*One of a Kind* School Bus Tiny House Conversion Built with Salvaged Materials

[Music] in this video we're touring a beautiful retro school bus conversion that was built with mostly reclaimed and salvaged materials the bus conversion is packed with fun and unique features but it's also quite functional with a kitchen a lounging area an indoor shower and a composting toilet the owner is going to give us a full tour of the space so let's check it out this video is sponsored by nordvpn we'll tell you more about them at the end plus what you need to get a huge discount on their vpn service it's a 1969 international school bus and it's been converted into a little tiny house airbnb so i had a lot of help from a handyman with a lot of the parts of the construction of the bus it's been gutted right down to the bare bones and redone a lot of the materials were salvaged locally and i did all the sort of designing and painting and a lot of the accessories and stuff like that i'm going for kind of a retro vibe i'm born in the late 70s and i feel like a lot of people my age have some nostalgia around their childhoods [Music] from the back of the bus to here which would be the the passenger area is 16 feet and it's another three feet or so to the edge of the window and it's uh seven and a half feet wide and it's five foot ten and a half in the middle so when you first come in i've got a couple of little coat hooks here for your stuff and this is a space for shoes and stuff right here we have a electrical panel box which i suppose you could hide some secret stuff in there right here where the driver's seat was is now been turned into a shower i just happen to find these granite tiles on the side of the road on my way home one day um this is just ordered from online it's that spray and stick onto glass so it makes it opaque however i quickly discovered that if you have a hot steamy shower going in this tiny space and no real ventilation the smoke alarm goes off so i had to put notes everywhere went a little crazy with my label machine to open the window when you're showering so this just gives the steam a place to escape we call it the kitschy kitchenette it's not really meant for cooking huge gourmet meals but i've just got a two burner propane stove and this is pretty essential because it gets pretty stinky in here otherwise so having a fan is really great with a light on it there's a little bit of storage up there for for cups and this is just um silverware and all the pots and pans uh toaster and stuff like that is under here i kind of wanted to get one of those like cute retro fridges but also was trying to keep in line with not just buying stuff for the sake of buying stuff and i had a working mini fridge so i actually just spray painted it so it's just a regular old mini fridge painted and then up here i've got compost and tea and oatmeal for my guests this counter was on the discount uh rack at lowe's because it was broken on either end but we cut it down and made it work we have an ecotemp on-demand hot water system installed at the back of the uh of the bus and it's plumbed into all the water sources in the bus a couple of the windows don't open um but most of them do so it's kind of nice you can hear the birds and get rid of the smells if you're cooking a lot so this is a sort of just a little desk area i've got a folding stool here so if somebody needs to write a letter uh you can because i'm going for a copper theme i thought a penny countertop would be great i've got pennies ranging from the 60s all the way up to when they stopped making pennies so um it's kind of a fun thing if you can find your birth year on the countertop i glued the pennies down with gorilla glue and then poured a few layers of epoxy on we've moved about 18 inches over into the living room section uh this opens up so um you know if someone was living here it would probably be a pantry space but for airbnb guests it could be for your suitcase or your stuff that you're not going to use that much under here i've got extra bedding for the guests on this side these are all retro board games there's a little arm there to put it up so you can rummage around i've got jenga and yahtzee and scrabble and you know all the old games that we played as kids these were the wheel wells of the bus so it naturally needed to be something higher because there isn't a real floor here um so yeah we made it into sort of a seating area i just bought some fabric from fabric land and made these covers myself and uh then took an old tv table from the thrift store which was a fair bit smaller you can see the original table there and just screwed it on with a bigger piece and stained it the same as the rest of the bus it's not perfect but you can just put it up like that so if you want to do a puzzle or play a game or eat you can put it in either direction so underneath the bed there's actually quite a lot of storage i've got just some bins under here but if someone was living here they could probably you know store their winter gear or things they don't use that often or even make some kind of a pantry under here because it's quite spacious it's the whole footprint of the bed i've got a dickinson marine stove which is normally made for boats you basically just open it up and take a barbecue lighter which i've got here beside the stove and click it light it and close it up and there's a fan on it makes a beautiful little flame cranks out a lot of heat and it can you know take the bus from quite chilly to quite toasty in a short amount of time the bus is pretty well insulated it's got the blue rigid foam insulation all through the the ceiling and the walls uh the floor isn't done yet and i think what i'm going to be doing this fall is the spray foam insulation underneath the bust because i think that would make a difference the floor does get kind of cold this is just a regular queen size bed and there's a little bit of an indentation here so that you don't hit the back of your thighs as you're hopping in and out of bed but it fits right in there it's a pretty comfy mattress and then you open this up there's some compartments here for you know maybe your books or whatever you want to keep in there and then this part here is stationary so that if you want to have you know a water bottle or something like that you don't have to move it in order to move that this is a covered deck it's plywood over here and there's some clear sheeting over here which lets a lot of light in and this is actually an old school desk and these chairs are also from an old school so this is a spot where you can have your morning coffee or play some cards or call the complaint department um this is a glamorous outhouse this is an old door from the restore with some door hardware from the restore uh here we have an envirolet composting toilet this is just the regular pvc tubing but i painted it copper color there's a sink here with hot running water and vanity and i used osb plywood in a very foolish attempt to try and save money which ended up taking about nine layers of paint i don't recommend it it's very thirsty for paint but i got a little stencil did that with some copper paint this is some recycled glass i believe it was from a church cut down into a couple of windows and when the light comes through it's really pretty we're on the far side of the bus this is a little seating area there's uh it gets a lot of sun in the afternoon got a fire pit here and some fresh herbs for people that might be marinating things for the barbecue and just some whimsical planters and stuff that i made out of junk i just thought it would be fun to host people from all over the place and make a little side income while i'm at it you know i do landscaping and baking and cooking and house cleaning and i'm also a care aide lots of hats my father is cuban and in cuba they reuse everything and my mother was one of eight kids and they didn't have a lot and my grandmother was probably one of the most resourceful people around and so i do come from a long line of hard-working people that value reusing things and making something out of nothing so this is my way of continuing that family tradition if you want to check out this beautiful school bus conversion we'll put the airbnb link in the description below we also want to thank nordvpn for sponsoring this video we've been using their virtual private network service for three and a half years now and it's a service that will probably never go without because it's just too important nordvpn keeps your internet data safe behind the wall of next generation encryption and they don't track collect or share your private data it's easy to use on multiple devices and if you ever do have a problem they have a 24 7 support team to help right now you can get a two year plan at a huge discount plus one free additional month when you go to nordvpn.com exploring alternatives they have a 30 day money back guarantee so there's no risk in giving it a try to get the deal our link is 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Channel: Exploring Alternatives

Views: 888,215

Keywords: skoolie, school, bus, conversion, DIY, retro, 1969, International, blue, converted, shower, toilet, composting, kitchen, bedroom, storage, bathroom, desk, table, work space, office, reclaimed, salvaged, secondhand, vintage, repurposed, thrifted, budget, BC, Canada, Vancouver Island, Exploring Alternatives, Old School B&B, accommodation, rental, tour, interior, design, roof, tiny house, tiny house on wheels, painted, painting, covered, patio, porch, parked, heat, insulation, windows, door, hippie, kitsch, kitschy

Id: pHKdzKSznig

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 27 2021