hi there welcome to my channel where I take you on tours of tiny and unique homes and showcase
stories of people living alternatively today we're taking a tour of a school bus that's
been converted into an incredible tiny home on Wheels the design and Engineering that went into
this build is super impressive the owners have thought of everything including a jaw-dropping
pantry two extensive work from home offices and even some secret storage compartments
so be sure to stay tuned all the way through this video because trust me you're not going
to want to miss any of the details and if you like videos like this one where
we showcase incredible homes and people living alternatively make sure that you
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hi we are Josh and Emily and this is Aurora the adventure
bus come inside and I'll take you for a tour
[Music]
we were both working remote jobs and love to travel so we wanted to be able to do that more
we knew that the lifestyle was for us because we wanted to make it our own building a bus out for
ourselves was going to be the best option for us from the beginning of our build it was really a
cool relationship Builder just being constructive with each other and see how both of our creative
minds were going to come together we were both brainstorming as we were planning out our build
of how we could have everything have a multiple purpose we would talk things over but some of my
engineering background kind of came into play there too we picked out different fittings and
fixtures and appliances then we shopped for everything on Black Friday and we got a fairly
good discount on it about 10 to 15 on average so that saved a lot of money up front but it ended
up being a couple pickup truckloads of stuff solar panels and AC and toilet just everything for the
bus so that was fun we found the bus at AAA Bus Sales we paid Seven Grand for it and a hundred
extra dollars to get all seats removed which was really worth it the first portion of our bus build
we did in my uncle's heavy equipment shop so we had access to lifts that could lift up the
whole bus in the air there's a lot of welding and mechanical work and so I kind of had a background
on that to begin with the original purchase date of the bus was about two years ago the last year
of it of the project we're living in it as we built it so that takes a little bit more time but
it was basically our second job and our weekends were almost always working on the bus [Music]
so this is a 2004 International re300 School Bus it has the dt466e engine in it the transmission
is an Allison 3060. the bus is 40 feet long and we just went over a scale and we are 35
000 pounds we have the 200 gallon water tank we have I think it's an 80 or 90 gallon fuel
tank and then I have an additional 20 gallon fuel tank for the diesel heaters
our fuel account it varies a lot with the wind but it's between probably six the low
end and 10 at the high end and that's towing a jeep too [Music] for the paint job we did
an automotive paint it has the color and the clear all-in-one it was a random orange color
out of the catalog but the cream is actually case Power white so like the old tractors
for the solar we did 2 400 watts of solar and racking it's pretty much the entire roof we
have three awnings that wrap around the bus that keeps it much cooler than it normally would be
the roof raise we did 18 inches we cut it below the window so we kept the original window
locations split it right behind the driver's side window and the front door and then just up top of
the front windshield that worked really well most of my time was spent working on the under Bay I
cut off the original side skirts of the bus and welded up and insulated and heated under Bay it
goes all the way across the bus between the axles basically as much as I could fit in so this is all
solid from new framing we did our own service truck door handles on the doors the water tank
that's on the passenger side I still wanted to be able to gravity feed the water if I needed to so
the water's on the side so we have an extra hose length so we can get to it pretty much
all utilities are always on the driver's side that was one of the things that if I were to
do it again I would probably mirror the layout so that all the utilities are still on the one side
up at the top here we have one of our tanks we have three tanks on the bus they're all 40
gallons each and I have them tied so there's two that are always black and then I have one tank
that's either gray or black depending on how I have the valve set up with 120 gallons we can
last a week with showering every day using water like you're in a house and two weeks if we're able
to actually drain our gray tanks so this is our 05 Jeep Wrangler we love this thing I ended up
putting a little bit of a lift on it that works nice for the tow bar because it keeps it nice and
parallel for us and keeps the toolbar up but we use this thing all the time the bus is way too big
to go off-roading with so this will take on the trails and do whatever we want also rerouted the
exhaust so it's blowing up the side and that keeps the Jeep nice and clean this is our 50 amp Shore
power hookup you can do 30 or 50. we use that a lot when we're at families and friends houses
this is our electrical panel so we have everything nicely labeled and organized easy to get to then
behind that is my battery storage so on here you can see some of our batteries on that side but
we have a big inverter here from Sun gold power it's a 240 volt split phase inverter
we have 680 amp hours of batteries at 24 volts so it provides us plenty of power to run multiple
days and this is my little tiny garage space we have a 12 gallon tank of gas that is tied into
our generator and then we have two propane tanks that run our stove and our water heater [Music]
and then with the front door what we wanted to do was just make one swing door so I used the same
hinge point as the original bus store basically sandwiched the door with sheet metal and then we
put a normal household residential door lock on it we also put a self-closure on because we're from
South Dakota and we didn't want the wind catching the door all the time we also have a backup latch
for when we're in the bus and we want to make sure it's secure for the evening and then to keep the
door insulated we have curtains that snap on to the door we have a top and bottom curtain
so that when we're driving we can still have insulation on the bottom portion of the curtain
and then moving on we added storage into our Dash so we have storage that goes underneath
the floor all the way to basically the midpoint to the bus and that's where we keep our road
flares and the safety equipment and then we have two apartments that have shoes in it
if we move further in we have our cats litter box and his food and water dish [Music]
so along with the cat area we also did storage at the top of the dash pulled out the original
metal work and heaters and all that so we have spots we can put glasses just random things as
we're driving along the road and then in front of that we have all of our herb plants they're
just coming back from a winter in South Dakota and Colorado so they're a little rough right now
we wanted to ride together when we're going down the road and we didn't want to have another like
side seat or have her sit on the couch so we used our Jeep's rear bench seat and welded up a
bracket and then mounted it onto an air ride seat pedestal for like a semi truck I also redid the
whole dash I pulled everything off down to the metal I left the gauge cluster where it was and
the transmission control module where it was it was way too much work it took like four or five
weekends of just kind of fitting stuff together because nothing square or true to anything else
so as we were putting the sheet metal back on the bus after the roof raise I was up front and I saw
I was looking at it and went well why don't we put a window instead of putting the sheet metal
back up so we put two panes up we normally drive with this curtain down it's on a um electric motor
so that will come and cover the whole front window when we're parked when we're at a tight
intersection where the stop lights are really close to the bus I can look up through that
window and see the stop lights it's kind of a nice little feature but we also like it because
when we're standing in the bus we can still look out the front window it's not lower down
going further back we have our couch our couch converts into a queen size bed it also converts
into an L-shaped couch for when we have guests we want to entertain a little bit in different format
we used memory foam mattress topper in the cushions that makes it soft
enough it's nice to sleep on as a guest bed
but firm enough it kind of holds up for sitting on it as a couch and we sewed up all of the cushions
for the covers and it turned out pretty nice then we have storage that just drawers and a
countertop and that's where our first wheel well is too so that kind of covers the wheel well
laptop set up here and then I can plug into these two monitors but for my hobbies I like to dabble
in arts so I have an easel that I can prop up here I have lots of storage for all my work supplies
so we both work remotely I work for a structural engineering firm that's based out of Minneapolis
and I work for a engineering consulting company out of Massachusetts we did not want to have
both offices in one area because we'd have four monitors and it'd just be too much I like to be
very quiet you love to sing and sing along to music so it's nice to be able to have our own
spaces you keep going back into the kitchen our favorite thing that we have is our countertop
dishwasher it is a Farberware for us it can hold a good day or two's worth of dishes and that is just
a luxury that we would not go without we love our full-size sink we do a lot of cooking here
which is why we prioritize our kitchen space so we knew that we needed to have a big sink
to do all of those big dishes so then likewise we have a apartment size fridge it's a Dometic
Fridge what we love about it is it's an RV style so those doors latch for while we're driving
with our roof raise we were able to have enough room for uppers without it feeling extra crowded
and so this gives us extra space for all of those extra specialty cooking items which is
super nice and I do have a step stool to reach stuff just in case because sometimes if it's at
the very back you end up needing it our stove is a Greystone stove the one thing that we do wish
we did differently was get the deeper version of this because with as much cooking that we do and
baking we barely have enough room to have a loaf of bread rise in our oven with having a corner
stove there's a couple of spots that you can't access with normal drawers so we have a liftoff
cubby where we store all of our really big bulky things so in this one we have our backpacking
backpacks and then this corner one in the back is similar and we have all of our specialty cooking
items like a crock pot and pasta machine our pride and joy is definitely our spice rack for sure we
specially thought about keeping the spices in while they're driving so they don't rattle out
but to access them we tip them up and out to get them out and so we did the same concept on the
spice rack as the pantry and for our liquid storage so lift up and out to access stuff
and it rides super super nice we really don't notice any rattling while we're driving unless
it's a super bumpy road which is why we added rubber bands around all of the jars
none of the jars if you buy stuff at the store are going to fit together very nice so we decided
that the easiest way to optimize that was to standardize all of the containers that they're in
we really enjoy having meal times together so our pantry can flip up here and it latches
right here on this side or we can flip it all the way up to access the rest of our pantry
so we decided to keep the original emergency exit door it was a foot and a half shorter so
I had to extend it and add a panel in between I'm glad we did all the work that we did on the store
because we use it all the time we will pull our Jeep up beside the bus and unload our groceries
right into our pantry area so then we don't have to carry them through the front door we actually
also have steps mounted on the side of the bus so we can just climb up it's really simple to
use and coming back here we have our hallway and we have our raised floor so we raised the floor
up a foot in the back half of the bus and we have storage underneath the whole floor
that's just enough room for a tall guy like me to walk in the hallway without hitting my head
so in the office we still have all the raised flooring there are some areas that are solid
floor because there's engine bay underneath it This Is All Storage from here to here and
then below that that's all engine bay and I have custom panels that will all pull off I
need to work on something then I have all my construction diecast models that I had
from my previous job just something fun to have back here they're all wired down so
they don't move which is great otherwise that'd be a pain this is where I work my desk flips up
if I need to access I have my desktop is on one side we have a drawer base and then just storage
on the other it's a very convenient office my chair just rides right here I kind of gets locked
into place when we're going down the road then underneath me right here we have our deep freeze
so we just have an apartment sized it's like a two foot by two foot by three foot deep deep Breeze
so we have that and it kind of extends kind of in front of the engine bay we have a really
good insulated wall and it stays nice and cool doesn't run a whole lot but it's very nice to
have and then in front of that we have access to the engine bay so this is where I can check oil
and do maintenance and we used a it's a fire blanket off like from a welding supply shop
and that's just kind of our fireproofing and keeps the sound and heat out of the the office
so you walked through the bedroom but you didn't get to see much of it what we have
in our bedroom is we have a queen size bed and then the only utility that we have in our cab
is a 200 gallon water tank so that is what is under the bulk of our bed on this front side is
where we have all of our closet stuff so we have just these simple Cubbies to store everything
our bathroom is right in here but I want to highlight our bathroom door so we still have
plans to add a curtain to it but we really enjoy having the fact that it can close off the bathroom
or the hallway so we can latch it here and then that'll separate our meetings if we are both
on meetings because our offices are separated by the store so then as we go in the bathroom
we really love having the bathroom elevated with the back half of the bus because under
this cubby we have a full-size laundry basket where we can shove all of our dirty laundry
and then our shower we decided to sink down to keep all the water within the shower pan
so the shower base is actually the same height as the front portion of the bus and then we have
an adjustable shower head for Josh because he is very very tall for our shower walls we ended up
doing a vinyl flooring tile and so the only thing that we had to be extra careful about was to make
sure that the tongue and grooves were oriented the right way so that water didn't collect in
them so you're extra conscious of how we were going to install these tiles but so far they
are working great so with the RV style toilet we have a black tank which we prefer so that
we don't have to take and dispose of anything the actual sink itself we did a succulent planter so
it doesn't drain the best but we do love how small and tidy it is for our space so behind
this door we have our control panel for the bus we decided to put it behind a door because there's a
lot of lights and things you can't dim and it's right near our bedroom so we want something to
keep the bus completely dark so inside the door I made these custom they're aluminum
sheet metal that I mount to each panel into it and these actually hinge out if I need to work
behind them but we have our charge controllers the solar various gauges we have controls for
fans for central heating diesel heater controls and then our inverter control down here [Music]
my perspective on things has definitely changed when you start driving the country instead of
flying over it it's just so much bigger it's so much more varied if you start traveling a whole
bunch you kind of get confused like okay what state am I in now type of thing this lifestyle is
so surreal the people are so nice any person any Walk of Life can do this it's very cool very cool
now despite all those differences of family sizes and United by that love of travel and living tiny
and being more introspective of your relationships and connecting with people and nature you can
almost always connect with anyone on the road and everybody has done something very hard they've all
built something that they're living in everybody has those struggles and can relate in that way
foreign thanks for watching this week's video I hope you guys enjoyed it if you'd like to see
more schooly tours tiny homes shipping containers or other unique homes make sure that you check
out my playlists and I will see you soon with another tiny or unique home tour foreign [Music]