Building A Schoolie

So almost a year ago now the world completely changed. People lost work and their livelihoods. I was one of those people who lost their jobs early on in this pandemic. Instead of falling into a depression and wasting all the time I now had I decided I would buy a school bus. This had to of been one of my craziness purchases thus far in my life. I had a vision of a home I wanted to build inside of this new bus I had just purchased. I got to work right away tearing out the seats which by the way is way harder than it looks.

When I first stepped onto the bus my first thought was "What have I just bought". But once all the seats, wall panels, and ceiling panels were out I was able to tape out my floor plan on the ground and my vision began to come to life. After that point I only had a few other times I questioned this project because of the difficulties I ran into. Before this point, I had never had a big construction project. I had helped my dad with small projects around the home but nothing of this size. This is also such an unusual project I had to learn to make things up as I went. The next step after I got everything tore down to the frame of the bus was to frame my new home.

You may notice the floors are now red. That is a layer of paint to help prevent the metal from rusting. Framing everything was harder than I first imagined because if you know anything about building you want things to be square. However, on a bus, there are no square points to go off of to make everything line up correctly so I just did my best and went for it. I wanted this tiny home to be fully off-grid so it has a full solar power system on board, a freshwater tank, and two dirty water tanks; one for the toilet and one for the sink and shower.

I have fully running water to my toilet shower and sink. I also have hot water and an A/C if you are connected to shore power. I installed a propane cooktop and heater. There is a fridge and I have lots of storage in this tiny home. I have two full-sized beds, one in the back and one is the couch that I built to pull out into another bed. This bus even has a 40" tv. It no longer feels like a school bus and much more like home. Here is what it looks like 6 months later.

In all, this was a great way for me to spend my six months of not being able to work and go out into the world. I hope you enjoyed my short recap of this project. Everything from counters and drawers to the bed was all custom built by me, which is crazy to think about considering I hadn't built much before this. I enjoyed doing it learned so much about electrical, plumbing, and building in general. Maybe someday I'll tackle another project like this. I don't know if I will live in it full time but I am excited to take it on my first trip. If you have a dream I encourage you to take that first step as crazy as it may seem and just go for it.