This man built his dream home with $2,200 and an old school bus a
Man named Michael tally decided to hand over
$2,200 for this beat-up School Bus with a plan in mind after putting a lot of hard work
Creativity and with a little help from his friends. He was able to transform it into something completely different
He realized he end up finding his place his home on a school bus
Michael tally the genius behind this operation had almost little to no experience when it came to home construction
But here's how he used his skills. He did have to create his dream home
Michael tally skills lie mostly in design and
Because of this you would expect him to stay far away from the hands-on portion of the job
I've never built anything ever
I've helped paint a few houses on mission trips and I helped install some plastic lantus ones, but that's about it
When tailee decided to invent the bus he was venturing into uncharted territory
Terry's goal was to build a new home for himself
But he wanted to use an already existing structure as the foundation
He decided to go with an old school bus because he said hey
There's already four walls in a row throw some wood and some lightbulbs in there and call it a day
How foolish should be I ended up doing a complete build on the back of the bus
In order to invest his money into this new project tim had to move out of his cheap apartment and move into a tent
When I bought my bus, I was living in a studio apartment in North Austin for around $1,200 a month including rent and bills
I moved into a tent in order to save money while working on the bus
Commuting 40 minutes to work every day just to afford more steel and more wood says Tali
September 2015 to September
2016 was a hard time for Taylor during this time
He lost many important things including his girlfriend his job and even his grandpa
He said it was a really difficult time
But luckily all I really had was this bus and the bus was all I had and I put everything I had into it it
Seems that for tally the bus symbolized a fresh start
He knew the odds were stacked against him to complete this project
He knew he needed to start from scratch since he'd never built anything before I
Couldn't sleep for months because my brain was constantly going a mile a minute
About how to build this and what I was going to do to build that it was the hardest thing I've ever done
Early on in the building process talese removal of the seats turned it into a completely empty vessel
It was during this time that tally was able to see the full potential of the bus
Tally said the grueling process that was removing all those seats
Prompts to my stepdad for crawling under the bus and helping me remove every single bolt
If I did this again, I would have used an angle grinder
But this was still only days into the build and I was terrified of power tools
Tally first thought he had made a huge mistake when he realized that he was 5 inches too tall for the bus
How is he going to live in it if he had to somewhat crouch at all times?
He admitted as soon as I stepped onto the bus for the first time
I knew me being six six was going to be a huge problem the ceilings only six foot one
So I was going to have to do some major work to get this thing comfortable for my abnormally large body
One of the most radical things tailee did was decided to cut the bus in half
He said I cut a section out of the steel ribs and took it to a metal fabricator
I had him craft 25 identical steel sleeves that could slip over either end of the rib, once the roof was raised
This is how he ended the ceiling problem
as a professional designer
Tali knew that he needed to make sure that every single inch counted if one tiny measurement was off the entire project could fall apart
This is my final design for the bus
I like to entertain so I put all the public areas toward the front and all the private areas in the band
Having people over to grill or chill the two most common areas would need access to would be the kitchen and the bathroom
One thing about tally that many of his friends and family acknowledged about him is his love for cinema
His social media is full of photos of him and big stars like Matthew McConaughey
Because of this it obviously made sense that tally would want a big TV in his place
He said I like movies film and television are my favorite things. So I wanted a great movie watching room
I like to have people over to watch things. So I knew I needed a size of a living room
I'm also a designer so I needed a great workstation
Of course, tally couldn't do the whole thing on his own
He said a nice man came with his seven-month pregnant wife and eight-year-old daughter to help card away all the seats to the scrap metal
yard, and of course, we already mentioned that his stepdad helped take out the seats as
The days roll on tally could begin to see his design come to life
The scaffolding was beginning to appear and he already at his office set up one of the main
Transformations that tail he made was completely stripping down the bus windows to replace them
He said the windows weren't hard to take out part of me. Wanted to keep them
But I knew they'd rattle to provide little privacy or insulation and look weird with my roof raised in design
as a lover of food tally knew he needed a kitchen counter that he could easily chop a lot of vegetables on as
Shown here. He already tested an onion on it
I can't phased out their old kitchen line and I got a hell of a deal on these drawers and cabinets
I paid $30 for everything said tally of his new kitchen
between talese movie-watching and eating his favorite foods
He knew he needed to be efficient with his space on the rest of his new home
He ended up bringing a couch from his old apartment
He said I took my IKEA Karlstad couch from my apartment and took off the back arms and feet
So I was left with the cushions in the boxspring base
I built that into the bus for added comfort and style. We have to agree. It looks pretty great
Tally knew how he wanted the design of his new home to be structured
He got the idea from the vehicle from the lost world Jurassic Park
He said I went through about a dozen floor plans for the bus
Since I was a single guy a twin bed didn't seem like that bad of an idea
I like the idea of a bathroom in the back if
You're getting involved in a construction job. You need to be prepared to do things. That could be hazardous
Whether you need to put in a light bulb fix a pipe or use electric equipment 10
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Tenley's cutting the poles for the bathroom and living room windows
When transforming a bus into a house Talley needed to make a decision
he needed to decide if he wanted to strip away all the key components of the vehicle or
Have the home act as when he could drive
He said I got stuck in the mud and messed up my power steering trying to get out
You have any idea how hard it is to try in parallel park a 40-foot bus with no power steering I do
We can't even imagine
Even someone is meticulous to detail as Michael Talley has allowed to make a small mistake from time to time
He admitted when taking down the roof panels
I wish that I had ended up keeping this insulation in it
Was in remarkably good shape and would have saved me a few headaches if I kept it in
Removing these panels was the absolute worst, but mostly because of my dumb assert. I had never heard of an impact drill
Not only did tally make some mistakes during his project he also managed to walk away with a few injuries
Apparently things got messy
He said the first site is done
Easily the most painful and bloody part of the build got a sweet permanent scar on my forearm when one of these steel sheets
Falen sliced my arm open. Don't worry. I'll spare you guys the gory photos
yikes
Deli wasn't alone in this and he made sure to listen to the advice of his helpers. I
Wanted to go 24 inches, but my helpers felt twenty inches was enough out of fear of pushing our line
You can see the screw jacks at the bottom of the scaffolding
Each one of us turned our respective jack in unison to raise the roof perfectly level in one try
Pictured here is also the steel sleeves that I had made that I then riveted into the existing ribs
Wanting to be environmentally friendly and efficient tailee decided that he wanted to add solar panels to the roof of his bus
He said it was one of the toughest parts of the build and it didn't help that
There was no one else available to help him fit the panel's. He said of the process. I was doing it myself
It was very windy and things kept falling off the roof
One of the most striking details of Talese kitchen or the tiles he admitted
He said the only cosmetic design that I knew I wanted in the bust was dark hardwood floors
butchered black and white subway tile with black ground
Research the hell on a tile in an RV and got to work. Not the best job
But then again first time I've ever done any of this stuff we have to disagree that panel is pretty impressive
There's actually a heartwarming story behind white tail he chose this specific vehicle for his poem transformation
The answer is in his childhood. He said my bus was the
Armadillo bus. I have two friends who actually rode this bus when they were kids
Sadly though. They had to scrape this off so he could paint the bus white
Tailee managed to not only be efficient with his space
But he's also thought a lot about what kind of materials he wanted to use his
Proudest moment is what he used for the interior furnishing
He said it's reclaimed floorboards from a house here in Hyde Park in Austin from 1941
I just flipped it upside down and used the unfinished sides for all my accent walls and couch
Tailee was able to fit not just one TV, but two he said testing out the TV works great
I wired HDMI cables from the wall behind the TV over to the desk where I keep my Apple TV in my computer. I
Should have also wired HDMI cables to the cabinets below and above, but I was an idiot
So now I plug my ps4 in whenever I use it
This was the shot that tailee took of his modified home just moments before he decided what color to paint it
Although it still looked very much like a school bus
It was only because it had that iconic yellow color as you can see the roof is raised to accommodate tally and all his furniture
Of course, what's a home if you don't have a place to rest your head at night?
It was imperative for tally to have a nice and cozy bedroom
Not only is it a comfortable sleeping space but it also has incredible view of the forest
He said it's a lot of fun opening the back emergency door at night and waking up in the forest every morning