I thought, but by cutting through the floor of the base of the slide out extension of the Galley, I was able to find an unused space that will hold about a flat (24 cans) of vegetables, soup or other cans of that size. There is a tremendous amount of space on the back of the outside TV, but will need some type of shelving to make it useful. The big plus to this is that it is on the floor of the coach and not on the floor of the slide out, like under the dinette or sofa seats. Maybe I can convince her to use that for storage of lighter things. ;-)

[RyRoRyan]

So I don't have my coach with me, so I cant check, but are you telling me that there is storage UNDER the pull out sofa and UNDER the "recliner"? I use the word recliner loosely as we all know that is made for someone much smaller than the average adult. I wish on the FS, that they put the corner TV fireplace setup there that the other rigs have instead of the chair.

[tjbroussard]

We have the 37FS and use something like the Camp Tail Gater cabinet that collapses for transit. We place it in front of the mirror upon set up for all of the groceries. Not ideal, but it works great. https://www.amazon.com/Tailgaterz-45...3CKQ8A6F2W2SMV

[rgolding]

Originally Posted by RyRoRyan

So I don't have my coach with me, so I cant check, but are you telling me that there is storage UNDER the pull out sofa and UNDER the "recliner"? I use the word recliner loosely as we all know that is made for someone much smaller than the average adult.

Yes, storage under both. You have to pay attention to what you put under the fold out couch, as some items will get squished by the frame.

Just found space under the bunk beds. Removed kick plate (held on with 4 wood/plaster board screws buried in the carpet. Cleaned up edge of carpet edge and secured carpet to the fiberglass frame with double back tape. Easier to keep clean under there and 3 inches of height for shoes, flip flops or ?'s.

One of the items we immediately removed was the "fleur de lis" wall art and replaced with personal pictures of our liking. That area on the floor is where the trash can and dog/cat's water and food bowls go when parked and they go under the dinette when on the road.

Today's exploration around the bunk area revealed a compartment space unused below and aft of the lower bunk access and the aft of the drawer under it. I've looked at this before, but got serious enough to remove the courtesy light and stick a flashlight in there. The interior wall for the bunk goes all the way to the floor of the slide and the wire access is rather crudely cut. I can clean that up once I put a hatch in the lower wall under the thermostat and by the courtesy light. Always looking for more storage, its what makes a truck a home. ;-)

[SloPoke]

Originally Posted by WaltW

I don't has the 37FS but some of my comments may apply.

Jayco, as well as many other RV mfgrs, do not typically provide for pantry or linen storage. That was one of the reasons why we chose the 36FK floorplan - it had both.

The area over the cab gets used for large food items stored in baskets...like bread and cereal boxes.

The lower section of the linen closet is for crockpot et al storage.

The cabinet above the TV is used for facial tissues, glassware, storage bowls, and other miscellany. In mine this cabinet hinges from the side and with a little rounding of the slide facia the leftmost door can be opened enroute to reach the more frequently used items. With Jayco's redesign of those cabinets this won't work.

Also because I have a tall upper cabinet in the galley, I was able to attach a 2 shelf plexiglass spice rack from the Container Store on the window side. We have 12 spice bottles stored on it. Jayco screwed this up with of redesign of upper cabinets.

Cabinet above micro-wave is for coffees, sugar, creamer, paper towels, toaster.

Bottled water is on floor in dinette pushed all the way to the wall. Other side of dinette floor has a 6 bottle wine bin (looks like a milk crate and holds bottles upright). Sodas are in pull-out drawer below dinette seat. With slides out the water can go on floor behind driver seat.

Drawer below fridge is for pots and pans. We use separators to keep the noise down en route.

Wish Jayco would have extended cabinets above sofa and dinette all the way across. That would add a lot of storage.

We are in the same situation as Walt...
For the same reasons, we picked the FK floor plan along with having the Entrance Door in the mid-section of the coach.

Since we spend a lot of our trips in back-country locations that require travel on primitive dirt roads that are not flat, we focus all of our storage on keeping our "Center of Gravity" as low as we can for those off-camber sections. This also helps in dealing with winding canyon roads and high cross winds.

Above the TV: Chips, Bread, Rolls... and as pointed out by Walt - the left side is accessible when the slide is in - so placement of things in priority works out well.

Pantry: Same rule about Light stuff up and heavy stuff down - almost all of the food is in there except for the chips/bread. We can easily go three weeks (two adults) on what we have in the pantry/fridge - there is more storage than we expected.

Drawer under fridge has Heavy Can goods - we tried having can goods in the big pullout drawer of the couch/dinette, but started shearing bolts on the Slide Drive Unit. We are now focused on keeping the overall weight of the Front Slide on a diet.

Under the kitchen Sink is Liquor on the Left side and Trash Can on the right.

Above the Microwave/Oven is cookware (ours is ultra-lightweight FryPan and Corn Pot and plastic bowls and stuff). Our outdoor Lodge Cookware is outside in a lower storage bay with the Camp-Chef.

Over the Sink: Light Kitchen needs, coffee and frequently needed supplies that are not heavy. Paper Towels and linens too. Our Coffee maker stays on the counter top all the time - on a pad of the Non-Slip stuff. We even leave it on while on the road as it is plugged into the same circuit as the Microwave and runs on the Inverter just fine.

Beverage: Coolers are in the outside storage lockers next to the door with beer/wine/soda and bottled water - right under the outside TV.

And the bathroom linen closet: Sheets, Bedding, Towels and the rest of the bathroom needs.

[pconroy]

Also not a Seneca owner but in our last coach we Robbed Peter to Pay Paul - and I built a pantry into the closet. With three teenagers, food was more important that hanging shirts. Simple frame with four drawers on full extension slides. Also made it removable so we could turn it back into a closet/wardrobe.

[Gc bay]

Found perfect 8-1/2” upper and lower kitchen cabinets that fit behind drivers seat between leather wall and slide out the wall space was 9” works perfectly
This is something that should be available from Jayco as they could match the cupboards perfectly

[hammer55]

I have a FS, I wondered if someone has organized anything for their over that cab for some storage, I would use the bunk beds, but the motors have a hard time as it is to extend the slide,

[Gc bay]

i also have a fs model and found that a perfect 8 1\2 " lower and upper kitchen cabinet set almost perfect match fits right behind driver seat even keeping leather panel divider my model had 9" between slide and driver left with 1\2" clearance , now have quite shelf area for food as bottom is close to 20-24" deep and upper is 17" finish height is just above leather panel