School Bus Converted To Incredible Off-Grid Home

The great American Road is a true bucket list item for many of us, and yet sadly few of us will make it a reality in our lifetime. Today though I traveled to Wilmington, North Carolina to meet an adventurous young couple who have taken a former

school

bus and transformed it into an amazing off-

grid

home

on wheels that allowed their family to take life on the road. . Good morning Luke, how are you doing? Good friend, hi Rachel, how are you? Good how are you? Nice to meet you? This is a bus that looks absolutely made for adventure. is, how did you come up with the idea of ​​converting a

school

bus and taking it on the road?

Actually, it was some kind of friend who told us about the idea of ​​a school II, which is what it's called, and we thought about it, we talked about it, and we didn't even know what it was, honestly, but after two months having heard the You had bought a bus and you did all the conversion work yourself, right? We did it, yes we did it all ourselves, it took us about a year and a half and now it's finished. Now it's on the road. When you start a project like this, did you already have skills? Did you know what you were doing or was it a big learning curve? a little of both.

I've definitely worked a lot in the trade for about 10 years, welding and fabrication and all that was my usual strong point, but I also had to learn a lot, you know, making all the electrical components. the lot and this is the bus that. And this is a but it really looks like it's designed to go places and you also have quite a bit of solar on the roof, I guess you're off the

grid

on this one. completely off the grid, we have like 900 watts of solar and a battery bank and plenty of free space to play jeep.

And you even have some extra toys that threaten the bus too for when you park. Yes, there are four. You know, once we get to a city or somewhere where the road gets too tight for a giant school bus, we can park it and grab the bikes. I can't wait to take a look inside and say whatever you want. I'm done with the place, let's check in. Hey, okay, oh, this is really cold. This is much higher than most buses. I've seen it before too. You've just done a little work to extend it. Yes, we breathe the route 20 inches from the original bus.

That's quite Yes, it was a living task, but as a welder I was going to do it. It really made a difference too because it totally opened up the space and this is probably one of the most spacious feeling buses I've ever seen. been inside Mm-hmm. It definitely helps to make it feel a lot wider than it is by not seeing the ceiling right in your line of sight and also the way you placed the wood on the ceiling. It definitely helps give the interior more of a

home

y feel. here right now doesn't feel at all like being inside us, that was one of the goals in raising the roof was to make it feel less like a bus and more like a real house, we're in the kitchen right now and it's a great size, It is not like this?

You have a lot of space here to work. Yes. It's amazing. I'm used to being in the kitchen. I was a baker before we moved here, so the kitchen is my place, so I definitely wanted a big one. It's things like that that can make a difference if you don't want to. Commit to the things you have to do day to day if you cook in small spaces. It can definitely make small spaces a little difficult and with this stove we can cook any meal you know we could. do in an old house We haven't really had to make concessions.

In fact, we ended up with some extra storage. Yes, we didn't even end up filling all the cabinets with just kitchen items. It worked great and the living space was a really nice area too. Here you have a beautiful dining table, a good sized sofa and no home is really complete without Wi-Fi. Or is it true that that really completes the homey touch and our living room? There is a lot more than what you would see, like the table can be folded against the wall and both chairs are stackable so you can open up all this space and the sofa can also be folded to become a bed.

It has storage underneath so again I make use of all the furniture but what I love about this is that it still works completely as is without having to do anything if you need a table. You don't have to go through all the effort right now of folding it every time you want to eat, right? And that was a big consideration because you definitely, like you said, you don't want to have to go through steps just to use something that we use every day. So, the table is always up, but it can be lowered, the chairs can be stacked on the sofa.

It can be folded up into a bed, but as it is, it's usually ready to go now that you're the designer here because there are some really cool little design touches throughout this birthday party, like these really cool white accessories and the feature wall , I think we both had our own. My father-in-law made my own contributions here and there, and then I did the whole wall on my own, that was the only thing I really wanted to do, but yeah, it's both of us. I have little tweaks here and there so here. We have the bathroom Mm-Hmm So this is our bathroom.

It's actually a lovely size for a bus and you've managed to fit a lot into the space. Yes we did, it's a full bathroom and it's smaller than some houses, but you live on a bus. So you have to make some changes? we have a full shower and tub for our daughter and a toilet and everything. Composting toilets are very popular in small homes and are a brilliant solution, especially for static. What is it really like to have a composting toilet and use it on the road? Actually, probably one of the best decisions. We did it because we knew we didn't do it in a black tank.

We weren't really sold on the composting toy when we first got it, but we really didn't want to have to deal with throwing out a black tank. Especially because we want to. being able to be off the grid as much as possible. And we felt like if we had a tank, we'd have to dump sand, which would kind of get in the way of the fact that until now the composting toilet has been the way to go, we haven't had one. There really are problems with that and it's definitely easy to live with and then pass through here.

We have their bedrooms and believe it or not. There are actually two in this house, so our daughter sleeps in the lowest, perpendicular spot on her little, like a crib-sized mattress, and she usually has a little curtain that hooks along the space to go black. outside and then obviously we're up here, and it looks like a really comfortable space, hmm. It definitely does the job. And we didn't lose it so high up where you don't even have room to sit. We've never had any problems with hitting our heads or being too close to the ceiling or anything like that, how much time do you guys have?

In fact, we've been living on the bus now. We financed the bus for a year. Mm-hmm. And what was it really like adjusting to life on the road? It took us a little while, especially since we moved before the bus was finished. We had a lot of extra stuff everywhere and tools and flashlights in our living space, so that made it a little difficult. But I would say that after a few weeks the three of us had adjusted pretty well to living in 220 square feet, especially the little one because how old is she? No, he is now two and a half years old.

He was 18 months old when we moved. Many people would say that you were very brave. So they took you on the road with a little boy. Yeah, it was definitely something we thought about a lot, but because she was so young when we moved in, I feel like she actually made it easy for her to adjust, she was only 18 months old and she adapted so quickly and it's scary. It may seem like this is totally normal for her. Thank you, she loves what a wonderful childhood it is to be able to explore and see all of us and what a wonderful way for the child to learn the world.

We definitely consider homeschooling as an option for the future. But I mean, as young as she is, we've been able to teach her a lot. She already has 13 states memorized on the map, and I don't think most of those are two years old. -old people, yes Just some of the things we get to experience especially for her, one of them making new friends, but two, just the wildlife we ​​get to see up close and all the different things she experiences as a child and more people can't see in their adult lives that there are so many people out there who I think would love to consider this type of lifestyle and live like you do, but I think a lot of people are really concerned about how it can be sustainable.

And how can they sustain themselves by traveling on the road, how do they make that work? I work for Plexus, which is a health and wellness company. So I can do it from anywhere as long as I have my phone and connections. Yeah, and I've just been trying to find odd jobs and maintenance stuff, so I travel with all my tools and I've been looking for that kind of work. And what about the cost of this actual project? How much did the bus and conversion cost? and did everything cost you? In fact, we get a lot of sets and we don't have a truly honest answer because we never add that we have all the receipts and we are a little afraid to know what we have really spent on a school bus.

But we assume that we may have spent about 30,000. 30,000 is a big number. I mean you have a really beautiful home here and when you think about that investment and the lifestyle that you can really live as a result of it. That's really cool, yeah, when you compare it to the cost of a real house, it's substantially less, and you know we weren't afraid to spend a little money on it because it's at home. We sold our 1,500 square foot home and this is our only home. I'm sure so far you've only scratched the surface of the

incredible

adventures you'll have on this bus.

Thank you very much for definitely sharing your beautiful home with me. Thanks for coming. This project has been very well done. I have to keep reminding myself that I am in a

converted

place right now. What impresses me most about Luke and Rachel's story? It's how they took limited resources and transformed them into an incredibly great life on the road for their family. I think we can all find a lot of inspiration in that.