hey guys jenna here welcome to my channel where i take you on tours of creative homes in today's
video we're going to take a look at one family of four's incredible van conversion where their
bedroom wall also doubles as their fold down deck i don't think i've ever seen four people living in
100 square feet before but this young family's dedication to wonderlust is simply inspiring
if you like these kind of videos please make sure to subscribe and hit that notification bell so
that you know every single time we publish a new video for right now let's jump right
in and hear the story of how this family ended up in this beautiful van conversion
this house
well we're talking about the movements
when you really really feel it in your bones hi my name is hayona i'm finn and i'm bo this
is my brother free and we would love to show you our home on wheels rocket the bus
i grew up in a nomadic family straight into that like from day one
for me there wasn't really a catalyst moment when i shifted into deciding to be on the
road it was always that way i'm providing the same thing for my kids so i definitely think
that there's a benefit to living like that and traveling it makes you more open-minded
when we first started building out our vans we were getting these really like old vehicles from
auctions you know for like nothing we didn't have the security to rent a place so we'd be
living in them while building up the vehicle we had before this was an airstream but we didn't
actually have a vehicle that could tow it so we need to rent a u-haul each time we moved it we
started really looking into what we wanted next after i saw a picture of one of these
i couldn't look at anything else if i like something i'm stuck and
nothing else will do yeah absolutely nothing else and he was like i was on the fence
well the fact that it was in japan when it was like a lot more work to get over here
the mileage on this was 11 000 kilometers it's 25 years old but it's in pristine condition we had to
have it we just went for it and we trusted that it would get here and it did the first day we picked
it up from seattle we like drove it home and it was incredible like people were just like looking
on us and honking at us and really all eyes on you and so we joke around and finn taught me the the
royal a weight yeah just sit there and oh and i'm not supposed to smile with my teeth he says yeah
buying the bus and importing it and everything probably cost about 20 grand
and then with all the work that we put into it we probably put in materials maybe 10 to 12.
building out a vehicle isn't for everyone some people just want something that's
that's done we're going to be bringing in more of these and
converting them as living vehicles i'll be doing two alongside each other and then
those will be up for sale this is like our art form now you know something we can share too
i'm going to give you a little tour of the outside of our rig here it's a 1994 toyota
coaster we imported it from japan it's six foot three inches wide and 21 feet long has a 3.8 liter
four-cylinder diesel in it gets about 18 to 20 miles per gallon we have 400 watts of solar and
then we have 200 amp hours of lithium so one of the things about the insurance industry in the car
industry in japan is that when your vehicle hits a certain number of miles your insurance rates
basically just skyrocket so that's why you're able to get these cars that have low mileage there's
a faster turnaround the vehicles have to be older than 25 years old in order for you to import them
into the us so that's something to think about we actually have some contacts there now that
are able to find us the vehicles and deliver them to the port otherwise reading japanese is helpful
so there's no hood on this and that's because the engine has a mid engine so the engine is
actually right between the seats right there which is also nice for weight distribution
one of the things that we love about this vehicle is all the space that you have up front you know
it's really like you're driving around in a greenhouse and there's not much in between
the windows so there's a lot of visibility when you're driving no blind spots driver's seat on
the right hand side takes a little bit of time to get used to but half an hour you're all good and
then we have the two car seats two kids car seats in the back on each side they both have their own
windows i custom built some bunks that the car seats sit on we welded those down to the chassis
and bolted them on really securely it allows us to have some storage instead of having normal seats
this little hatch is where the starter batteries are this just lifts up like that a lot of the
japanese toyotas they actually have two batteries and it's a 24 volt system it's pretty different
to most the vehicles that we have over here which are the 12-volt system so we have a 12-volt system
for our solar setup and the starter system was a was a 24-volt system so i had to find a way to
drop that down when i wanted to charge from the from the starter battery because we can charge
from the alternator or we can charge from the sun and obviously one of the really unique features of
this vehicle is this hatch this was made from the factory we couldn't really figure out what it was
for but this folds down and it has these legs that support it these jacks i mean it can hold a huge
amount of weight this thing you know you could have 20 people on here so we think it might have
been some kind of display vehicle or something like that but we've just made the most of that
feature and created our deck and then above here we have the awning that comes over we've
got a little light we've got a little loudspeaker you know so we can create like this really nice
area and it just opens up the whole space in japan these are the schoolies they're like shuttles or
buses and so this is a commercial door everything is manual which we
we like so you push this little magic button and it slides completely open like this so come on in
this is our kitchen right here so we hang out in this dining area a lot the kids i
mean there's plenty of space on the floor for the kids to play with their toys they'll crawl
around jump on each other even rolls all kinds of things happen on this runway this is a big
live edge slab of maple and this as you can see is counter space but then of course we
have our sink under it it's pretty big one for the size of our bus our kids bathe in it
so it's actually a really sizable bath for the little one especially he can his legs go out
he's got a nice bath that goes all the way up to his chest it's really pretty sweet the big
one just kind of bird baths of course but yeah we fit a lot of dishes in there and we've got this um
rack at the bottom so we can do the dishes and then dry them directly on that rack which is
super helpful and then on the underside where we haven't sanded it is our cutting board as well
and this is our stove and oven duo this is a counter space but then also it opens up like this
it's a three burner stove and a little tiny oven we like to do a lot of roasting and baking so this
gets a lot of use we power this with propane along with our fridge and we have a 5 gallon propane
tank which will last us anywhere between 10 to 15 days which is kind of a long time and here are
some big big windows and we have a beautiful view out into the desert over here we have our dining
room table we pull it up like this and then the kids will sit here on this bench finn has a little
stool here i have a little stool here this is a pretty sizable table for our little family of four
close it back up like this and then we can sit on it
and this wall right here is a beautiful painting that our friend nico painted for us he just gifted
this to us and he's such a sweet friend of ours and the warmth that these colors bring the gold
and everything is just seriously fun it really draws our attention it makes this space feel
like home we love this keyhole feature you know some fun and flair to our living space
this is a king-sized bed we co-sleep so we need a big bed lots of sleeping cuddles
and naps happen here so the kids will roll around and we play a lot of games on here
so my favorite thing about this bus as you can imagine is this wall opening up to a deck
so this is the back side of our crank essentially that opens up this deck it's
really simple system literally pulls it up as we wind it up and wind it back out
i could look out this view for the rest of my life and never leave my bed it's really really
sweet we like to keep it tidy we don't wear our shoes on here and stuff because eventually when
it's not a deck it turns into our bedroom wall so we got to keep it clean a lot of yoga happens on
this deck which is really nice sometimes we'll play music we have a lot of fun on this deck
one of the things that is just like magic for me
is mobility just allows so much freedom because you're really putting yourself
into the universe you're just one decision away from a totally different life
it's not the most comfortable life but it's definitely exciting all we really have is time
and we have a lot more of it and a lot more attention to give to our kids and each other
finn's motto these days he keeps saying all the time he's like the great journey continues
great journey continues every morning that's what i say the great journey continues
well we're talking about the movements when you really really feel it in your bones
and you wake up on the wrong side of your bed you might feel sad
you think it's bad but really it's all in your head yes