hey there welcome to my channel where i feature creative homes tiny homes
and people living alternatively today's video checks all the boxes because not
only are we featuring a tiny home on wheels but one that's created out of a recycled bread truck
and of course the owners are living in it full-time on the road in an alternative lifestyle
even though the interior space might be tiny it certainly doesn't feel that way because they were
able to fit in a functional kitchen a bathroom with a shower a dinette area and a full bedroom
these owners have been living nomadically for some time now in fact they started
out living separately in two different vehicles and decided to move in together
if you like these kind of videos make sure to subscribe and hit that bell so
that you get a notification every time i post a new video all right guys let's get started
hi everyone i'm paul and i'm ellie we're super excited to show you guys
our tiny house bread truck
i lived in orlando for 37 years in the middle of downtown orlando there was this bread
factory called merida many people who are from orlando remember the smell of baking bread it's
a cool connection that i have to my hometown and i get to bring it with me on the road
i picked this truck up on craigslist it was in a really bad state of disrepair to get it
mechanically sound that was the main thing i did before i went on the road and then i just
started building things in order of necessity i have been living in the spread truck for
four years i traveled by myself for two years until we met we actually met on the road before
i moved into the bread truck i was traveling for two and a half years in my transit connect
the year before i started traveling i was diagnosed with stage three triple negative
breast cancer and so i spent a year working on on fighting that and i went through really intensive
treatment it was an incredibly profound experience i did lots of thinking certainly during that
time of how i could change my life to number one eliminate stress and number two how to prioritize
the things that are important to me this truck had a completely different layout we decided
together that we should change the layout of the truck and make it more useful for the both of us
the basis of our whole relationship is we
both are at a place in our lives where we wanted to grow and change as people
and being in a tight small quarters like this with your partner it brings to the surface a lot
of your own trouble a lot of your own problems that you need to work on within yourself well
go no go ahead
i'm sorry good third time's the time
in a lot of ways the truck really represents our our relationship and the growth that we've
been through what we've created physically and what people can see in the truck is
actually pretty symbolic for us i think of what we've built in our relationship
so this is our 1989 utila master bread delivery truck one of the great things about this truck is
that it's got a four-cylinder cummins turbo diesel that i've been averaging 14 miles to the gallon
over the whole life of this truck since i've had it when i purchased the truck it was 3 700
i probably paid twice that amount just to get this thing up and running the way it should be
so i estimate around 20 000 at this point come with me and i'll show you the inside
so welcome inside the cabin of the bread truck this truck has got a four-speed manual so it does
really great going up and down mountains i can control what speed i need to be at
by downshifting and letting the motor control my speed one of the great things about this
bread truck is it come with these huge windows when i'm driving i have amazing views that's one
of my favorite things about being on the road is the scenic views and drives that we go on
as you can see there's a lot of plants scattered throughout the truck
we have been adapting to life on the road and growing plants it's not the easiest thing to do
a lot of the vibration from the road causes these plants to come to the top of the soil and
fall over so one way that we've kind of overcome that is that we grow a lot of our stuff in water
so behind the door here is our bathroom which we just recently renovated
we used to have walls that were here and we just really did not like this space it felt
really cramped and dark and we just knew that we could do better if we took the walls down we made
our composting toilet with a simple bucket system and a urine diverter and a computer
fan that vents the whole thing outside we have a shower pan here that's made out of teak
wood floor that can get wet and then the curtain comes around here
so the shower head is here and normally we pull it across and we shower with it here
but we also put a trap door well a trap door through here so we can bring the shower head
out through and we suction cup it to the side of the truck so we can shower outside
rinse our feet off or clean anything that we need to off outside which is a great feature this is
our tankless hot water heater and we just have vented it out into the cab of the truck and we
just leave the front door open when we're using it when we remodeled the bathroom we decided to leave
the copper pipes exposed just because we like the way it looks we think it's kind of cool to
mix the industrial look of the truck with our sort of rustic style of the barn wood and everything we
knew we wanted to have a mirror in the truck but we didn't want to look at it all the time
it's a really small space so it's kind of hard to find a spot where you can stand far enough
away from the mirror so it really works well and so we figured out that this door would be
a good place so we reinforced the door we added a bunch of hinges and we built this
it's kind of like an inside out medicine cabinet i say because the mirrors on the inside normally
with a medicine cabinet it's on the outside but this is pretty cool i think there's tons of
storage here and a full-length mirror all of this stuff is really available right at my fingertips i
feel like i can take better care of myself i feel less like i'm camping and more like i'm at home
something really awesome about this track is that there's enough room to have a full-size wardrobe
i can actually fit dresses in here a lot of our winter coats and things can fit in here back here
behind the closet we had this funny little space that we weren't sure what to do with
and so we call this our desk but it slides out and we keep a lot of our computers and cameras
we are considering putting a little an arm that swings out with a monitor so you can sit at the
table and work on the computer and below the desk area is our vent for our diesel heater right here
this is just a vent that comes from the front and so we can stay nice and toasty back here
so this is our dinette area and it also converts into a guest bed or a couch
we have a cantilever table i didn't want to build a table that had legs on it because
this is such a small space the legs would just really get in the way we hollowed out a 4x4
and the table just slides in just like that and then this board just drops down into the bottom
and creates a guest bed we put a lot of energy into not having to take things down so
including like this bouquet i have a hose clamp here and you can put a water bottle
or a planter type of thing in here and this is how we go down the road it holds it in just enough
so we can drive down the road this way and we don't have to worry about it falling over
down here underneath the closet i needed to build a piece of furniture to make the seating area
and we wanted a lot of clothes storage for the truck in here there are fabric bins that
pull out and they're double layered ones in the back to store the clothes that are
not in use as much and then the ones that are more seasonal and useful at the time are in the front
right here is where the wheel well of the truck is located so we put the bench here so
that it didn't really get in the way of the living space and you don't really notice it
we wanted these big benches that you could sit cross-legged up here so
we had a little extra space you could see this is where the wheel well ends
but we have a little extra storage for toilet paper cleaning supplies things like that
mounted to the wall here we have a really neat feature this is one of my favorite things in the
truck this is a yacht lamp it came off a sailboat it rocks with the wave so i figured it would work
really well in a van too so we love it it gives us a nice natural light and it's extremely safe
this is the kitchen of the bread truck this is just a space that we use
every single day and we love it it's a fully functional kitchen so on the top here we have
a classic coleman two burner stove it was very low cost so we're utilizing this for right now
and maybe we'll upgrade that to like a flush mount countertop stove someday down here is a pull out
fridge it's a 45 quart winter fridge freezer we can set it at whatever temperature we'd like
down here is a full slide out drawer it's just a drawer but all of our utensils
everything like that goes in here but it goes all the way back to this wall so it's nice and deep
we really love that these are a new addition that we have in the bread truck is all these
drawers and slides and it just really finished off the kitchen very nicely
one thing that i did purchase for the truck was this nice big sink it's 17 inches by 17
inches wide and it's about 10 inches deep up top is some cabinets i used all the recycled
salvage materials i could so i pulled these out of a dumpster this is the most commented
on feature of the truck everybody loves this this is how we keep our cabinets locked when we travel
it's just a simple wooden block all you got to do is slide it in when we're parked a lot of times we
will use these as a trivet for hot pans so it has a dual purpose as well in the back of the kitchen
here the backsplash is a lighted backsplash i found this material in a dumpster it was about a
half inch thick acrylic type of material and it's translucent so i didn't know what to do with it
i came up with this idea to make like a light box and you'll notice when we turn the kitchen lights
off you can really see that lighted backsplash to give it a kind of cool ambiance in here when
we were designing the bathroom we came up with this wall space it's a very thin little space but
in a van you want to utilize every bit you could so we made a little cubby hole here so you can
store your soap and we have a little space for flowers and things too we wanted to add another
little decorative touch me and ellie both love the desert and this is a cholla skeleton from a cactus
down here on the floor we came up with a really cheap and beautiful solution i love the way it
looks this is a peel and stick linoleum floor kind of gives you like a little bit of that like
grandma's kitchen feel the whole entire floor cost us about eighty dollars which i think is a really
great deal we have a permanent queen size bed in the back this doesn't convert doesn't fold away
or anything and that was a non-negotiable when we redesigned the interior of this truck i used to
have a bed that was up toward the front there that had to be pulled out and unfolded and it
was really a pain when two people are together unless you're waking up exactly the same time
going bad at the same time it just didn't work for us each side of the headboard we have our own
cubby holes they come with charging ports and led lights in the top so if you need to read
or see something we each have control of a little light in the back corner here we have a salt lamp
everything that you see back there is bolted down to the headboard and it doesn't require any
breakdown or setup when we are ready to move we lock a few things and we're ready to go this side
section next to the bed is where all the solar equipment is stored this shows what is coming
in through the solar panels how much it's charging in the batteries this is my led light control and
this is a shut off so that i can shut down power coming through the panels and kind of kill the
whole system with this one touch of a button our power system in the truck consists of two 350 watt
panels that are on the roof and 210 amp hours of lithium batteries with lion energy batteries all
the solar equipment charge controller inverter and all of that is underneath the bed in this section
for the back window here we wanted a lot of privacy and we wanted blackout shades
so we found these ones that are really nice they just pull down from the top
we can pull the top down just a little bit let in a lot of natural light but still have a lot
of privacy where people can't view right into the truck in the ceiling here right above the
bed we have a max fan these are great because they can be left open in the rain and used
in the rain or shine so it has a big 14 inch fan and we have another one at the
front of the truck so we can have this one pull air out and have that one bring air in
and revolve the air in here pretty well another nice thing is that they do have screens
so we don't have to worry about bugs or pests coming in that way either
i've done a lot of little customizations to this vehicle like for example i had sealed
beam headlights before and i could barely drive at night i couldn't see anything so i picked these up
and now i can drive at any time and i also have this cool little function of the color changing
halos they're a lot of fun for events and that that sort of thing security was a concern when
i was building this truck so we've installed a three camera system on it that is meant to
be a backup system but i've adapted it a little bit to make it a surveillance system i can pull
that footage anytime i want my water tank used to be installed right here and under the floor
of the truck the problem with that is that all my lines would be on the exterior so if i go into
freezing conditions i have to worry about those lines freezing and breaking and cracking my tank
so now my water tank is underneath the bed inside we at this time don't have any gray
water or black water storage we find that we really don't need it it's legal to put shower
water on the ground and that's mainly what we use the water from this system for is washing
the back of the truck has gone through a major renovation i used to have a wall
and a door on this side but we replaced it with this great big slide open window it is amazing i
got this a habitat for humanity it was only 85 bucks it's dual pane glass with a vinyl frame
so i don't have to worry about it rotting inside used to be dark and very closed in
and the window really opened it up brought so much natural light in we always back the truck
up to the most epic views that we can find and we go to sleep and wake up with those views every day
one of my inventions that i've put on the roof of the bread truck is this stealth camouflage
ladder rack that holds my solar system it looks like i'm just carrying a ladder but
it's hiding a whole lot more what i did was i took an extension ladder and i cut
it right down the middle of the rungs i used each side as the sides of my solar panel rack
what it does is it holds my solar panels and it hides everything a little bit so you don't see my
max fans open quite as much and you don't really see my solar panels as much
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