Family Of 5 & Their Gorgeous DIY School Bus Conversion Off Grid Tiny House

hey i'm josh and i'm susan and these are our kids dylan haley and parker this is our 40-foot converted thomas safety liner come and check it out [Music] welcome to our living room this is the spot in the bus where we hang out together as a family um we wanted to make sure that this space was functional yet really comfortable so that as we are here together as a family we can enjoy the time in our bus we had a bus previous and we had a dinette that was always set up and we found that it was just more in the way so what we chose to do was do more of an l-shaped couch so we could fit more people on the couch and then we just store our table over here and that way it's out of the way when it's not in use and then when we want to have dinner together as a family we can put the legs into the brackets that are on the floor here and then we set up the table and then we can sit around it as a family and enjoy dinner together we also have a tv so that we can watch movies together as a family have like a family night together under the wheel well um we you know it's kind of in the way but we utilize the space and so under there we store our curtains that we hang in the front window at night for privacy and then we just um extra small things like our masks go in there and maybe extra shoes just things that need to get out of the way and then we also have storage underneath the couch here and then on this side of the couch we have our battery banks and our inverter and things like that josh built this bookshelf for us so that we could put all of our kids and our books up there and also we just wanted a touch of home as we're on the road so we put up just our cute little flowers and just things to just bring the space to life this is our kitchen um we actually love our kitchen in our space it works great for a family of five we made it an l-shape because we wanted to be able to work in the space but also let the kids be able to get in and out of the bus and back into their living space and not be bumping into one another we have plenty of storage for a family of five so our upper cabinets we actually store like our canned goods in here our spices go up here coffee cups and things like that things that are not breakable i absolutely love the upper cabinets if i could change one thing i might have had them come out just a little bit more we are afraid that it would impede our space but i find if we would have come out just a little bit more we would still have a lot of space but we'd have a little bit more storage in here underneath we have our plates and our dishes are down here we chose to go with plastic just because when you're driving you don't want something to bounce out and break we have our stove top our cooktop it's worked well for our family down below it we have an airfry microwave and that works as a microwave and an airfryer and an oven and we can utilize that with our generator or when we're plugged in at a campsite beneath here on this side we have our garbage can we since we do have a family of five we needed a space where we could fit all that in we do have dry goods down below on this side like cereal boxes and things like that and then we did put in a pantry over here so we could store just our extra snacks and goodies and things like that down below josh made it so that we could actually fit our vacuum in there it collapses and then it slides in down below and then it's tucked out of the way and then when we're driving it doesn't bounce all over the place we actually splurged on our fridge it's a dometic rv fridge and we wanted it because we wanted to be able to boondock and this runs off of propane and there's plenty of storage and then we also love it because it clicks shut and so when you're driving it doesn't fling open and all your items come out on the floor our friend martha from home was so generous and she did all our curtains for us and she just did a wonderful job and that way it adds a touch of home and it's cute but also at night we can close it and it adds a lot of privacy for us we love our sink here we put it in the corner because we wanted to have as much counter space as possible and we find that it works great for us because at dinner time we'll do kind of like a buffet style we'll put everything out here on the counter and then people just kind of walk around dish up on the stove get their side dishes and then they'll go around to the table and sit down so we have found that the corner sink has worked out great the only thing i would say is is back a little bit so when you are washing dishes it's a little bit farther away from you if you're shorter but like the kids but they haven't complained about their backs they just complain about washing the dishes we had to install a faucet that comes out so that you can rinse everything these were bouncing around so we found a basket that we could suction to the window and just keep that nice and secure so nothing falls or breaks so another feature that we love in our kitchen is our skylight we wanted to have a lot of the outdoors in and with all the windows and then again with the skylight it just brings all that light in and it just creates a space that is happy and inviting there was an area there for the emergency hatch for when it was a school bus so we thought we would utilize that and turn it into a skylight and it worked out great [Music] we were both doing um w-2 jobs um ever since school basically and but we kind of felt the the need or the desire to do take some time off and spend some time with the kids and switch gears career-wise and stuff like that so this was a good way to get on the road and see some new things and spend some more time together we wanted to be able to travel with our kids and spend time with our kids and see the world but do it in a way that suited our needs and fit our personalities and so having the bus we could design it the way we wanted it and decorate it the way we wanted it and just have it function well for our [Music] family when we designed the bus we really wanted to build it in a way that we could be off-grid as long as possible so we put together a battery bank that would kind of keep us sustained for a few days so this is our kind of our control center for the electrical system we've got um two sources of 120 volt power either we can be plugged in or we have a generator on board as well so we have a selector switch for that the other thing we have is an inverter 3000 watt inverter charger and so when we're plugged in that inverter actually charges the batteries as well sort of in reverse um when we're not plugged in that inverter will actually pull power out of it and turn it into 120 volt for us so we can use it for regular outlets and so we've also in here we've got our selector switch we've got our 12 volt fuse panel and then all of our 120 volt breakers also our charge controller for the renegy um we have 400 watts of renegy um solar on the on the roof as well and then on the outside here just for quick reference we threw all the panels over here so we've got one of things that's really important is safety obviously sitting inside of a bus with especially with kids and so we've got um propane on board so we've got a propane alarm which is this unit here we've got our battery monitor our renegy on off switch for the inverter this outlet here highly recommended if you're doing one of these to have an outlet that runs just off the generator and doesn't run through the inverter so you have power you know for higher use items or higher draw items and then our water heater so the water heater we chose to go with a point of use or on demand water heater so it's run up runs off propane and it just turns on when you need it the one downside i would say is if you're taking a shower and you want to conserve water you end up with some cold mixed in there as you're turning it on and off so that's a little unpleasant but it's totally fine living in the woods um still having a shower so works out pretty good so on this side um we just have the controls for the the front diesel heater they have two options led screen um or just a rotary style and so we in our old bus we had an led screen and we just found that it wasn't that functional we didn't use it very much so we just went with the on off and rotary and it's been fine and then just our light switch for our kitchen on this side okay so when we designed the bus um one of the things we went back and forth with quite a bit was how to build the bathroom so we knew we wanted a toilet and a shower and a sink we toyed around with the idea of all the whole bathroom on one side of the bus with a hallway down one side but then that was taking more space up to get back into the center aisle so to speak for the bunk area so we kind of split it up so we have the toilet on one side and the shower on the other we decided to make the space wide enough um to use the the doors basically to close them off so what we do is you can actually close off this space just by opening the door um and then so you can do that here and you do this one here and then you've basically got like a full you know huge bathroom to use if you're getting ready in the mornings or at night or whatever so that's the the rear one and we close this one off here as well welcome to the toilet room the throne room um one of the things so toilet-wise we we talked about doing um like a nature's head composting toilet or something but what we found on our last build was um we we didn't like pulling the whole thing out and putting it back in and so we decided to go with a standard kind of rv setup where you've got the black tank underneath um and then that ties in with the gray tank and you just pull into a dump site and dump it out it's been pretty easy so we really like that um the other thing is flushes which is it's just i don't know we like it better um and so that's personal preference thing but that's what we chose to do um in the rest of the bathroom is pretty simple we've got an exhaust fan that we threw in for obvious reasons and a laundry um hangs on the wall here which has been pretty convenient one of the things that's kind of cool about this bathroom is that we've got the emergency exit door for the bus when it was a school bus is right here and so when we started laying things out it worked out really well to just leave it there and continue to use it so like if you know the idea was like the kids could run out this way if something was going out up front they had another way to get out and access the outside of the bus and so that's been pretty cool we like having that there this is our shower um this room we wanted to um make sure we had a separate space where we could shower as well as the sink for hand washing and brushing your teeth and stuff like that we ended up doing like a custom shower basically so we built our own shower pan and tiled the whole thing and it's i was a little bit nervous to be honest that bumping around in a bus all the tile would fall off by the time we got 30 miles on the road but it hasn't yet so i'm i'm happy we're crossing our fingers on that if it falls off we'll just put it back in basically our shower is um it doesn't have like a mixing valve it just has one straight valve it's just hot water from the water heater on demand we control the temperature on the front panel of that control panel just pipes in the hot water to the shower and that's it i did i don't know months of searching to find the smallest possible sink that i could find that would work in this space so that we had enough room still to have like some i guess to be able to change clothes and do some of those kinds of things in here um and then we just mounted this tiny sink in the corner and built a little cabinet underneath it and it's worked out really well we installed a couple of mirrors that look cool but also our mirrors and then threw these baskets in on the road just we had some extra space to store just the little things that you needed in a in a shower basically um susan's really good at finding all those little baskets and putting them where they need to be and i'm good at using the tools to screw them in place living in close quarters with your family is changes how you um interact maybe um being in such a small space calls you out a little bit more when you're selfish and so you know you have to you have to sort of get into a rhythm where you can interact with everybody a little bit more agreeably and so i think like being a parent i think the biggest thing that i've learned about being a parent is that i learn who i am by being a parent because i see myself in the kids and i see the good and and sometimes the bad as well and so like being around that all the time starts it kind of starts to teach you about yourself a little bit more as well and so that's kind of been interesting um to to be in um an environment where you're exploring but also exploring yourself a little bit more too it's kind of cool yeah but you're it helps you to grow i think which is important i think we always need to be growing and learning and developing and i think this has really provided an opportunity for all of us to grow and to develop into better people [Music] so this is the kids area uh part of the school bus and when we were designing this area we spent extra time talking with the kids and thinking through what they would need going from living in a home to living in a school bus i knew would be a big change for them so josh and i wanted them to feel as comfortable as possible and to have their own space so they could just get away if they needed to just have some alone time so we had decided that bunks would be the best idea so this upper one is parker's bunk and the lower is our oldest son dylan's and then haley is over here on this side and then we love love love that we left this open down here so this gives them space to play um it gives space for just storage we also brought along our playstation so they can play games and connect with their friends we just felt that that was important that they could still stay connected with their friends when we started thinking about designing the bus we asked the kids what was their number one thing that they would want in the bus and they all decided they wanted monkey bars and so josh installed these monkey bars and they have actually come in really handy the kids have a lot of fun swinging on them it kind of gets out some energy and they can just be goofy in this space we let them design and pick out all of their um colors and comforters and then we let them paint their areas so haley went with a starry night theme and she did all of this work herself and we just think it's so beautiful and parker he did this is marshmallow and it actually glows in the dark so when you turn out the lights everything's black and then he glows and then dylan he designed his own area and he's got his school books and all of his things just tucked away as necessary on this side of the kids area we have all of their clothing stored at the foot of the bed in these little cubbies and so what we did we chose not to have knobs on the face of them so that when you walk through you don't catch yourself on them it just creates a bigger space when you're in the school bus and then there are magnets that hold them closed so that when you are driving they don't bounce open and everything comes out we asked them what they would like in their area as well and so parker he's going to show you a little bit of what they designed here behind my stuffed animals um i have bins to store my stuff that i want to put in my cubby area and then i have a secret compartment that i can reach in and um i can grab stuff out of there we thought it would be great for them to have space where they could store their special items and so they have little cubby areas where they can put baskets of where their books and toys that they want to keep there's also a usb charger in there and an outlet so they can have fans if they want and then yes parker loves his little secret cubby storage area compartment that's up here and back this way is our master bedroom and i'll show you that now this is our master bedroom and we absolutely love this space with all the windows and it's just such a beautiful view we debated on the size of the bed and which direction the bed should be and we finally decided that we wanted a queen-size bed so that we were comfortable that's the size of bed that we have at home and we didn't want to go any smaller so we went with a queen-size bed and then we debated whether haven't to have the bed this direction or have it where the head is at the end of the bus so that josh and i could get into the bed easily well we decided to go with the bed this direction and yes one person does have to crawl in but it gave us a lot more a lot more floor space and the floor space was important for me because i love to exercise but i don't necessarily like to go outside when it's cold early in the mornings and so this provides a lot of space for me it also provides a lot of space for josh and i to be in here together whether we're getting ready or putting our laundry away or things like that under the bed we have a lot of storage this is where all our clothes go we put everything into baskets and the baskets are actually working out well because you can just pull a basket out and set it on the bed find what you're looking for and then just put the basket back i asked josh if i could have a place for just my things like makeup and toiletries and things like that so it wouldn't be in the bathroom in the way of the whole family and so he designed this sweet little dresser area for me there's outlets here so if i wanted to plug in a curling iron or a blow dryer or something i can plug it in here so i think the number one feature to have in a schooly are hooks we have hooks everywhere in this bus they come in so handy it gets everything off the floor and it just kind of keeps things organized and clean and so we can hang our hats and i hang my coats down here and my purse down here josh has a lot of hooks on his side for his hats and his clothes and things like that [Music] so my encouragement to people would be if you're looking at doing this you feel like this is something that god put on your heart to do um just follow along because um i think that though it for me it didn't always seem like the uh the way to do it was clear or that the steps were clear but i think just stepping one foot for the other and getting after it i think is um [Music] you'll find your way to that i guess that dream that you that you're hoping for um so pursue it it's on your heart for a reason and and it's worth it this is the the front area kind of our cockpit and just front entry area some of the some of the features that we thought were important on this bus are uh to have a swivel seat up front and uh it was just important to us number one for susan to be able to sit next to me while we're driving so that we can kind of see the same things and talk and enjoy the ride um and then secondly to be able to swivel it around and and hang out when we're when we're in lounge mode so this becomes part of our living room and becomes part of our driving area when we're on the road the bus is like i said a 40-foot uh thomas safety liner it's got a mercedes-benz engine it's plenty of power for what we need we tow jeep with it as well the one thing that's nice about this bus that we um that we love is that the engine is actually in the rear and so for us um sitting up front it's nice and quiet there's no heat from the engine stuff like that we purchased these off of amazon these are pioneer mini splits so the outside unit hangs below the bus which we installed and the inside unit one hangs up here and one hangs in the back and keeps the bus cool while we're sitting on the outside here a couple of things that we can mention when we bought the bus we really looked for a bus that already had the under storage underbelly storage so like athletic buses have a ton of storage underneath them this one didn't it didn't have any storage under it so we had to add it to it so what we did was we found a company in indiana that builds these rv doors with the slam latches on them and they send them out to you in one piece so that was the door solution that we came up with susan's dad is actually a master engineer and fabricator of aluminum so he came up with these four foot wide boxes basically they had a flange around them and then we mounted that up behind the skirt of the bus so you can't see any of it from the outside and we just screwed through that flange to hold it in place mounted some brackets on the back side and we've got a nice four foot wide two foot deep uh storage bay here and this just holds all of our outside stuff so our bag chairs and our um grill and stuff like that you know outside stuff so we've got two of those and then we just installed a table on the outside a drop down table and it's been really helpful to have an outside table one of the things that we thought was important on the on the bus is to leave the bus doors almost as is we really like the way that they look and the full height glass is really cool this had an air door to it so you had to have a switch inside and it didn't really work well when you're parked so what we did was we removed the cylinder the air cylinder and all the wiring from it and just used one hinge and then installed um angle iron at the top and bottom to kind of give it a little bit of rigidity and then we built a sort of a mullion or end cap over here on this side which holds the this is basically a a patio door lock and we just bolted all the stuff together and it works like a regular swing door and we really love that because it keeps the original look on this side of the bus um we've got an outdoor shower that we installed on the back side of the kitchen so the plumbing was really easy to run out here for this we've got the fill station for the diesel heaters this is kind of the the hookup area as well so this is our water fresh water fill right here behind this door we've got the um dump station area behind this panel here the generator is right behind this panel here so it's uh we found my buddy ryan installed this this generator that we found on craigslist it was an old rv generator it's like 30 amps so it handles pretty much everything we need in the bus it's pretty sweet it works really well and then we've got our 50 amp connection here for shore power as well we can accept 50 amps or 30 amps we really only need 30 but 50 is nice to have every once in a while some of the important things for for the kids was to have all of our bikes with us obviously so we've got that on the back of the jeep we bought a pit bike in kansas city at a tractor supply place coleman 200 cu something like that but it's been a huge hit for the kids they use it pretty much non-stop when we're parked and it's really fun a cool way to see like some of this blm land that we're parked on and um it's been really fun so anyway that sits up here on this rack here and then we've got our tow bar and that's how we tow the jeep and so this is kind of our our fun zone back here where all the toys live we've found that we really enjoy building buses out we enjoy the process it's something that kind of takes all the skills that we have and puts them in one place it's been really fun working with friends and family to do this and so like we would like to continue to do this as we move forward we've really enjoyed renting buses out that's been really fun um we are thinking about doing this as a way of just continuing to build buses for other people and stuff like that so um you can reach out anytime uh our website is radhomes.com r-a-d-h-o-m-e-s dot com and uh you can find us on there we're on social media at uh finding us bus well like we said before guys we're the johnsons and we just love being able to share our tiny home with you and it was a fun journey to go on with you and so we just thank you so much and we hope you have a great day bye [Music] you

Channel: Tiny Home Tours

Views: 1,175,980

Keywords: tiny house, tiny house on wheels, living big in a tiny house, tiny house movement, tiny home, small house, small spaces, small house design, alternative living, architecture, affordable home, off the grid, small space living, tiny house life, diy tiny house, diy home, van life, school bus conversion, skoolie tour, family travel, diy skoolie, skoolie conversion, family rv tour, family rv living, camper van, tiny home on wheels, family rv life, family skoolie

Id: vEHhbHsfY7A

Length: 26min 13sec (1573 seconds)

Published: Sun May 02 2021