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Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie


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Meet Gabriel and Debbie Mayes and their four kids. They are a family of six living full time in their 40 ft converted school bus.

For the past year, they have traveled across the country and most recently landed on the coast of Northern California for the time being.

Below you can check out their awesome skoolie journey. Enjoy!

Full Time Living in a Converted School Bus

Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie

Images via The Mayes Team

Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie Family of Six Living Full Time in Skoolie

Images via The Mayes Team

We are Gabriel and Debbie Mayes, a husband and wife team who moved from a 5,000 sq ft house in the Chicago area to that 250 sq ft school bus you see in the picture! We travelled across the country and landed in California a year ago and have been living full time on the school bus with our 4 kids ever since!

We have Gracen (10), Darby (7), Deacon (6) and Jovey (2) and feel so blessed to be able to share our families journey with people all around the world!

We purchased our original bus for the school bus conversion in February of 2017 and shortly after discovered that it was a rust-bucket. At the time, we didn’t know anything about school buses or conversions so we relied heavily on the company we hired to guide us through the process of purchasing our next bus in March. We quickly began drawing up plans and downsizing our lifestyle. And before we knew it we were picking our bus up on July 22nd, 2017.
In August of 2017 we moved our 4 kids onto the Skoolie, FULL TIME! We traveled across the country and landed on the west coast in Northern California where we currently have our kids in school.

Resources:

A special thanks to the Mayes family for sharing with us!!! Also check out their website for access to a sweet video tour of their skoolie here. 

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Andrea is a contributor for TinyHouseTalk.com and the Tiny House Newsletter! She has a passion for sharing tiny and small house stories and introducing you to new people, ideas, and homes.
{ 4 comments… add one }
  • Diane Gray
    September 7, 2018, 9:07 pm

    This is the nicest school bus conversion I’ve seen. I like the interior and exterior. It’s not too busy and seems streamlined, especially nice for small children. Four big kids might be a little crowded, but at their ages now, it appears doable. Nice work!

  • Jenny King
    September 7, 2018, 11:56 pm

    This is by far one of the nicest school bus conversions I have ever seen. I would, however, like to see where you store all of your clothes. Do you have a washer and dryer? Where do you eat as a family inside? I can see eating outside during nice weather, but if it is pouring down rain where do you eat?

    • James D.
      September 8, 2018, 10:59 am

      Notice the fold out tables behind the driver’s seat in the second photo… They can eat right by the front with those couches facing each other…

      Couch opposite the kitchen side also has a fold out table and there’s a seat their for it, providing an additional eating space and their are cup holder recesses in the arm rests of the couches…

      For storage, the parent’s bed has drawers under it (whole bed can probably be lifted to access additional storage spaces), with above cabinets behind it… The couches are storage spaces… There’s storage compartments on the exterior… Not to mention the storage rack space they have on the back half of the roof area… Just doesn’t look like they have a traditional closet but they have hanging hooks by the front and some additional above storage cabinets above the front area…

    • James D.
      September 9, 2018, 1:17 am

      Here’s a short video of them on Inside Edition, which gives a few more details…

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzTbSOyo528

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