Family's Amazing Bus Tiny Home Conversion: BEST Skoolie eva!

[Music] I'm Shila Jonathan this is our home Dorothy we're a full-time family we have four kids we have a 14 a 17 year old and a six and eight year old it is a lot the two teams are part time with us so sometimes it's a lot alive sometimes it's just a lot we also have two dogs three dogs big dogs for me if he means freedom I mean and that's our life everything in our life is about freedom and our rights are human rights and people not being able to tell us no so freedom like that's what being a hippie means to me and being natural living as naturally as possible is really important to us and but like with a border of sanity yeah it's being in nature as well and barefoot Dorothy's in 1998 Bluebird TC 2000 the activity bus so she came with the base now it's nice and low my lower miles because it wasn't used as much as a regular school bus it's got a 5 9 Cummins diesel in it with Allison Transmission it's a front engine yeah we love it we've been living in the bus for almost two years we started in the camper and way back then we were actually researching going off grid like homesteading kind of stuff so we discovered the full time families group on Facebook and it was just this like light bulb moment like oh my gosh there were people doing this full-time with their kids and we went out bought a camper and we did that for a little over a year and it wasn't quite right so we built the bus and it's been perfect I mean two years later it's still perfect so kind of just happened we jump it's fun to jump that's my planning can be like hard because you then you overlook the perfect opportunities right in front of you if you plan to ours though [Music] come on in and check it out [Music] you welcome to the front of our bus this was kind of the most recent additions to our bus we have the giant bookshelf up top which was massive addition for us the swinging table that swings up out of the way so Jonathan can access the doghouse so the button is down on the bottom are kind of special so the buses name is Dorothy we're from Kansas and that's the yellow brick road so that's like where Oz fans we both were a long time ago and it just comes together really well this space over here is is like the kids space so this is where the II this is where they do their schoolwork workbooks coloring crafts kids space all the way which works out really well because we actually left part of the wheel well exposed for like a little footrest TV that never gets used genuine 1970s lamp that I adore over here the couch the big couch was a really big deal to us because we did come from a camper and we didn't have a family space so we wanted to all be able to watch a movie on the couch and we can and we loved it so it's super comfy doubles as a guest bed it's very nice up here we have another bookshelf I recently added the curtains I'm not sure if I like them or not but that added a lot of storage to when we added those so was it a boss of course we added a didgeridoo to our family recently it was gifted to my husband we have not learned to play yet on our way to Tucson we're gonna add drums to the family too like we fell in love with the whole gem circle thing it's cool we blew that no aesthetics is all her so you can see it I did it if you can't see it he did it he makes it function and he's amazing at it and I make it pretty and yeah I'm pretty much a craft supply Porter there's craft supplies stuck everywhere on this bus because I'll find something and eventually it's gonna be something pretty so basically in the apocalypse we're gonna be good on craft facts facts last year we added two dogs to our family they didn't start this journey with us so we kind of had to find places for their things we've got the two dog bowls and they're kind of inset so they don't spill all over the place it actually used to be two bowls longer and we didn't use the donor bowls and so we cut that down and it's it's perfect for the dogs this map here is everywhere the bus has been everywhere that the bus has spent time and so that's kind of fun to track and hopefully to fill in some more Eastern stuff this year this is our kitchen so this was a really big deal to meet with they have a really big kitchen because I cook all of our meals so this is this is like my cooking space my crafting space this is this is my office welcome to my office and we have the fruit baskets and the onion bags and they hold so much of our stuff and then I also added the produce boxes to hold even more stuff because we go through so much fresh fruit all of the wood I painted it was a huge project and very time-consuming over here we have our jars I believe they're half gallon jars they're really big jars they have a bolt and a really big washer through the lid and the bottom of the cabinet so they just they just hang out and unscrew and they're really nice they hold a lot of stuff I can get it back up we really enjoy those so I painted all of the counter tops and and all of the wood that you see in here it's it's kind of a unique process it's like I just kind of slop on a layer of paint sand it down slap on a layer of stain sand it down and do that over and over until I'm happy with what comes out of it so and same up here it's just um there's probably ten different colors of stain on this counter and I just kind of like slop it around and sand it down and so I'm happy with it that was one of the hardest things for me in the build because every time I thought I was done making wood I had to make more wood that was frustrating and tiring we have an apartment-sized it's a gas stove that we've converted to propane and then we've got the apartment size refrigerator is ten cubic feet inside and it's got tons of space inside grocery day can be a little Jinga but it's it's perfect for us and even our cabinets this one's messy but lots and lots of space tons of storage space we have our rollout pantry which adds a lot of storage space for us which is really really nice that was kind of like an afterthought that we didn't know we were doing and I'm so glad we did because it has been a space saver for sure we have a double it's it's an RV sink so it's not as big as like a house sink is but it's a double sink which is really important to me and we have dedicated dish drying space as well as our dish drying rack that'll show in a second and then we also recently added a reverse osmosis drinking water filter so that we didn't have to carry around gallons of water to drink anymore and that's been a really really nice additions that we've added up here we have our dish drying cabinet and so we just put our wet dishes up there and then they just drain down into the sink and and all over this area here and they just live there and all this whole area is super water proof hey waters the plant for us so that is super nice that's my favorite thing in the whole bus and then we have our pullout trashcan so lots of trash space and dog food space this wallpaper it's just wallpaper from Amazon but it actually inspired all of the colors in the bus I found it and I fell in love with it and I mash lower paint colors to it so it's it's really fun we really love the colors and in the feel that it gives the space so this area is sort of the bathroom on this side of this truck is a shower and around the corner here is a toilet but everybody comes in thinking that they can walk through this wall would be curtain [Music] we're here we have our bathroom our toilet we have a DIY composting toilet which we really really love it's super efficient for us we have shelving inside the bathroom over here on all of our towel storage we have a really large peat moss bin which we like because I only have to fill it maybe once a month or so and over here on this side is our shower and our super fancy shower light so that was my husband's demands that we had a big shower so it is it's pretty spacious it's 32 inches by 32 inches so it's a pretty spacious shower we also added this door this wasn't part of our original plan because this gives privacy for whenever my teenagers are showering and it also gave us how storage which was really nice so that just locks into place this is the only thing that we have to make sure it's locked whenever we drive and it's normally locked anyways so no big deal over here's our bathroom sink we did debate on whether we wanted two sinks or not my big thing is I don't want to brush my teeth over dirty dishes so we did decide to do a bathroom sink and it's nothing too special it's our bathroom area and then our fancy swinging mirror that everybody is super amused with because we couldn't figure out how else to mount it we have a lot of storage down under the sink it's like a endless endless cabinet down there and we do have these really neat lights they're magnetic and they're motion activated so when we open some of the cabinets the ones that have them the lights just turn on and they're magnetic so they stick to their little strips so those are really handy those are a recent addition that I adore down here is our one of our kind of power centers this is like the 12 volt Center that has has our light above the sink as our water pump and our water heater all on it this is the master bedroom if you will this was our big sacrifice to get the floor plan that we have is we've always had a king sized bed and this is actually less than a full it's called a 3/4 it's 48 inches and a 4 is 54 inches so but it's been fine me my husband and the biggest dog I'll sleep on it just fine we love it we have the storage up above which isn't meant to be laptop storage it doesn't always work that way a lot of craft supply is stored up there we have the light that I love it's just like a sensor because I love that like it amuses me I love lights apparently and then we have over here on this side there's actually side tables built in to the side so that's really nice and then my husband's itty-bitty side table over there on this side we have the master closet it's it's pretty big I think it's five foot by two foot and it has the lights in there as well actually that I forgot to turn off earlier and had stuff full of clothes obviously but it's it's a good space for us we really enjoy it and it's again over the wheel well and again we left part of the wheel well exposed because if we would have built the closet all the way around it this wall walkway would have been very uncomfortable so it's no big deal except the kids love to climb on it over here we have like our solar control like area that has all that important stuff on it and it also has a switch for our Togo Wi-Fi that's on the roof so we can turn that on and off which is really nice I appreciate that on this side we have our laundry hamper I was originally going to get a laundry hamper into one of the bays like a trap door and that didn't work because we got solar so we made this work for a laundry hamper this back here is our bunk room and this is our door to shut off our bunk room we don't use it very often but it is really nice to have I mean really there's a big sound barrier between the cheese place two spaces anyways but when we need it it is really nice to have and it's just on drawer glides nothing special and this is picture wall number two we love pictures around here so this is our walkway into our bunk room we were actually a little bit worried about it's only 18 to 18 inches wide and it's been just fine it works great for us even my husband who's not a small guy so as you walk into the bunk room we have four bumps on this side but the first thing you come to is the closet and I believe it's 29 and she's deep 18 wide maybe and it's hard to store things in this space so we actually have these pull-out clothing racks in it and it's not super organized it's it's kind of chaotic but that is how we store the kids clothes the Younger twos closes there and all sorts of other organized chaos above that and then and here is all the bunks so we have four kids as I said the two teens are part-time so their bunks are on the bottom this is my 14 year old daughter Natalie's bed and this is my 17 year old son Jaden's bed and so they're here part-time so we made it to where their bunks could swing up out of the way and leave room for the younger two to have play space this is the giant Lego box and oftentimes there's lots of Legos all over the floor back here the top bunks this is Sadie's bed she's six and this is Jackson's bed he's eight and they both have their own unique style in their bedrooms and they love their spaces and this over here is it's a multi-purpose thing so this is their toy box down below and it also is their steps up to their bunk and then back inside here there's actually a little side table for charging and water bottles sure there's water bottle holders as well and so lots and lots of different things for everybody built in and recently I added these curtains for everybody so they get lots of privacy that way which has been a really nice addition for everybody we have a shell machine that we run every night so that everybody sleeps really well and it's pretty great this here is actually our duct work so we have an RV furnace up front and we ran duct work back to the back and it's not the most efficient thing in the world so if we had to change one thing in this entire build it would be our repeating situation that's it so I call that one [Music] all right welcome to the outside of the bus this is actually was this activity bus when it was in the school district so it didn't really have a whole lot of miles on it but the biggest reason we like this bus is because it came with these Bay and the bays have been huge for us with not only storage but fitting some of our systems in there all right this middle bay here is actually our garage so you'll see all of our kind of tools and things like that but the biggest thing we have in here is we've got a 24 gallon propane tank in here it's actually 29 gallon so it holds 24 gallons of propane right in the back bay here has our battery we have eight batteries totaling nine hundred amp hours and they are charged from our solar panel so we have up top so we have 1140 watts of solar that we got from go power and it pretty much powers all of our needs that we have from a day to day basis back here we have our deck it's a 2 foot deck making the total length of the bus just under 40 feet this stuff right here we just got a we got it tied down here I'm actually gonna build a swing out rack to hold all this stuff because our rear door does open and so we like to pull up somewhere and open the rear door and you can hang out back here and over here we have all of our gas tanks I built this custom rack for our generator gas this Rack is actually built out of 100% reused RV parts so you'll kind of notice we've got Jack's from a fifth wheel and just some random stuff that I pulled out of an RV junkyard so over here we've got our 6300 what Yamaha generator and we use it on heavy power days if we're doing a lot of stuff crafting she's sewing in there we'll turn on the generator our our solar will power our air conditioner but it won't it won't do it for very long maybe a couple hours so we do run the generator it's a lot cheaper to run the generator and it's less wear and tear and the batteries too to run the air conditioner alright so back here we have two 55-gallon drums that hold our freshwater and then we have a selector so we can empty one and then switched to the other and also our reverse osmosis feeds back into this with the wastewater as well so it gets mixed in and then goes back up into the into the coach we also have a 55-gallon drum for our gray water on the other side and I just put a three-inch dump valve on as well so we can dump you know the Darvey dumps so I started a web design company in 2017 and that's basically what I do I build I specialize in the Wix platform and building custom web sites that are beyond the DIY type of websites that you'll find a lot of coding and custom applications and things like that I am currently raising children and schooling children and figuring out what I want to be when I grow up we boondock exclusively so we say you know a lot of national forest lands BLM lands that's mostly in the West and then once we get a little bit further east and Midwest there's a lot of parking lots involved we do have a property in Kansas City that we actually bought for building the bus on and we stay there sometimes when we're there but so that's where we home-based out of is Kansas City that's where my teens are when they're not with us so that's where we're headed now circle back and spend some time with them and I feel like the more I live this lifestyle the more out of the box I keep stepping and I love it so much and them too yes absolutely [Music] hey guys it's Alexis and Christian thank you very much for watching our video yes and subscribing to our Channel and don't forget to check out more tiny house stories and tours oh and don't forget to join us on patreon and again don't forget to subscribe see you next time take it easy guys

Channel: Tiny House Expedition

Views: 368,538

Keywords: School bus conversion, tiny home conversion, skoolie, skoolie conversion, tiny home, tiny house on wheels, tiny homes on wheels, tiny house, vanlife, bus conversion, bus life, tiny house movement, nomadic, diy tiny house, small spaces, tiny house design, nomads, tiny house build, living big in a tiny house, simple living, alternative living, small space design, tiny house nation, tiny house big living, tiny house living, THOW, tiny house ideas, school bus tiny home

Id: wohC1hsDNrM

Length: 18min 28sec (1108 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2020