Hey guys, Jenna, here in today's video tour,
we're going to check out one air force veterans,
amazing school bus conversion that she renovated herself.
Brittany's bus is an impressively, small 95 square feet,
but the interior shines with style and personality almost as much as Brittany
herself.
So let's take a tour.
Hi everybody. I'm Brittany. And this is my tiny home on wheels.
Domino 2.0,
I've been living in Domino for a little over a year.
This is actually the remodel.
I've only lived in the remodel for about two months.
So.
I'm an air force veteran. I served 11 years,
two months and 23 days,
I felt like I lost my first name when I was in the military.
And Domino really allowed me to rediscover who
Brittany really is when I separated from the air force,
it was a huge change. I was already resilient,
but bus life really tests your gangster.
Like it really does.
You're put in all of these different situations and it really forces you to
think outside of the box and see how you can basically fix your problem
with the little bit of resources that you have.
I.
Purchased domino for $3,200.
When you add up the cost of Domino's remodel, I will say,
I think I put about $15,000 into domino, including the bus,
the solar and the 12 volt fridge
One thing that really drew me into van life was the community.
I will say when I pulled up YouTube or hashtag van life,
I was always wondering, where do I fit in people of color?
We do van life we're out there. We just don't have that much visibility.
Hashtag diversify van life, hashtag black van life.
It is great that this community has helped amplify our voices
and let people know that we to belong in these
outdoor spaces.
It's really nice to just have those safe spaces with people
that I feel comfortable discussing my struggles,
not my bus life struggles,
but the struggles of being a black female within the van life community.
It's a 1998 Chevy 3500 short
bus. She's about 19 feet long.
She's small enough to fit in the regular parking space,
but wide enough to give extra comfort on the inside.
She came with six tires. I have Dooleys in the back.
I purchased her from an online auction with a hundred thousand miles on her.
And currently she has 107,000 miles on her. You see this beautiful color?
This is 1998, school bus yellow,
which means people see me coming and they move out the way my emergency exit.
No, this is not my garage. This is actually my crawl in closet.
This also allows great circulation for air.
So you just pop this bad boy open. And then the air comes in.
On the top of the roof.
Domino has a 320 watt flexible solar panel.
Now that we're finished with the outside, let's go look inside my home.
Welcome inside of domino 2.0, the original domino.
She was completed last year,
2019 in the summer heat of Reno, Nevada.
It was a pretty simple build because I was nervous.
Didn't really know how to do anything.
Domino 2.0 was birthed during COVID because it halted
my school schedule and it forced me to slow down.
The first.
Thing that I did when I started to do the remodel was the kitchen,
because that's the first thing you see when you walk in.
Some of the things that I repurposed from the initial conversion was my
beautiful sink bowl. And you can wash your dishes and everything in it.
I've had it for over a year.
And my butcher block countertop my glitter,
butchered black counters.
The tile faces that you see are actually stickers.
I went to habitat for humanity and purchase white tiles,
25 for a dollar.
And I purchased stickers from Amazon and put these on here.
And it actually looks like real tile.
I have.
A 12 volt, 50 liter fridge in here, and basically it stores everything I need.
It is very energy efficient when the compressor turns on,
it only pulls 45 Watts for maybe five minutes.
In order.
To cook all of the yummies that I keep in here.
I use a two burner Coleman camp stove, and I store that under.
We pull back the fabric under here I two seven gallon water tanks.
One is fresh water and the other is a gray water tank.
And I have my 12 volt water pump.
Welcome to my bedroom. My loft bedroom, I'm five, four and a half.
So this situation works for me.
I can actually sit up properly and not have to bend down.
My bedroom area is eight and a half feet long, four and a half feet wide.
This is a full-size bed that hasn't been altered or cut and is six inches thick
in order to bring the color to the back I decided to use fake binds to just make
things pop.
One thing I would like to highlight back here is this picture of this beautiful
black girl. I saw this picture on Instagram and I reached out to the artists.
One thing that's really important to me is that she was a black
artist, which means she was able to capture this beautiful black woman,
the way that I see her.
So I wanted to bring this beautiful piece of art inside of domino.
She is me. I am her. I love it.
And she just brings extra color to my loft bed.
Now that you've seen my beautiful loft,
you really need to see the moneymaker and that's my crawl in closet.
I'm not one of those people that likes to fold clothes.
So hanging storage was a must for me.
My bed sits up three feet high,
which allows a lot of clothes storage prior to having this bad
boy, I had to crawl under here,
pull all the stuff out of the way to get pajamas, panties,
and bras everyday items.
Now I can keep two weeks worth of clothes in here.
Easy access being in a small space storage is clutch.
So I just used an empty wall,
modified my hanging shoe rack and put it in place
Over here. I have two, 120 amp batteries.
And then I also have a 1200 watt pure sine inverter
electrical. That was really intimidating for me,
but I was blessed enough to have someone come into my life.
Her name just so happened to be Brittany.
And she is a Navy veteran whose job actually was an
electrician.
So Brittany came to my rescue girl power and she hooked it up
with all of this storage underneath. I can put almost anything down here.
I have my heating back here and I also store a shower.
This is actually a propane shower and I have a
pop-up shower tent that I use as well.
You can use it with just regular cold water,
or you could hook up your propane tank to it. So you can have hot showers.
This couch is dual purpose.
You lift this fabric up and anything that will be in a garage is under
here.
This under couch garage allows me to keep all of my tools with me while I'm on
the road. But the best thing about it is no more garage
above my garage. I have a lounge area and it also serves as an additional bed.
If you're under five six
With loads of windows in the bus,
I decided to use window reflective to basically control my temperature.
I cut everything to size and I just use fabric to make it look pretty.
I can't sew.
So I just used Rose gold staples to hold it in place and Velcro
to keep it up.
So in order to cover up my ugly solar cables that were hanging out of my
ceiling, I decided to use plastic conduit, spray painted gold,
and then wrap it in the vines. And I think it actually looks like it belongs,
Oh, you like this? Yes. This extra seat.
It's not just that. This is actually my luggable Lu.
I use medical grade waste bags and basically get rid of it the same way you get
rid of trash.
It really is just the bucket with the top on it for you to sit and it's
covered by a boozie is what I like to call it
a bucket koozie, if you will. And when I have it stored away,
it just looks like a regular seat.
I've been in this rig for about a year now. I've gained so much confidence,
not just in myself, being alone,
out in the middle of nowhere, but also confidence in my skill.
Nothing is ever going to be perfect.
You'll never have 365 days of the glamorous
hashtag van life that you see on social media.
That's just not how life works when you're met with all of those challenges,
meet them head on and then learn from those challenges.
As long as you have that drive that passion,
the determination you really can make it work.
And I think I made it work.
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and I will see you.
Next week.