Our Bus Conversion, Pt. II

After the encouraging comments on my last post – the first about our bus conversion – and the flood of new followers on our Instagram account, one thing has become clear to me – we’re not the only ones interested in our bus conversion!

Indeed, we sense a fair bit of interest in our project from various communities (including my new friends at all the hardware stores I now visit daily!) which is energizing and boosting us during this challenging project.  I want to give back, now, to all those who are cheering us on by offering a little step-by-step of what we have done so far on our Big Blue Bus.

The conversion of our school bus into our future home-on-wheels all started with a plan.  Or, several plans, that is.  I drew plans for months, at first in order to see how small a space I could fit all that I desired into, and then in order to finalize our vision into a working plan for the bus we finally chose.

I am by no means an architect, and my sketches are rough, but after living five years in Totoyaya, I definitely felt confident that I could design a workable, practical home for our own set of needs and lifestyle.  We’ll see in the months to come whether or not my confidence was justified!

We left off in our last post with a few tasks we completed in Phoenix before making the move to Tucson.  After putting down the wood panel floor, Bruno removed some ceiling panels to try to understand the complex electrical system already in place.  He ended up removing a ton of useless cables (well, we’ll see if they’re useless down the line!), which he later reused for our own electrical installation.  The quality of the cables (as with everything in this bus) was very high so we ended up saving a couple hundred dollars of cables by reusing the ones he removed in Phoenix.  Nice!

Bruno also removed the large, very bulky, AC system.  Neither of us likes air conditioning, and would rather use windows and fans to keep ourselves cool (we left AC up front for when we’re driving, however).  The unit itself was along the interior back of the bus, but another large piece of it was below the chassis.  Now we’ll have space to install our spare tire (as this bus came with none, which is strange.)

Once we were in Tucson, we really got to work.  I researched and bought things like it was my job (because it was).  I familiarized myself with the stores in my new neighbourhood and tried to locate used or salvaged wood for our frames.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find more than a few pieces here and there, and since Bruno was itching to get the project started, we ended up having to source our wood from Home Depot.  I’m disappointed about that because we are trying as much as possible to make our project eco-friendly, but sometimes convenience does win over.

And so, Bruno set about laying down the basic framework of our design, starting to the left of the door and moving down the left wall to the back of the bus.  This meant constructing a cabinet under the used stovetop we bought at the RV salvage shop so the stove would be level with the kitchen counter.  This is where Bruno first learned the joys (not!) of building in our bus.  Nothing was straight – not the floor, not the walls.  Everything had to be measured, cut, measured again, and adjusted to fit into the odd-shaped spaces.

At least the IKEA kitchen was fairly straightforward (at least compared to everything else.  Bruno got the frames of those up in a few hours.  I had spent hours on several occasions at IKEA designing my own kitchen with their software.  In the end, I chose to put the chopping and kitchen space on one side of the bus with the fridge and sink just opposite because I had found that setup practical in a house Bruno and I once stayed in.  Getting the furniture fixed to the walls, however, was more challenging, as it was designed to be attached at exactly the spot where we have windows instead of walls.  Not for the first (or last time), Bruno had to think up a creative solution to the problem.

Next up we needed to create solid boxes that would go over the wheels, which cut up into the floor of the bus.  Our shower and toilet would more or less be placed on top of those boxes, so the false floor needed to be sturdy.  We measured out the space for the toilet room and the shower base and extended our “wheel boxes” into the “hallway” so these rooms would rest flat.  We just barely (thankfully) managed to fit a PVC pipe elbow under the drain of the shower because it fell just to the front of the wheel as the floor angled back down.  This will soon connect to a grey water tank below.

With the remaining space in the back, we built a bed frame (which would hold our new IKEA full mattress – a full 15 centimeters larger than the bed in Totoyaya!).  You may notice that the bed is built the long way, which takes up more space.  Bruno was fairly adamant about not wanting his nose shoved up against a wall anymore, and since we ended up getting a bus larger than we’d expected, we thought this was a luxury we could afford.

We still wanted the bed frame to be used for storage, so we have used the same system of cubicles under the bed as with Totoyaya.  Additionally, we placed the used 200 liter water tank under the bed frame, and connected that tank to our shower and sink on one end and an opening behind the bus to fill the tank from the outdoors.

I also wanted drawers to be built into the bed frame.  I currently have one drawer in Totoyaya and wanted a few extra because I find them absolutely wonderful (all a girl needs is a drawer or two, really).  Since making drawers is relatively time-consuming and Bruno has enough to do, we bought an old dresser at a Habitat for Humanity Restore, cut out four of its drawers, and built them into the bed frame.

Next up was closing up and insulating a few windows.  In case you hadn’t noticed, our bus is full of them, and, while we love windows, that’s a problem for keeping the interior temperature stable.  So, we opted to close up the two smaller windows in the back because we felt three was already enough in our bedroom, and two larger windows in the center of the bus (the ones that fell on the space taken up by our toilet and shower).  After doing tons of research to find an eco-friendly product, I purchased Ultra Touch recycled denim insulation.  Directly onto the window, we placed aluminum window reflectors (mainly to reflect sunlight), added a 3-inch-thick piece of insulation around wood frames we’d built into the windows, and then covered those with thin wood panels that I will paint later.  That sure is some good insulation!  Bruno also took advantage of this time to fix one of the windows we will keep, as it didn’t shut properly and ratted loudly when we drove.

Once the windows were closed up, we could begin building the walls for the bathroom and shower.  This ended up being a much more time-consuming job than expected because the walls of the bus are not straight.  The cedar panels had to be measured, cut, and placed one-by-one.  Because of this, we opted not to panel the inside of the toilet and the storage space we built behind the driver’s seat.  That space we covered instead with plywood.  I plan to create a map wallpaper collage there at some point.

Because the weather has gotten warmer, Bruno decided it was time to place the fans into the ceiling.  We had found a really good deal for three 12 volt Maxxair fans on Ebay, so Bruno placed one in the bedroom, one near the stovetop, and one up front between the driver and passenger seat.  We decided on that one at the last moment because we don’t really have any windows that open up in the front and, because the windows themselves are so large, the sun really beats down on us during the day.  Despite the fact we didn’t remove the AC here, a bit of fan action won’t hurt.

And because the fans were in, Bruno felt it was time to get the solar system set up and the fans running.  This task was a doozy.  Because we didn’t have to insulate the bus, we didn’t have to plan the electrical system right at the get-go.  But now, we did.  It took a lot of discussion and a whole lot of brain power on Bruno’s part, but he finally decided on a system that would work with our needs.  I’m sure I will detail our solar installation down the line, but for now I just want to say that this part of the project has meant installing the batteries under the bed, the panels themselves on the roof, the regulators on the outside of the toilet in the bedroom, and hiding all the wiring in the wall frame.  Bruno did an amazing and rather professional-looking job of it, I must say!  And best of all, the fans are up and running!  Can’t wait to get the lights in!

For the past six weeks, Bruno and I have been living and breathing this bus conversion project.  We put in ten-hour days, seven days a week.  It’s so easy, when caught up in the project, to focus on all that we still have to do.  Admittedly, there is a lot.

But sifting through photos and writing this post has been surprisingly refreshing for me.  It has allowed me to see all that we have already accomplished, which is – if I do say so myself- a rather lot!  Our goal over the next two weeks is to get the bus in a condition where it can be driven to Mexico (with all our belongings in it!) and (hopefully) lived in at a campsite while we continue our work.  The next couple weeks, then, are sure to be as hectic and challenging as the six previous weeks.

But tonight, as I press “publish” on this post, I wish to revel in all that we have accomplished so far.

Ok, that’s enough.  Back to work.