My husband and I converted an old school bus into a tiny home in nine months.
It took a lot of work, but we have been living full-time on the road for over 13 months and it has been great.
There are 10 things that have surprised us.
The school bus we bought was just $3,500.
There isn't much need for buses once they are used at schools. You can find them for sale on the internet.
The total cost for renovations was about $42,000. Even though it took several months of labor, this was still cheaper than buying a brand new RV.
Our home on wheels is just 230 square feet and we can only have so many things.
We went through all of our stuff and decided what we needed. We ended up with very few things.
We don't buy new things since we don't have a place to keep them, so we focus on spending our money on travel and seeing new places.
Even though Charlie and I had never built anything of our own, we had plenty of help from friends and family and learned a lot from videos on the internet.
Since we are the ones who put it together, we can fix anything that breaks in our home since we know more about electric systems.
We are always conscious of how much power and water we use since we tend to camp off-grid and have found ourselves being water conscious in normal homes.
The first month was going to be hard because of our friends who lived in tiny homes. The adjustment period only took a few weeks.
We had two expensive mechanical issues in the first two weeks after we moved into the bus. We were having trouble finding safe places to sleep after a large rock hit our windshield. It felt like we made the wrong decision.
We met some friends who gave us many tips and tricks for life on the road, and we developed habits that fostered happiness and productivity.
We formed some of our deepest connections with other families on the road, despite it being hard to make new friends as an adult.
We had no idea that there was a strong online presence of other people in the same situation as us.
Many of the people in our virtual friend group have helped us in real life.
We enjoy spending time together despite the jokes that we must drive each other nuts. We have found ways to take time for ourselves.
Our bathroom has a door. The L-shaped layout was built with privacy in mind and separated the front of the bus from the bedroom to create two separate spaces for working or alone time.
If we need more space, we will spend some time outdoors alone.
We did not know that there are apps that can help you find places to refill water, dump your gray tank, and sleep safely.
We usually camp on land owned by the Bureau of Land Management, since it is almost always free, plus other nomads mark and review places they stay on apps like iOverlander. Since we work remotely, campers record what the cell service was like on Campendium.
It is easier to find safe and beautiful places to stay thanks to all of these resources.
We have all of the necessities we would need in a normal home, such as a bed, two separate workspace, a shower with hot water, and a toilet.
In our small kitchen, we can cook all of the recipes we love, including a pressure cooker, a full fridge and freezer, and a gas stove and oven.
We don't feel like we're missing anything on our bus, even though it's nice to take long, hot showers.
We need to sweep our bus every day, even though deep cleaning our apartment was enough.
Our small space quickly accumulates dust and dirt when we live with two people and a cat. One dirty dish can make a mess when you only have so much counter space.
We tidy up every night so we can wake up to a clean home each morning.
We thought we would only live on the bus for a year. It has been 13 months, and we don't think we will settle down soon. We have grown used to our constantly changing backyard and small living space.
We used to dream of owning a large mansion or multiple homes, but now we think of owning a small house.
We don't need a huge space for our family, and we want to keep seeing as much of the world as we can.
The original article can be found on Insider.
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