Buslife Family - Teen son lives in the luggage compartment w/ pet snake 🐍 🚍

hey guys jenna here welcome to my channel where  i take you on tours of tiny and unique homes   in today's video we're going to meet a  family of six along with their two dogs   and a snake that all live inside of a beautiful  bus conversion that has plenty of innovative ideas   they've had to get super creative with this  many people living in a small amount of space   so they've created a compartmentalized bathroom  a couch that doubles into a dining room table   and a downstairs bedroom yeah that's right a  downstairs bedroom in a bus that's something   i've never seen before if you like these kind  of videos make sure that you subscribe and hit   that notification bell so that you know  every single time we publish a new video   right now let's jump right in and find out how six  people two dogs and a snake live in a tiny space we're the evans family welcome to our tiny homes on the bus with us our four youngest kids sam   lucas quinn and then hudson actually turns seven  tomorrow we have two dogs and sam's pet snake doug   something that really made us start thinking along  these lines of having more freedom and ability to   do things was our transition to homeschooling and  that really opened our minds to a lot of freedom   the mortgage the job we were giving our time  away in order to meet the demands of living a   traditional lifestyle and we didn't have any  control over it you're having to use so much   energy to come up with these ways to connect as  a family and we just were tired of having to work   so hard for something so precious it should  have been a bigger part of our lives all along   the dream was to be able to capitalize the time  we had with our children and to travel and see   things to explore the world with them and make  memories we were very much aware that it would   be a sacrifice on everybody's part that everybody  would be sacrificing something it wasn't just us   giving up our house we knew it was going to be  difficult tess and i would look at each other   and just be like oh what what did we do we sold  our house and now we're stuck in the bus like   what oh we don't have a choice we just have to  keep going the whole goal of kind of a traditional   lifestyle is to make things as comfortable  as possible and there's not a whole lot of   growth you grow when you experience  something that makes you uncomfortable   we love our bus we have put so much work and  effort and intentionality into it but when it   comes down to it the bus is just a tool that  being said it's the tool you live in every day   and it needs to reflect your style and desire  and your comfort level and the things that are   most important to you it's been interesting to  see the ways our children have been stretched   because of the sacrifice they're making they're  gaining so much they're growing their capacity   to love to experience the world to learn  and we see that every day in the way that   they interact with others in the way that  they interact with the world around them gus gus is a 1986 mci mc9 crusader 2. he has  a detroit diesel 8v 92 motor with no turbo   so we go everywhere super slow we bought the  bus for 8 000 and we ended right at 29 000. gus gus is 40 feet long bumper to bumper we  also tow a dolly and a minivan behind us so   all said we're about 58 feet long we have these  three storage bays that go all the way through to   the other side this first storage bay is all just  storage the second bay is our oldest son's bedroom   and then this third bay is all  our kind of mechanical equipment   i've got 100 gallons of fresh water  i've got 100 gallons of gray water   i've got three propane tanks 90 pounds of  propane down here on the roof i have six   solar panels they're 300 watt solar panels so  we have a total of 1800 watts on the other side   i have our battery bank for our solar setup the  battery bank is six six volt golf cart batteries   that i have hooked in parallel and in series  so we have one giant 12 volt battery system   the drive axle here is a dually which means it has  two wheels side by side and then behind that is   our tag axle which helps take some of the weight  off of the dualies because the motor's back here   so the back of the bus is very heavy one of the  difficult parts about traveling with a big family   is actually being able to get that family around  to all the spots you want to see once your bus   and your rig is parked and so we found a toyota  sienna and it's been working great it's easy to   tow behind the van it's not too heavy but we can  also you know fit a lot of groceries in there so we can head inside and check it out we wanted a great family gathering  space and we didn't want to lose the   dining room table that was a really  important part of our family culture   and so we decided to come up with  our own new design to figure out how   we could have a large family dining table  that could fit all of us plus some guests   so this is really easy to set up we have  these legs that pop out and lock into place   and then we just lift the whole table into  place as far as the frame goes it's all welded   metal about an eighth of an inch thick i think  it's 14 gauge metal and it's all powder coated we decided we needed to keep  as many windows as possible   the important thing to us was the natural  light and making it feel open and large in the kitchen we went with butcher  block countertops and we chose to   paint the cabinets green to bring a little  freshness and brightness into the space   we decided to go with a pattern floor just to add  a little fun and interest and we've been really   pleased with it it actually hides a lot more dirt  than we thought it would my husband custom built   all of our cabinets and this has actually  been my favorite kitchen i've ever lived in   i feel like i have more workspace than i've ever  had because we have a lot of countertop space   we went with a full-size residential refrigerator  which has been really nice to be able to hold all   the food that we go through with a large family  in our drawer matt custom built some dividers   to be able to hold all of our dishware so all  of our silverware cups spoons and plates all   fit in here nicely so that that saved us a lot of  space we installed this door here to separate the   living area from the bedroom area and it's been  really great to be able to have a place where the   dogs could be locked up if we were bringing  in groceries or had guests over for dinner   so this door doubles as both a space divider but  also the door to our closet and the doors way to   our son's bedroom we determined that he could  have an entrance that was both out of the way   but also big enough for him to fit through he is  six one and the bunks upstairs are six foot he has   a much bigger space where he can actually stretch  out as he grows my name is sam i'm 15 and this is   my room i have more privacy than anyone else i  have a full mattress definitely more room than   all my siblings my snake is back there as well  as my clothes and everything this is my dress   wall and then i have this wall has leds in it  and i have a car collection right there so far   it's been awesome he loves it and all the other  kids are vying for that space when he moves out   here in the bunk area we thought it was important  that each of the kids have a permanent space that   was all theirs we gave them a budget and they  were able to kind of decide how they wanted to   use that money with bedding paint storage all of  those kind of things so they really personalized   their own spaces this is more of my learning  shelf and then what i'm currently reading   i have a shelf right here that  i kind of just keep pictures   and toys and things like that we decided on  this yellow because yellow is my favorite color   my passions are writing and reading so i can do  that on the road and i don't have any trouble   my name is lucas i'm 13 and uh this is my  room it's uh six feet long and i think like   four feet wide here i keep all my books and then  random hobby stuff and then right here i have my   drumsticks and this is a harry potter one i chose  purple because purple is my favorite color i miss   my friends in my hometown but there's there's pros  and cons one of the pros is we get to experience   all of this when we go to baja we're gonna go  see whale sharks and we're gonna go surf and like   eat a ton of tacos and we couldn't do  that if we didn't sell our house and   take this big leap it's been a really big  adventure and a cool thing to experience i have a piano my vest is in my hat i have some  blankets behind my pillow and i have some stuffed   animals i painted my room turquoise because it  was my favorite color and here i got some rocks   i bought this for one dollar some leaves  fell off it yes i wasn't wearing it enough just back from the bunk area we have our laundry  room we have a washer dryer combo which fits just   perfectly in this space we don't use it a ton  but it's really nice to have when we have water   above that we have a drawer where we keep our  dirty laundry and in order to utilize the very   back space matt built out this closet for him and  i and we have plenty of storage for our clothes   we decided it was important to have separate  bathroom spaces so we did our vanity area here   where we have all of our bathroom essentials and  storage a small sink in the corner and even a   pull-down stool for my son matt designed this and  it's actually kind of funny because it was like   maybe 11 o'clock at night and i came out to the  bus and i was like are you ever coming to bed and   he was like yeah but hold on look what i figured  out and he designed this stool that pulls down   it's it's able to be stored flat against the wall  and our son can just pull it down step up brush   his teeth do whatever he needs to do and then it  folds right out of the way which is really nice   being on the road means that like every day is  different and so in order to keep us kind of   stable and give us a good foundation we decided  we needed to put in a space that would keep us   intentional and on track for our goals so we  just kind of have like our family calendar   our family jobs the things we're working on  as a family and the kids each have a board   where they keep their goals for the month this  map helps us keep track of where we've been   when we first moved on to the bus our youngest  was only three so we felt like it was important   we still had a bathtub of some sort one day i was  at lowe's and i saw the planters and the gardening   section and i found this half whiskey barrel and  it actually made a really beautiful bathtub and   then we did exposed copper pipe for our shower  ring as well as all of the piping for the water   we decided to go ahead and make our own  composting toilet just to see if we could   save the money we thought we'd give it a shot and  if it didn't work if we didn't love it then we'd   go ahead and buy the more expensive composting  toilet we have a five gallon bucket and then we   went ahead and had a friend 3d print the urine  diverter and then we just bought the urine tank   from a toilet manufacturer we just used pine  shavings and it hasn't been a problem at all   all said and done i think our  composting toilet was well under 50   also in the toilet room we have some art that  is kind of personal to us on this wall in the   toilet room is our vision board that we first made  with our kids to really start this journey going   we didn't know how long we were going to live  on the bus and so it was important to us to   make it feel as home-like as possible we brought  along with us our kids growth chart and we have   a little collection of my hand embroidery work  including our family theme and a saying that was   on our wedding invitation we have this barn door  that slides into the master bedroom when we were   planning our layout we really didn't think we were  going to have a separate master bedroom we had   kind of planned on having the couches transition  into our master bed but the more we thought about   it and thinking long term we realized that we  really needed a space that was all of our own   and so we went ahead and made the space for our  master bedroom which also doubles as matt's office   during the day and the place where we have  movie nights of the family in the evenings   thanks for watching this week's video i hope  you enjoyed it please make sure to like share   and subscribe and check back soon because i will  be publishing another tiny or unique home tour you

Channel: Tiny House Giant Journey

Views: 719,674

Keywords: tiny house giant journey, tiny house, Tiny houses, tiny homes, tiny house tour, skoolie, bus tour, skoolie life, bus life, nomadic life, nomadland, skoolie family, skoolie family of 6, buslife tour, rv life, van life, tiny house movement, nomads, nomadic family, skooly, skooliepalooza, tiny home tour, skoolie tiny home, bus conversion, school bus conversion, off-grid, off-grid bus, diy rv

Id: _qao3mZeuq0

Length: 14min 17sec (857 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 11 2022