Will it be a BUS or a BUST?
This is the story of our bus conversion. There are so many confusing steps just to get started converting a school bus into a living space. Some days it feels like we are walking circles in a forest with a broken compass. For all those who have trudged the path before us and shared your experiences, THANK YOU! This blog is intended to pass on our experience and help others the same way they helped us.
Courtney's version of the story:
After watching TINY: A Story About Living Small, I became fascinated with the idea of minimalism. I think Ben was a bit startled to see the jaw-dropping excitement on my face throughout the entire film. Over the last year my husband has listened to my reasoning and pleas for why we should stop buying "stuff" which really doesn't add meaning to our lives and live in a tiny house. He quickly came on board, seeing that it is to his benefit to agree with the wife. We started following The Minimalists blog. His mother even bought us their latest book, Everything That Remains, and we devoured it. This lead to numerous conversations about living intentionally. We already live in a pretty small house and tried to imagine what it would really be like to live even smaller. Ben still thought the tiny house idea was a bit extreme, until the day I flashed a diesel engine in front of his eyes. We watched Bus Life, and suddenly he was selling the tiny house idea to me as if it were his own. So, Ben came up with a brilliant idea that I think I can go along with: buy a bus (diesel engine=manly), turn it into a tiny house. We're not certain about the logistics, but we are certain that this experience will teach us new things, about power tools and about ourselves.
Ben's version of the story:
Before we got married, Courtney would say crazy things like “I’d like to live in a tiny house some day--you know, one room, a couple hundred square feet.” At the time, I chalked it up to a romantic notion, and filed it away under “things that will no longer be an issue after living with me for a short time.” And yet, it was an idea that we kept coming back to; after all, we both find the idea of "less shit, more freedom" appealing. And so, as Courtney has explained, our ideas evolved (devolved?) into our diesel castle experiment. And that’s really what we have here: a good ole "I wonder what would happen if we..." type of experiment. Maybe we end up with a nifty rolling home, a one-of-a-kind road-trippin' RV...or, maybe it's just a bus(t).
Great websites for bus conversions:
http://www.skoolie.net/forums/
http://www.justrightbus.com/
http://shalommama.com/diy-bus-conversion
http://bluebirdmama.com/2012/06/eliza-brownhome-2-0/
http://tinyhousefor.us/tiny-house-spotlight/couple-transforms-school-bus-into-a-seriously-cozy-home/
This is the story of our bus conversion. There are so many confusing steps just to get started converting a school bus into a living space. Some days it feels like we are walking circles in a forest with a broken compass. For all those who have trudged the path before us and shared your experiences, THANK YOU! This blog is intended to pass on our experience and help others the same way they helped us.
Courtney's version of the story:
After watching TINY: A Story About Living Small, I became fascinated with the idea of minimalism. I think Ben was a bit startled to see the jaw-dropping excitement on my face throughout the entire film. Over the last year my husband has listened to my reasoning and pleas for why we should stop buying "stuff" which really doesn't add meaning to our lives and live in a tiny house. He quickly came on board, seeing that it is to his benefit to agree with the wife. We started following The Minimalists blog. His mother even bought us their latest book, Everything That Remains, and we devoured it. This lead to numerous conversations about living intentionally. We already live in a pretty small house and tried to imagine what it would really be like to live even smaller. Ben still thought the tiny house idea was a bit extreme, until the day I flashed a diesel engine in front of his eyes. We watched Bus Life, and suddenly he was selling the tiny house idea to me as if it were his own. So, Ben came up with a brilliant idea that I think I can go along with: buy a bus (diesel engine=manly), turn it into a tiny house. We're not certain about the logistics, but we are certain that this experience will teach us new things, about power tools and about ourselves.
Ben's version of the story:
Before we got married, Courtney would say crazy things like “I’d like to live in a tiny house some day--you know, one room, a couple hundred square feet.” At the time, I chalked it up to a romantic notion, and filed it away under “things that will no longer be an issue after living with me for a short time.” And yet, it was an idea that we kept coming back to; after all, we both find the idea of "less shit, more freedom" appealing. And so, as Courtney has explained, our ideas evolved (devolved?) into our diesel castle experiment. And that’s really what we have here: a good ole "I wonder what would happen if we..." type of experiment. Maybe we end up with a nifty rolling home, a one-of-a-kind road-trippin' RV...or, maybe it's just a bus(t).
Great websites for bus conversions:
http://www.skoolie.net/forums/
http://www.justrightbus.com/
http://shalommama.com/diy-bus-conversion
http://bluebirdmama.com/2012/06/eliza-brownhome-2-0/
http://tinyhousefor.us/tiny-house-spotlight/couple-transforms-school-bus-into-a-seriously-cozy-home/