DIY SCHOOL BUS TINY HOUSE CONVERSION EP. 1 | MODERN BUILDS

hey everybody my name is Mike Montgomery and I just bought this school bus to turn into a tiny house now this is a huge project I've never done anything quite like it before but I'm gonna be sharing every step of the process that way you guys feel comfortable trying something like this for yourself so without any further ado let's go ahead and get started on modern builds today's video is sponsored by Squarespace go to squarespace.com slash modern builds for 10% off your first website or domain so I don't know where this rain came from but we're gonna keep this intro rolling I bought this 35 foot long school bus for about ten thousand dollars from El Reno public schools we're actually my cousin bought it from El Reno Public Schools and I bought it from him before he had bought if someone had already taken the seats out and turned it into some sort of redneck RV or hunting cabin I really have no idea but as you can tell from the before pictures it looks terrible it's ugly it's gross and it's got to go in first things first it's demo day let's get this bus cleared out as you probably guessed there wasn't much to keep in this bus so I got to be a little destructive and really tear this thing apart the goal was just to get the El Reno to the same starting point as anybody else would on their bus project once they get the seats removed and after taking a few trips to the dump getting rid of a lot of trash I could start taking down the air ducts that take up a lot of headroom in the corners of the bus the majority of the components especially all of the sheet metal components of this bus were riveted in and to remove them I just used a drill bit to strip out the head of the rivet and then I could knock down those air ducts smooth typically on modern builds were building things instead of destroying stuff so this was a really fun change of pace I also needed to get rid of these extra high tech TVs that were mounted to the ceiling of the bus but they were just attached with wood screws after that I could remove what was the bed platform as well as the holding tank and hot water heaters which I saved for later I'm not sure yet if I'm gonna be reusing them I need to check and make sure they're good first just in case you don't believe me this bus was dirty and I needed to remove the vinyl cover over the engine compartment so I made sure and put my RZ mask on so I wasn't breathing all of this nasty dust and with that done I could just keep working removing more and more pieces to this bus [Music] [Applause] [Music] so these lines go between each of the floor heaters in the bus and they carry a coolant so that nothing overheats so I went to the engine compartment in the bus and I turned off the valves controlling the flow to those heaters [Music] this is one of the first of many moments where I had no idea what I was getting myself into on this project of course I turned the valves off thinking that the fluid wouldn't come out of these heaters but unfortunately I spilled all over the place as you can see right SuperPro at this point I figured I was already in too deep and it already made a huge mess so I just kept removing the second heater and I figured I could clean up all of that fluid afterwards and trust me it was a mess once I had everything cleaned up I could take out the stock a/c units that are taking a lot of headroom now it's important to note that I already had the freon removed from the a/c units if your units are already charged you're gonna need to call an a/c guy to get that free unreleased properly otherwise we can grab the angle grinder and get started these units were attached with a few bolts coming down from the ceiling so I used an abrasive cutoff disc on the angle grinder to just shear those bolts off know that okay so at this point the bus is completely torn apart in our next step is to start putting this thing back together let's get it my first step was to patch up all the holes in the floor and the walls of the bus especially where all of the seats were originally mounted as you can see those holes were never filled and I want to make sure that they are I've used this all-purpose putty from bondo a few times in the past mostly on wood and metal projects but I was happy to see that I stuck to the vinyl floors with no problem so I just sanded everything down flat and prepped for paint I hooked up a flat disc to the angle grinder so I could smooth out any where there were rivets that were poking through the ceiling also where those bolts were holding on the AC units the rest of the metal was in pretty good shape there were a couple spots with a little surface for us so I touched those with the flap disc and then I could get ready to primer in all of those spots as you can imagine masking off all of the windows in a school bus took a long time but I was really thankful to have my friend Jesse there to help me out and we were able to burn through this pretty quick it just took a couple of hours we came up with a pretty good system where we use painters tape to edge all of the windows before we added any paper that way we were sure to get sharp lines around all of the windows then we could suit up and get prepped for paint [Music] rust-oleum makes this rusty metal primer that you see me use all the time on my metal projects even when they're not rusty this stuff does a great job of sealing any surface rust or imperfections allowing your paint to bond really well for a great finish we hit all the spots that had surface rust or met up with the windows then I went to Home Depot and I got these turbo spray cans of white primer each of these cans holds four times as much paint as a standard rattle can and have this really wide spray almost like an HVLP sprayer does and I just want to hedge off some of the comments obviously this is not as cheap as if I bought bulk paint and use this sprayer but I was really curious when I saw this product at Home Depot and I just had to see how well it worked and I was genuinely surprised to see how well it did if I remember correctly we used about eight turbo spray cans of this primer before we used another dozen turbo spray cans of rust-oleum gloss white protective enamel links for both the paint and all the other tools and supplies for this project will be linked down in the description of this video so if you're interested be sure and check it out oh and yes I am leaving all of the stickers on the inside of the bus and I'm just painting over them I think it's gonna be a really cool texture and add to the whole authenticity of this project of course from a distance you don't really see the stickers but up close it's a really cool touch [Music] so there you have it this paint job came out looking so awesome taking a little bit of extra time and energy to make sure everything was masked well definitely paid off a couple of the windows though did have a little bit of chip out on the existing paint but I can fix those later the majority of them came off clean like this one of my favorite paint details is how I separated what I'm calling the cockpit of the bus which is just the front where you enter and drive at from the rest of it eventually these are gonna have really sheer curtain separating it from the rest of the living space and I wanted to keep all of the original paint and equipment there almost like a time capsule but just check out how great this paint looks of course Joshua Tree in the desert is a great backdrop but this clean white interior is exactly what I was looking for so we're really making progress on the bus and I couldn't be more excited with how it looks I'm about to paint the floor but first I'm gonna apply a coat of this primer to seal in any of the stains and give a good base for the floor paint to stick to so let's get it I kept it simple using a standard 3/8 inch nap roller and I applied one coat of the primer to the floor I was really surprised at seeing how fast this dried I really didn't even have to wait before I could move on to adding paint I knew I wanted to paint the floors the color that would really pop against the white walls and the rest of the bus so I went back to Home Depot and I grab some floor paint and then started sifting through all of the paint swatches immediately the Blues caught my eye and I knew I wanted something with quite a bit of color that wasn't too saturated I wanted too deep blue not a really bright blue and I came across this color Hacienda blue which looks great I chose a low class finish so that light wouldn't reflect off of the floor too much and I applied two coats as the Sun was going down like I mentioned before keeping the feel of a bus inside of this project is really what I was trying to do that's why I didn't remove any of the tread or the old vinyl floor I just figured painting over it and color blocking this whole thing could be a really cool texture move [Music] the next day I could remove all of the masking tape and reveal the finished floors and I could not have been more excited with the results when we started this bus was disgusting but now it's clean fresh and I cannot wait to move on to the next step after a word from our sponsor Squarespace is the number one shop for you to build your own website and the best part is you need zero website building experience Squarespace is built in library of designer templates look incredible right out of the box and all you need to know how to do to create your own custom web site is edit text blocks and drag and drop images whether you're an artist a maker in the trades or anything in-between a website these days is crucial whether you need a place to showcase your work or a place to connect with potential customers Squarespace is sure to have the solution for you I've been using Squarespace personally for over three years long before they were a sponsor of modern builds and I couldn't be more proud to recommend them to you guys now so make sure and go to squarespace.com forward slash modern builds where you can create your own website before you enter any of your credit card info then when it's time to make your site go live don't forget to use the code modern builds for 10% off your first site thanks to our space before I started working on the bus I had already made a Sketchup model of what I intended the interior to look like but you never know how it's actually gonna fill until you get into the space so I marked everything out with masking tape so I could get a feel for the space and make minor adjustments the bathroom is the only completely enclosed room in the space I really want to keep that open airy vibe that we've already got so here I'm breaking down some two by fours to attach to the plywood subfloor underneath the vinyl flooring in the bus and I was able to attach everything just using standard construction wood screws no problem aside from the 2x4 plates that I attached to the subfloor I also attached a 2x4 runner on the wall of the bus which we'll be using later on in the build after that was complete I could start breaking down all of my 2x3 studs that I'm framing this bathroom out of as you can see I'm not cutting square ends because of the radius on the roof of the bus these slight angles on the two by threes don't have to be perfect but doing this is gonna make everything a little bit more of a snug fit I had to get a little bit crafty using these small angle brackets to make all of my 2x3 connections since I'm framing in a non-traditional way the other weird part about building in a bus is that I couldn't use a level to do any of my framing because I don't know that the bus is perfectly flat instead I used the 12 inch speed square as well as a framing square to constantly check to make sure that I was always installing my two by fours square to the frame of the bus I know this isn't a perfect method but I did give myself a little bit of a margin for error and the bus has a lot of reference points between all of the lines on the roof the windows and other components after my two indwells were complete I had the idea of using another two by three as a positive stop so that I knew all the rest of my two by fours were straight or at least in line with the 2x4 studs on the corner and after those were installed I could add the header for what will eventually be the door leading into the bathroom once again I used more of those angle brackets to connect at this one in the project I had a lot of scrap wood so I started cutting those pieces down for some extra blocking in between each of my two by three studs [Music] and just so nobody's confused I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the screws and fasteners that I'm using throughout the bus anytime I've been screwing wood to wood I've just been using classic construction screws you guys see me use stuff like this all the time and they've got this start bit driver that works really great and doesn't strip out very easily any time I was using these angle brackets to attach 2x4 studs to the walls I used these 1-inch sheet metal screws that are self drilling and the next thing I have to do is attach two by fours onto the sides of the wall below the windows I'm going to create plywood half walls and to do that I'm going to use two inch versions of these same screws these have the same tips that drill through a metal they've just got a little bit longer of a thread since I've got to go through a full 2x4 attaching wood to the sides of the bus isn't hard but it's definitely not convenient you've got to use these long sheet metal screws that take quite a bit of time to finally drill through the metal and eventually grab on so I wanted to attach these 2x4 rails to the sides of the bus that way I could then attach the rest of my pieces on to the studs and not have to worry about drilling into the metal anymore after two-by-fours were attached everywhere I'm doing half walls I could get all of my electrical supplies out and start attaching electrical boxes onto the bottom of some of those 2x4 rails I picked up these shallow boxes from Home Depot and they weren't expensive they're just a specialty box that doesn't take up as much space and they worked great once I had them installed I could run romex between all of my boxes using electrical staples to hold everything in place on the bottom side of the two-by-fours and this is where I give my standard disclaimer I'm not an electrician plumber tradesman or anything like that I'm a DIY or just like you guys so make sure and do your own research and only do the projects you feel comfortable with that way everything is safe one thing I do want to note though is these lines are not going to a circuit box instead they're gonna end in a plug and then those plugs are going to be powered by this this is the goal zero Yeti 3000 portable power station and it's gonna be the electrical hub of the whole bus this goal zero unit is going to act as the battery storage as well as the inverter for the bus I have one circuit powering the kitchen outlet in the frig in a Second Circuit running the lights and the plugs throughout the rest of the bus the goal zero can then be hooked up to the grid using an extension cord in a standard household outlet or I can charge it off the grid using the goal zero solar panels to make this a really cool hybrid system and if you want to learn more about this I'll leave links to this down in the description and I'll be doing the installation in a future School Bus episode so let's keep this project moving on to plumbing I want this plumbing system to be as simple as possible for the bus it'll be coming through the floor here where the air conditioning unit ran lines it'll go to the kitchen sink the bathroom sink as well as the bathroom shower I'm using the same half-inch PEX tubing that I used on the mini kitchen build out from a few episodes that go along with sharkbite connectors these things are amazing all you have to do is push to connect no crimping tools or extra techniques required when it comes to plumbing this is about as simple as you can get it's really plug-and-play just run lines to where you eventually want connections and use those shark bites to make everything happen and while I was at it I ran all of my hot water lines the exact same way I did my cold water lines and as you can see our hot and cold wines feed from the floor of the bus and it'll eventually wind up in this locker underneath the bus as you can see right now it's full of tools but eventually there will be a hot water heater where these lines are connected to the hot and cold outlets the rest of the plumbing though will be in the bathroom episode which is episode 3 and for now I'm going to finish off the framing portion of this episode by closing up the bathroom I cut up a bunch of small pieces of thin plywood that I could use to create a template to match the profile of the side of the bus there's a lot of angles a lot of curves and even two by fours that I need to work these walls around trying to scribe and cut one big template seemed impossible but doing it in twelve or eighteen inch sections seemed totally manageable of course I almost never got this right on the first try but I took my time made sure to get as tight of margins as possible and it came out pretty great I used this contour gauge anywhere there was a complicated profile that I needed to match and it really did an awesome job I'll be sure to leave an Amazon link down in the description but to be honest I do wish it was a little bit taller it got me thinking while I was building about how I could make a contour gauge of my own one that was all the way up to four feet long or even eight feet long for some complicated scribing [Music] I use Gorilla Tape to help clean up my edges a little bit more then I could remove the template that I had created from the screws on the back of that 2x3 stud at this point in time I still wasn't sure if this whole method was gonna work so I got another piece of that thin plywood and I traced the lines from this template onto that piece and cut it with the jigsaw I made sure to take my time and cut slow so that I didn't introduce more errors into this template and I could check the fit of this single piece I was happy to find that the margins were amazing and I could use this as my standard template to cut the rest of my 3/4 inch plywood pieces throughout this build I'm going to be using 3/4 inch radiata pine plywood from Home Depot just about everywhere that's visible the reason is because it's got a thick face veneer almost as thick as the inner plies of the plywood so if I need to sand anything down I can do that without sanding through that veneer which happens on hardwood plywood more than I would like to admit [Music] I repeated those exact same steps for the wall on the opposite side of the bathroom I just had to make some careful measurements and jigsaw out an opening for the outlets in the kitchen before I broke down the panels for the front of the bathroom to size I set my circular saw to a slight angle for the same reason I cut my 2 by 3 studs at an angle you'll just help fit everything up to the ceiling a little closer then I ran back into the bus marked the door opening in place on each of my panels and then cut that freehand with the circular saw [Music] [Applause] in this episode of the series I'm only going to be cladding the outside of the bathroom walls and as you can tell it really wasn't too tough scribing and marking everything to cut was simple it just took a little bit of time but it was really cool to see everything line up flush and finally get everything tacked in place all right everybody the exterior walls on the bathroom are done check it out this looks so sick of course I'm going to paint a lot of this I might keep this wall bare wood so it can play off of the kitchen now the inside of the bathroom on the other hand still has a lot of work but we're getting there no matter how good you are at scribing weird lines and cutting crazy shapes they're still gonna be an air gap between the walls that you build and the existing bus frame so I just used some caulk to seal everything up from the backside of those walls that we built since the inside of these walls are going to have another layer of plywood on the other side of the studs I applied this coat really heavy that way I had a good waterproof seal then I ran a clean tidy bead on the outside of the walls for looks I used this white caulk on the walls where I'm planning on eventually painting that way there's a smooth transition between the walls and the bus and on the front wall where I think I might leave the wood I used a beige color that way it blended into the wood a little bit more the last big step of this project is to create the actual half walls running down the length of this bus and to do that I made a quick template of the wheel wells so that I could cut that out on each of these panels I did have to do a decent amount of scribe cutting on these plywood panels but it really wasn't too much just like before I took my time to make good templates and that gave me a good fit with almost no headaches and I used these finish grooves with a trim head which is super small to attach those plywood pieces to the 2x4 rails I was sure to recess those screw heads beneath the surface of the plywood and I'll come back later with a little bit of wood filler to cover up those blemishes [Music] and really quickly I'd like to take a second and plug my podcast the modern maker podcast is a show that I release every Thursday with my two co-hosts Chris Salamone from 4-eyes furniture and boniato from homemade modern it's a not so serious show all about designing building and our day to day lives if you're interested in checking it out I will leave an iTunes link down in the description the final and most complicated pieces to these half walls are the ends where the engine compartment meets the walls and instead of making a template I just made measurements off of the half walls that I had already installed and transferred those measurements onto this piece of plywood then I could cut it out with my jigsaw and hope that everything lined up right and after doing some more measurements and cutting out another opening for outlets I could actually check and I hate to be the guy that says it but that is super Pro how clean is that one more question that I expect to get in the comments is how come I didn't add some rigid insulation between the plywood and the existing walls of the bus and that's because it's already insulated as you can see here now I know some school buses have no insulation and in that case adding any is absolutely gonna help but my half walls also don't cover the entire bus so it's fighting a losing battle in my book so that's where we're leaving it for today's episode we've got a couple of walls where I didn't put up plywood and that's where we've got exposed electrical and plumbing that I still want access to and in episode 2 I'm gonna be turning this space into the bedroom obviously I've got a cover of this engine compartment I'm going to build this really awesome window seat and a platform for the bed to set on so make sure and click that subscribe button that way you stay updated every time I post new videos oh and while we're at it let's look back at what this bus was before we got into it and how clean fresh and modern it is now obviously we've still got a long ways to go and a few more episodes before this series wraps up but I could not be more excited with how it looks now this is a perfect clean slate for me to be able to build the rest of the spaces on to and if you want to keep up with me in between YouTube videos you can follow me at modern builds on Instagram I'm posting there almost every day really guys thanks a ton for watching and I hope you enjoyed this series it's gonna be about six parts so we've got a lot more to come so see you next time on modern build bye everybody [Music]

Channel: Modern Builds

Views: 6,207,731

Keywords: school bus, tiny house, conversion, diy, how to, build, modern builds, school bus tiny house, how to build, maker, mobile, skoolie, schoolie, 35 foot, modern, van life, renovation, woodworking, maker movement, RV, OFF GRID, solar, battery, electrical, plumbing, framing, paint, painting, interior, demo

Id: GhizMqo5SGg

Length: 23min 48sec (1428 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 10 2020