Front living

[kennymac68]

Looking to upgrade from a tt to a fiver in a year or so. Wife really likes the front living rear bedroom models. Any input from people that have owned and lived them? Looking at models like the Alpine 3620, or Montana....

[skp51443]

We had a front living room unit many years ago, looked fantastic on the showroom floor but it was miserable to live in. Aside from constantly going up and down the stairs the living room area was always the hottest during the day while the bed room was always the coldest at night. We were so glad to be rid of it and move to a conventional fiver floor plan.

[Newt]

The front living room models keep popping up from time to time. There's probably a reason why they aren't more common.

 

Newt

[GeorgiaHybrid]

We have a front living fiver now. With two slides in the living room, we love the size and besides the two couches, have also added a small rocker for those times we have 5 or 6 of us there. The ceiling is "curved" to increase the head height and that makes a huge difference in perceived room. The bedroom in our unit is huge with nice storage and tall ceilings that I will miss when our new trailer gets here. The short comings? We have a pass thru bathroom that is usable but tight (also has our W/D in there as well) and the kitchen is small. The kitchen is the biggest drawback to the front living as it is the size of most DP motorhomes.

 

The kitchen is the main reason we are changing fivers as it is too tight when a couple of people are trying to do things as the fridge is in the slide and we don't have an island. We probably over compensated on the new trailer as we will have a large kitchen but gave up space in the living area and bedroom. I could have went longer and kept the living and bedroom sizes but the wife wanted a shorter trailer (didn't happen....) so some things had to give...

[spindrift]

We walked into ours and immediately knew it was right. A well insulated FW and good A/C is a must with an FL model, as alluded to by Stan. The one thing that needs to be aggressively managed is storage as there isn't a huge basement in FL models. We have a genny so that makes things even more challenging. What I like most is that the living room has separation from the kitchen making it feel like another part of the "house". Good luck with your decision.

[ray.service]

Whether living room or bedroom on the "upper deck" really makes no difference in storage capacity. That is more frame design and manufacturers placement of components.

I personally dislike the front living layout because I don't like the bedroom on a level where passers by can (possibly) see in. I also makes the kitchen area seemed cramped.

That said my daughter has the front living and loves it. Different stokes for different folks.

[MoFanatic]

Looked at a front living model fifth wheel at the Tampe RV show that we loved. It would have been perfect for us. The deal killer was that the recliners / sofas are nonstandard to fit a "bump"/ raised platform on the floor that they sit on so you couldnt replace them with anything standard. And those recliners were miserably uncomfortable; I just couldnt get comfortable in those recliners. If it werent for those recliners I'd own it today.

[jonrjen]

We looked at a few that we really liked, but the things we didn't care for over powered the things that we did.

 

Didn't care for how the floorplan of the 5th wheel layout looked when looking downward into the kitchen area. I mean thing of it this way, cabinets are designed to have nice looking door profiles and hardware to look at straight on. Not from above as when looking down.

 

Ceiling insulation was a factor with afternoon temps.

 

Didn't want to be climbing the steps up and down every time we needed something from the kitchen.

 

And the number one reason was that in most campgrounds with any like of scenery such as a lake, mountains, tree line the view is always better out the rear of the RV so we love looking out that big back living area window. Granted that the front living room plan does allow a raised view to look over your neighbors truck and down the road.

[TXiceman]

For full time use, every front living room we looked at was not all that well arranged. They all were short on cabinets and storage for the bedroom, kitchen and living rrom. Yeas, they are really different, but do carefully consider how liveable the floor planis for your use.

 

These floor plans come and go from a number of manufacturers. For us, they do not work.

 

Ken

[297550]

Agree with all of the above. The separation in defined living space offered by a FLR is also offered in our KZ Durango Gold 381REF, only in a rear LR.

[Second Chance]

I'm not a fan of the FLR models for all the reasons listed above (and I've been in several makes and models). When shopping, we spent time in two models and decided the rear living room/front bedroom was more livable and better laid out - for us. We have very good separation between the front bedroom and rear living room, as well. That being said, some folks we know from the Grand Design forum (finally met them in Elkhart week before last) have a front living room and love it. It all boils down to what makes you happiest.

 

Rob

[remoandiris]

This thread is nearly 2 years old. Just sayin.