I just stated my conversion of a 2004 Blue Bird school bus. I am hoping to have it finished by the fall of 2017 so that I can live off the grid for the final years of my life. Tired of the rat race and the greed. It's a small handicapped bus but my floor plan rocks! This winter I will put the finishing touches on the items I need for the conversion. Investment thus far: +/- $7,200.00. Estimated completion cost: $12,500.00. When it is completed I will sell my house, rid myself of utilities, pay off all my bills and live on my monthly retirement for the rest of my life.
Jayne Shelby I advice, rent your property, pay off mortgage or if financially strapped sell it pay debts, buy cheaper and rent that, keep your main asset if can.
Some of this is really smart. A few parts though look like a middle class couple figuring out what poor people have always done and making it seem like a new discovery.
EXCELLENT choice ! This long term conversion is on a ROCK SOLID base that will last as long as this wonderful couple cares to keep it. May their lives be safe and healthy and may their adventures be ENDLESS ! ! !
THE BUS IS NOT MY CUP OF TEA, BUT I LOVE THE FACT BOTH OF THEM ARE ON BOARD WITH THEIR UNIQUE LIFESTYLE, AND THEIR CREATIVE EFFORTS AND COLORFUL LIVES. WELL DONE.:) VERY CUTE COUPLE.
You can get thin flexible solar panels now that are just as effective and cheap as regular panels. You could cover the entire roof in panels and they would never have to worry about charging the battery bank again.
The RV we had was sitting 5 years had had snow cave in over the drivers seat and it was raining INSIDE while we drove the 35 miles home , lol , we got it home stripped it , saved what we could and rebuilt . "OL' ROSIE" took us 2 months then every summer we took off (family of 5 + family or friends) for over 10 long distance trips and EVERY SUMMER we spent at the lake for 3 months (moving every 2 weeks and going to work from camp) Was A BLAST :D OH YEH CANT FORGET OL' MONA LISA our childrens Doberman/healer , she protected us from our Montana predators ...man and beast for over 18 years ( miss you little lady !!!)
Thanks for sharing (and in HD!!) these people are pioneers in a new living space. this is freedom like few will know. They're brilliant, they all are. So much more life without things to tie them down. enable more living!
this is legendary, I think this is a great idea, not for everyone as you know but if it's for you, I think go for it. like the owners said, life is about not being in debt and to enjoy eachother, this is living and props to them because they are happy.
My parents did this years ago when we were teens. We moved and traveled then lived in it for a short time. They lived in it for a while longer on their own. We had normal plumbing and stayed in rv parks or camp grounds. We actually had a working shower. Its a neat idea but I have to say ours was alot neater, put together better with a better usage of the space. This place is a mess and weirdly done.
Yes me too Relentless, really lovely idea. I would certainly have utilised the space slightly better. No need for that 'bath tub' either since no one can fit in it unless they told their needs (essentially sitting..) I'd have stuck with a shower. I'm also interested in the differences between a compost toilet VS an incinerating toilet. That's not just what I'd change though in terms of layout. Still, love the idea & all the best to them ! :)
I think it would be cool for like 2-3 months but after that maybe not so much, but to each their own and cheers to them for being out of debt and taking their own path to a happy life.
I think this is fantastic, you are both very creative and interesting. When I was a kid, we had a school bus that was converted into something like this, that we went camping in and had so much fun with in our yard! I do wonder where you park though. Thank you for sharing! Actually, the couple probably will not even see this comment will they?
We also had a bus.. My family, and I would support ourselves by putting on music shows/Concerts. We would go on all sorts of awesome adventures.. My younger brothers: Chris and Danny - red head with freckles.. Plus, my sisters Tracy and Laurie.. My mom Shirley Renfrew Partridge booked all the GIGS...Partridge?? What??? .!!!WAIT A MINUTE!!! that WAS NOT my family.. It was the PARTRIDGE FAMILY i watched on my black and white TV,,, :O* :O(
I just love what they have done ...very nice...I just wish people like this would go into detail on how to make money living this lifestyle? or were to park it without being harassed by the police?
im sure at least one still has a job. unless I missed it in their interview. this is awesome tho! and I don't think Walmart lets you do that anymore, here in Washington state I think there is a one night limit. but still a parking pass would be a whole lot less then a mortgage or rent payment! id love to see the green house they get set up! grow the right stuff and would save of the food bill per month too! awesome job!
We converted a bus. My dad managed to put a full size bath tub in with a a bed over it on hinges that folded up. Really awesome Love your place, you are the greenest people on earth !!
Your home is beautiful! I saw tiny houses recently, and then I saw bus conversions. The creativity and efficiency of both are fantastic, and I plan to convert a bus once I get my degree in two years!
This video was really inspiring video! Its just the comfort I have been looking for moving forward with my life changes. Thank you for sharing your life with me.
Excellent! Inspiring! I lived in a bus in 1992. Was dreaming of the stuff they are doing. I also had to keep quiet about it because I got tired of constantly explaining myself.
The idea that anyone who has any "worth" also owns a lot of property is bull_hit. I pat these people on the back for leaving a smaller footprint on the planet. How big is YOUR footprint? Its people who have those large energy-hogging, wasteful, homes on huge property's that rob future generations of resources.
I am in my 70s now and if I was starting out again, this is the route I would take. The wave of the future for the wise, frugal minimalist. Great jobs guys! I envy you both.
I'd like to see updates on all these bus conversions and "tiny houses". Lots and LOTS of builds and showing off new creations, but VERY few long term updates of daily living shown on youtube.
_"We're just regular people"_ Regular people don't live in buses with solar panels strapped to the roof, my friend. I don't know what's wrong with people. Whats so wrong with admitting that you are in fact different from everyone else? Their bus-house is gorgeous and is worth a million dollars more than a conventional home, I don't get it why they're ashamed to admit that's it hippie.
LOVE it... I most certainly would do this!! Cool couple! Nice thing is they can change their environment around them any time... what piece of real estate allows that!
Megahypercat Conversion homes are different from Mobile homes, and already in American society we look down at people who live in trailers or RVs. The American dream is to live in a large energy-hogging, wasteful, home with a large property, and everyone who watches House Hunters or Check Out My Crib knows this... Normal people means people who conform to normal societal expectations; desires and admiration; including day-to-day living; housing; family; romantic relationships; ect. Most (99% of Americans) do not lead lives inside bus-conversions with solar panels attached to the roof, and you can tell this simply by the couple's social resistance they got from their parents and friends. Normal people watch TV everyday, normal people do not give two shits about the environment, and would never trade a life for modern conveniences for a life inside a vehicle. I live in a apartment, it's nothing like living in a motor-home (of which I lived in too). Now, I don't see anything wrong with being different, or leading a life outside of the norm, but apparently you do. I think they should be proud for rejecting social norms especially if it gives them peace of mind, and it helps the environment. But that's just me. Normal people suck, by experience. They are mindless sheep, being original and creative is something to admire. If you want to dote on about how you totally see mainstream media accept people living in vehicle-conversion-homes, go right ahead. I'll just LMAO.
I don't think where someone lives defines them as "different." I think when they said normal people, they mean they have limbs and blah blah just like every normal person. Sure they live in a bus, but people live in condos, mansions, houses, etc, and they are still regular people. It's definitely uncommon right now at this certain period of time, but with time the different becomes the norm eventually ^^, but they are still regular people.
I have no issue what-so-ever with living in a converted bus and have often dreamed of the idea myself but WTF is with that van? Without that van and with some good mirror tint on the windows instead of the cheap tacky curtains that thing would look rather nice. I'd prefer a more professional looking job on the inside to live in myself but I certainly understand why they've been doing the inside the way they have in steps and what materials so I won't pick on that. Probably one of the biggest things I'd change is have solar panels right down the full length of the roof and a battery bank at the rear of the bus with all the breaker panels and inverters in the same location. But that said I'm addicted to technology as is my wife and children. I know it and I'm not interested in changing it. I would rather cater for the extra power consumption of a full size fridge, nice rv aircon, laptops, WiFi 3/4g, home theatre system in the living area etc and at least then I would be very comfortable with the creation and further enjoy living on the move. I suggested to the wife that we might look at a yacht once the kids have grown and gone. If you don't like your neighbours or the politics of the country, pickup your roap and GTFO to another country or the high seas for a bit. I love the water and with technology to keep me occupied (radios, computer games etc) I could live outside for ages but the wife is NOT keen on living on the water lol. So it looks like once we're old enough we will have to look at a bus or rv ourselves. I need to start organising soon to see if with my eyesight issue I can get the correct vehicle license for a 36-40 footer.
Really impressive. Thanks for posting this. Many of us did want to live like that when we were kids. It's nice to see people who are living their dream.
It's very sad that a basic necessity like shelter costs SO much that people have to resort to living in tiny houses and school buses to be free. Here's an idea. Instead of running from the problem why don't we face the problem head on? Why don't we band together and cut the snake off at the head. That is the only way this situation will get any better. "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" - Mario Savio, Speaking on the steps of Sproul Hall, on December 2, 1964 "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." Henry Ford "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Thomas Jefferson
shelter is quite reasonably priced in many places in this fine land. no reason to storm the bank or decapitate the snake - save your money and purchase it outright if banks are reprehensible to you (or put together a down payment and get a mortgage). TH and HF would probably think other things were more dangerous to our liberties than financial institutions if they walked the earth these days.....
eaufraiche Most people are living paycheck to paycheck and do not have the means of saving enough money to purchase a house outright. Most people wouldn't be able to come up with $2000 in 30 days if they had to. For most people it takes 30 years to pay for their shelter. No shelter is not reasonably priced at all. If it was this nice couple would have one with a foundation. In 1938, the average price for a new house was $3900 while the average annual income was around $1730. A new house would cost you a little more than double your average annual income. Now the average price for a new house is $245,000 and the average annual income is $27,000. Now a new house costs you almost 10 times the average annual income. That's not counting the cost of interest to borrow the money to buy the house! If you factor in that cost a new house costs 20 times the average annual income and that's at today's low interest rates of 3-4%. Our money is becoming worth less and less my friend. That is why two people in a household have to work full time now to keep their heads above water. Women never used to work. People are living in tent cities, tiny houses, campers, school buses, out of their vehicles, etc. just to get by. Just to have a little more freedom from this system. Our dollar is becoming worth less and less. Why? Because they keep printing more and more of it to finance wars that do not need to be fought, for entitlement programs, to give to foreign nations instead of our own people, the list goes on and on. $2.7 million for a federal study to see why lesbians have a higher risk for hazardous drinking, $3.8 million to decrease the human-elephant conflict in Africa, $3 million to study the health risks of dating Mexican prostitutes, $1.5 million to help women quit smoking in Brazil, $464,272 to find out why gay men get syphilis in Peru. I mean it's absolutely ridiculous! The more money they print into circulation the less it is worth. What could be more dangerous than a tyrannical gov taking your rights away little by little controlling almost every move you make and bankers that are manipulating your money causing you to work more and more for less and less? What we are today are a bunch of modern day slaves. The only difference between chattle slavery, which is what the Civil War was fought over, and wage slavery is that you get to choose your slave job. Instead of black slaves now everyone but the elite are slaves. Go stake your claim in a forest somewhere, start building your own house, and see how free you are. Scratch that. Buy your own land cash, build your own house, and see how free you are. You have to FIRST go through the authorities for permits to build on "your" own land. Then you must get several inspections completed by the authorities in order to live in it. Then you must pay rent payments in the form of property taxes to the gov for the rest of your life. Try building a house using natural means like cob, adobe, etc. and see how free you are. We live in a debt based society. Every dollar created is a dollar of debt. This country is over 18 trillion dollars in debt. The question is who do we owe this money to? I'll tell you who we owe this money to, international bankers, who create money out of nothing. They simply make entries in computers and print more paper. They are allowed to loan 10 times more than what they hold in reserves. Usury makes them filthy rich. Our currency is no longer backed by gold the way it used to be before Nixon took us off the gold standard. See through the illusion friend. “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe George Carlin said it best, "The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else." "But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting f***ed by a system that threw them overboard 30 f**king years ago. "You know what they want? Obedient workers people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your f***ing retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this f***ing place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club."
The Astonisher Even if I was wealthy, I would love living in a portable house. If you're like living on the beach and a hurricane comes, you can just leave, take your home with you, not worry about losing your home, and then return to the land once the storm passes.
Nate stormchaser Me too. I work from home so I have the ability to do it. All I need is my laptop, cell phone, and an internet connection. I'm strongly considering it. I would rather live in a van or a motorhome as opposed to paying these greedy bankers interest on a house or a landlord rent. Regardless, we should not allow people to control us. We should band together and demand our freedom. We should clean house in Washington. No member of congress should be in office for over 20 years like most of them are. They are turning this country into a third world nation and it will continue until we stop them.
The Astonisher The only downside i might have to encounter is the bundle of misery gov't. Where I live, you can buy land for as little as $2500 out in the country (I don't need a huge plot of land), but you need to have a septic system installed, which I consider BS when self-composting toilets exist and you can make your own water with a few dehumidifiers.
I think its great that you two are thinking outside of the box. It looks like a lot of fun. And I think its very lucky of a guy to have a girl willing to share a life long dream. Very lucky.
This is totally inspiring! My wife and I are in process now of doing this. So tired of paying rent to finance a landlord's lifestyle or a mortgage manager's instead of my own. People who say they want people like us to "face the problem of higher living instead of running away?" It's people like that that created the problem in the first place, big house and lots of stuff to fill in what was missing. Learning to live with less complication is not "running away", we're just choosing to live our own way and not holding your hands to help you out of debt. People who tell you what to do with your life are afraid of living their own. Well done, you guys, live free!
These folks are having such a great time creating their home! So cool! They've designed so many custom features to make this a unique structure. You can just feel their excitement and pride coming thru the video - aren't they clever? I'm envious! Can you imagine what fun they are having figuring out the next "tweak?" Fantastic
Years ago I was looking at old school or transit buses as a mobile home, as well as old airplanes--they have bathrooms & kitchens already! There is a video of a plane converted into a home...
Really cool. I had an uncle who used an old bus for an RV. You've got a neat project that looks like it will work as long as you don't have kids and aren't too old to climb that ladder to the second floor!
I would perhaps put in an rv style heat and air unit, or even one off of an old camper roof. Other than that I think this is wonderful. I hope this style works out for them for years to come. Best wishes and luck!
i love this video. of all the bus conversions i've seen, this bus is the coolest. --- I love it that you are living freely against popular culture and you have made this bus your own. Good Job !!
Love your video! You two did what my husband and I WANTED to do 36 years ago and didn't get to do it! Now here I am 56 years old, in a house that's full of crap in my home town and wondering where would we be now if we had bought that bus like you guys and took out on the road heading due west, listening to Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones......ahhhhh
u guys are awesome. I really relate to that "kid dream" space thing, and because I want to retire mobile, u hav inspired me to persist. Being energy independent and not having utility bills is i think a key to independent living and u guys hav nailed it. I've run so many Google searches on the products u hav mentioned and i'm really impressed - Timmy from Melbourne Australia
That is totally awesome. Some friends and I always talked about having a party bus. This is a little more practical than a party bus, and you went ahead and made it. :)
I'm 22 and in the process of living off the grid, right now i sold my old car and am looking for a van to start the conversion process, i can't wait to do it on my own
I've seen many different school bus conversions and I think yours shows an abundance of ingenious creativity. I only have one question, can your pup get up into the loft-a-wagon?
My husband and I are thinking the same thing. Thank you for this vid and will pass it to my husband. Johnny hit the nail on the not worrying about or burden of rent or mortgage , taxes or utilities. Enjoy more of life and the earnings of work instead of being siphoned to those mandatory bills.
I love seeing alternative living styles. Gives me ideas and opens my mind to different choices. My only request living anywhere is a working/ flush water toilet and bathtub. I can handle the rest. Work in progress, I like it.
this is awesome! its motivating to me to see creative people that value things other than materialistic things and just want to be happy. I wish I could know you guys personally. I could learn from you.