in today's video tour i'm featuring one of the coolest
school bus conversion homes that i've ever seen
we're going to take a tour with the owner who not only built this schoolie himself
but he also calls it his full-time home
make sure to stay tuned to the very end of this video where he makes a tearful
personal announcement that has inspired him to redirect his life's journey
hey what's up everybody my name is jax austin we're in beautiful rufus oregon today i'm
going to give you a tour of my beautiful home on wheels so let's go take a peek
i have been living in this school bus for the past two years before that i was in another bus
for two years so i've been on the road for four plus years before that i was living in venice
beach california and welcome to my little palace on wheels before my nomadic life i
was working in a bar so while my friend zies and i were in big sur this idea came to me and i i
looked over at him and i said dude what if i got a school bus and then traveled around and made like
youtube videos you know travel content and right after i asked him that question as we're turning
the corner what was jumping in front of me driving in front of me it was a converted school bus
i kid you not the hair on my skin jumped up i got all this excitement it honestly it felt like
it was some sort of message two months later i pulled the trigger i bought a school bus
and the rest is history what drew me into the school bus initially was definitely the cost
there's a reason that they're so cheap and there's a reason that a class b is fifteen
thousand dollars i think it has a generator a shower a toilet a fridge a stove sometimes an
oven a sleeper and everything it's all it's all done and so you can actually spend more than that
that camper that seems overpriced but it's also fun it's different it's nostalgic
it's it's unique if you're anything like me you're not a tradesman you're not a carpenter
you better have some amazing friends or some family members to help you otherwise i mean it's
going to be quite a trip that is for sure i paid 4 500 let's say 5 grand for the bus the whole cost
if you were to do it and pay for everything would probably be somewhere close to maybe 30 000 i'd
say you know i didn't want to have a half-assed bus i wanted a very clean bus pretty proud of it
i am happy to own it and uh i honestly could not have done it without my friends all right what we
have here this red rocket is a 2003 international nine window this big bad boy gets about nine miles
per gallon if i'm lucky this is actually my second bus this one is a full-size five-ton
chassis air brakes air suspension it's huge it's kind of like driving a semi down the road
i framed it out with wood we then covered it with sound deadening materials and then
we filled the whole box with spray foam insulation so road noise is really not a factor in this bus
it's very very quiet when you're driving you can have these volume conversations
while i'm driving a gigantic diesel school bus basically it's pretty cool
all right towards the back of the bus we have this homemade ladder before i built my two buses i knew
nothing about welding up top it leads up to a party deck but you know what we're gonna save
that for later opening up the door here under the living well i should say sleeping area
is my garage this is where the water system lives on the left hand side opposite that
we have the solar system this is where the bike goes and some of the tools because let's face it
if you want a bus you need tools on the road all right now it's time to show you guys the inside
okay welcome to the inside of my bus you know there's a lot of work a lot of sweat and a lot
of tears that went into this thing let's start in the front of the bus as you can see we have two
full-size six foot couches the marine grade vinyl the reason for the marine grade vinyl was so that
if somebody spills something i don't have to freak out i can just say no worries let me just wipe it
on up down under here is some of my storage i have a bunch of food down here in a small space you
have to utilize every single square foot every single pocket really comes in handy this used
to be a handicap door and i closed it off with some sheet metal framed it out installed an rv
slide window it's really great it has a screen you could have a nice breeze through there if anyone's
installing an rv window make sure the drains go on the bottom i decided to build myself what i'm
calling the youtube cabinet and basically it's just three shelves with little organizers and
that's so friends and myself can put electronics in here every shelf has a outlet for 110 and usb
so say if i had six friends with me everybody could you know plug in their cameras laptops etc
this wood is called bark pocket hickory we laid over an epoxy resin on top which gives it a
high gloss but also sort of smooths out any of the imperfections in there and then down below we have
all custom built cabinets the least favorite part of my bus the ceiling this thing i swear i aged
putting the ceiling in decades this ceiling was a pain in my butt do not use tongue and groove cedar
please please please use shiplap tongue and groove shiplap see the difference you don't
have to squeeze it in because when you're doing a concave or convex surface and you're trying
to squeeze in something like this it's a recipe for disaster this was the most difficult thing
i had to do on the bus so i try to think about other things about the roof that i actually like
like the color it's amazing the finish it's fantastic we have lights you know it's great
did a little whitewash 50 paint 50 water and just kind of gave it like a little farmhousey sort of
thing the fixture here is actually a 110 fixture this works off 12 volt and then you have to use a
12 volt edison bulb be very careful about this if not you will burn down your whole school bus house
and you don't want to do that we gave everything a a water-based polyurethane finish to it just just
to kind of keep the stains away make it waterproof things like that the other side of the kitchen
the dark side of the moon this is where all of the food preparation happens we have a fancy dancy
faucet these are surprisingly expensive you ever try and buy one i was shocked
down below we have a little trash can this is where i keep some bigger items pots and pans
you know plastic bags things like that is it just me or is the camping stuff really lame looking
because i see these really good looking stove top burners and european style i guess and i'm like
that is awesome i want one of those things anyways this is like a sexy kind of stovetop cooker
we have a nice you know plant here to create oxygen from the co2 on off switch for the water
pump definitely install one of those if you don't do that you're gonna pull your hair out and you're
gonna burn up your pump trust me on that one down here we got the storage stuff for the knives
for all the kitchen equipment spoons sporks don't ask me why down below we have ourselves
this beautiful dometic 12-volt fridge this thing is bad ass it is amazing it is dual zone you can
temperature control it on the side these have a lower amp draw than a traditional 110 which goes
through an inverter so this is highly highly efficient and if you are thinking about this
lifestyle this system 12-volt fridge is the only type of fridge you should have unless of course
you have a traditional rv and you have a three-way fridge that's a whole nother conversation
buy one of these they are amazing they're worth every penny we have a full-size closet we even
have coat hangers look at that mom's proud of me and little things like that so we got the belts
you know we got the the boxers the shorts etc all very organized so the other side of the closet is
the bathroom this is my friends an award winning bathroom on the inside here we have subway tiles
i know really original right a friend of mine has a prototype composting toilet which he gave
to me to try it's always interesting working with prototype things but it was cool because i got to
give them some feedback i also got to pee on my legs a couple times and you know i didn't have to
pay a thousand dollars for a composting toilet so that part to me is amazing on the ceiling did the
same colors as the rest of the bus we have these 12 volt puck lights and we have a pretty cool
little shower massager type thing we're filming this in the middle of a coved pandemic there is
no magic happening in the bedroom besides sleeping and counting sheep we have a beautiful memory foam
mattress back here we have a little artwork this is from raw restorations i have a couple six by
nine speakers on the wall my favorite thing about this back bed area is this little 12-volt fan
my ears ring from years of bartending i like having white noise when i sleep i also get
really hot so having a fan with low and high for me personally it's awesome i got two of them so
in the summertime with no air conditioning it's really the only way that i can sleep and you know
just feel rested up above me here might be kind of hard to see but this is my friends a hammock
anchor it's just fun to like add conversation pieces about your home that make it just a little
bit different you know because there's so many buses out there there's so many tiny homes out
there it seems like everybody's kind of copping each other which is great but it's fun to have
little things you know for your personality and make a you know different is it me or
do you smell a hole in one about to happen let's head up to the party deck all right
from the putting green the other side has waterproof outside wakeboard speakers
so when there's a party happening when there's a gathering if you just want to dance or pants
off you can put some tunes on and enjoy you know a good song and some nature powering this bad beast
as far as electricity goes is 680 watts of zamp made in the usa panels in the middle of
all this fun stuff is a margaurd skylight and the one thing i would suggest is if you do this
get yourself a tinted margaret piece because it gets blazing hot in the summertime and actually
i've been covering it with my yoga mat just to kind of cut down on some of the uv rays and the
heat because this thing in the summertime is going non-stop 100 this is my max fan
my uh my life has changed a lot over the past four and a half years and uh for the last uh six months
i've been dealing fighting uh cancer cancer can change you and it can also reveal
who you are deep down it made me get to my true inner self of of what i want out of life
and and and what i have not yet completed it just made me think you know
what's really important you know all these material goods that you acquire mean absolutely
nothing at the end because you cannot take these things with you i thought you know man i didn't
get a chance to drive to argentina you know like man i should have gone like i should have you know
moved to another country i should have done this and that but you know on the other side of it too
i thought to myself well look at how look at how lucky you are to have had done everything that
you've been able to do look at the amazing friends that you've made amazing people you've come across
the you know the uh the privilege of of having you know already traveled you know so many places and
and i i thought to myself you know the only most important thing in life really is is is love
all right well this concludes the tour of the giant red bus with the golf course on top but
yeah i just want to thank you guys for watching this video hopefully this is inspiring to some
of you guys to live a little bit differently to minimize to uh take advantage of some travel so
hopefully i'll see you guys on the road sometime and uh take care all right guys i hope you enjoyed
this week's unique tour make sure to check back next friday and i'll have another one for you