Over the past few months, we’ve been living at my parents’ while my husband turns our Skoolie (school bus-turned-RV) into a home for our family of six. The process has been slow-going, but in the last few weeks, he’s made a lot of progress and it looks like things will go much faster from here.
Let’s all keep our fingers crossed, shall we?
Also, my friend and I have been dreaming about a piece of property we can share and turn into a sweet little homestead. The dream is to grow our own food, teach others how to do that and live more sustainably and enjoy a simpler life with people we love.
It sounds so good that we’re talking about doing that sooner, rather than later.
Will we still travel in the bus? I’m pretty sure, especially to visit some friends. But we’re on the lookout for land and are working on how we’ll make it all happen. I’ll let you know what we decide.
In the meantime, I know some of you have been following the pictures I post on Facebook and Instagram. So I thought I’d put them all in one place so you can get your bus-remodel fix. đ
Ready?
School Bus Tour
So here’s where we started. Almost. I only took a couple of before photos with a very poor-quality cell phone camera. I finally grew a brain and started documenting with a better camera after we had removed almost everything from the bus.
There was a lot of hammering involved. That was the most I’ve participated on this project.
The place brightened up a lot after Ian painted the ceiling white. I attempted to help with this by taping newspaper over the windows. Ian just scraped the paint off them today …
This is our bath tub. Inspired by Adventures of the Yellow School Bus.
I was super excited when the first paneling went up …
And even more excited when it was all done.
And then he started the floor.
Then our bed platform went in.
So cozy.
Next it was bunk bed time.
First one.
Then the other. Four cozy kiddos.
We got foam camping pads, kind of like these, that we cut down to length with a bread knife and covered with twin sheets.
He’ll be adding wall panels on either side of the bunks for privacy and paint the front so they’re white. The kids also want curtains on their bunks so they can have their own private space.
We’ll have a door or curtain separating our bedroom from theirs and the front of the bus from their sleeping space. It’ll be a cozy sleeping cave. With a skylight.
Now he’s working on the bathroom.
And I added some storage bins.
And curtains.
Yay privacy.
So close to done!
We’re moving from the back to the front and are currently sleeping on the bus while we use my parents’ house during the day.
If you’d like to see more pics of the bus, you can check out my Flickr stream. Also, follow me on Instagram for bus updates.
*Update
Here’s a video I shot of the current progress. We have a few more things done than a few days ago when I wrote this, so I thought I’d share it here. Enjoy!
(Please forgive the narrow video – I shot this on my phone)
We lived in a skoolie for about a year, and loved it. Yours looks great!
Oh my this is SO AWESOME!!!! You are an innovator as well as a healer! Can’t wait to follow you in your bus now.
Nina, this is awesome!
I’m living vicariously through you. I’d love to live like this and see the world. We are hypersensitive to mold so this seems like it would be a good option for us. Doesn’t seem like a bus would leak. And we could travel around until we find a nice, non toxic place to settle and live (trying to get out of the east coast which is damp and moldy).
Keep up the great posts. I love the updates.
So amazing and inspiring! This is exactly what my husband and I are dreaming & talking about, living simpler, off our own land and raising a big family! Happy for you, the bus looks GREAT!!!!!
This is super cool! I am curious how you will handle intimacy with the kids so close? That is my biggest dilemma in small living and its keeping us from taking the plunge.
My hubby and I were kicking around the idea of doing this on a boat. I figured I’d get NO exercise that way so it kind of fizzled. Exciting!!!! I will also live vicariously through you too! I’m excited for you(s)!
This gets me so excited!!! I can’t wait to do mine….. someday!!!
This is such an awesome project and giving me such good ideas! We would love a little homestead also and this seems like a good place to start while getting it all set up! Love it!!
Amazing! Congratulations!!!! We have four littles and have a similar dream. Enjoy!
This is great! Way to be creative and resourceful with your living space. We are currently looking for an RV to purchase for summer road trips and praying to find a space to park it and rent out for the rest of the year to college students to make a little extra income.
I also just watched the latest episode of HGTV Design Star where the four finalists made over school buses! And I thought of your project.
Here it is if you want to watch: http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/video/player/0,1000149,HGTV_32796_15041_77321-117842,00.html
Blessings!
Sweet! I’ve told my husband that when we’re done with the bus, I’d like to put it on AirBnB.
Thanks for the link, Melanie, I can’t wait to watch it.
When I see things like this it makes me feel so much better about raising my 6kids in 930 sq ft!! people say I’m crazy and don’t know how we do it but really if you can live on a bus with 4 kids having 6 in our space is nothing thank you so much this was just the boost I needed today!!!
This is so awesome! You are putting me to shame- I had reservations about moving into a park model trailer with only 4 of us! I too, have hopes to buy some land to homestead on. It’s nice you have a friend who will do it with you though. Good luck on your journey and thanks for sharing it with us!
I love the bus redo, very good work. I am just curious, how do you and your hubby get your privacy with all of the children sleeping right there next to you? I’m not trying to be inappropriate, I just know it is difficult with four kids to get alone time as it is, we have four girls. I couldn’t imagine sharing a bedroom with them all.
Quietly. đ We’ve always slept in close proximity to our kiddos, so we usually just wait until they’re really out or move to a different part of the house. Also, one of the only ways we did “sleep training” was to make sure our kiddos could sleep through noise, like the vacuum or something.
Hi, Nina!
Love your posts about your bus! My husband is getting ready for a year long deployment, so we are spending this year planning out our bus. We are trying to learn everything we can regarding conversion, plumbing, electrical, solar, and on and on and on! I loved your tub idea & wondered which size you ended up choosing, and how you settled upon the one you ended up purchasing! Thank so much for giving us a window into your conversion!
We have 5 kids & home school, so it’s really inspirational to see other families similar to ours!
Hi Nina & Ian, well done.Looks great so far. What an inspiration you’ve been to me. When you start planning on your small holding plot, with Ian’s creativity and your free thinking mind visit Earthship Biotecture website, for complete self sufficient living. It inspired me so & I’m sure it will u2. Thank you both Blessings and love from South Africa, In-joy theHilton
Thank you, Hilton! I’ll be sure to check it out.
Great project! If your hubby hasn’t done the dining room table yet tell him to google salon tables on racing sailboats for ideas. They’re real skinny (so you can walk by on either side) and have a hinged leaf that pops out on each side. Might work perfect for that area and he could build one easily. đ
Thank you for posting your journey. I am just embarking upon the skoolie journey myself. The step by step progress really gives me a great idea of what to expect.
Hi my name is Adam, my wife and I were inspired by your tub so we got one for our skoolie, but how do we secure it to the bus itself, the plumbing needs to be done asap, cause baths are kind of important, thank you
This is Ian (Nina’s husband) writing:
I fabricated my own brackets using 1 inch angle iron cut into four 1.5-2 inch lengths. When one of those pieces is laid down to look like an “L” I drilled two holes into the bottom part of the “L” and welded a bead along the length of the spine of the “L” at a height that was just above the lip at the base of our tub (I hope yours is similar). I used a grinder to fine tune my welded beads to make sure they fit snugly. I then secured them to the floor at the “corners” with self tapping metal screws that were long enough to get through the standard wooden bus floor and into the steel beneath it.
This method has proven secure with an empty tub in transit (thinking of a full tub in transit is somewhat hilarious).