When Jonathan Perera bought a 36-foot Bluebird school bus in January 2020, he set one rule for himself before the first seat ever came out. “I went into the project knowing that I wasn’t going to treat this like every other school bus conversion that I had seen online,” he says — and the finished bus makes good on that promise.
He paid $7,000 for the flat-nose Bluebird, a 130,000-mile body chosen for its minimal rust and its short wheelbase relative to its length. Two years and more than $170,000 later, that retired school bus has become a polished, four-season home that Jonathan has driven roughly 11,000 miles across the United States with his Siberian Husky, Skye. He partnered with Skoolie.com in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where the crew stripped the interior, raised the roof a full 20 inches, rebuilt the walls in steel, and brought in about $20,000 of custom woodwork.
A certified life coach and small-business consultant who also teaches snowboarding in the winter, Jonathan runs his work from the road and filled the bus with design cues collected on his travels: a Moroccan-inspired backsplash that nods to his grandmother, arches and exposed beams borrowed from a villa on Mexico’s Holbox Island, and art and ceramics gathered from New Mexico to Canada. Let’s step inside.
Images courtesy of Jonathan Perera (@thejonathanperera)
The Cockpit Becomes a Living Room
Rather than wall off the driver’s area, Jonathan turned it into the social heart of the front of the bus. A single captain’s chair sits beside a leather sofa that wraps into the nose, and a live-edge shelf runs above the windscreen for plants, books, and travel finds. Keeping the original front glass means the whole space stays flooded with light and frames whatever landscape he’s parked in that week.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
A Kitchen Built Around a Moroccan Backsplash
The galley sits in the middle of the bus and runs like a true residential kitchen. A full-size four-burner propane range anchors the cooking wall, paired with an electric fridge-freezer, sage-green custom cabinets built by a North Carolina woodworker, and sleek black countertops. The brick-style backsplash is a deliberate nod to the zellige tilework of Jonathan’s Moroccan grandmother, and warm under-cabinet lighting keeps the whole zone glowing after dark.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
A Convertible Dinette for Two
Across from the kitchen, a pair of leather chairs and a drop-leaf butcher-block table form a compact dinette tucked under a curtained window. It’s a small move with a big payoff: the seating converts into a twin guest bed, so the bus can host a friend without sacrificing its everyday layout.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
A Wood Stove and a Hidden TV
The living zone proves you don’t have to choose between cozy and modern. A custom ambrosia-maple shelving unit conceals a flat-screen TV behind its live-edge tiers, while a genuine wood stove sits on a curved hearth wrapped in star-pattern tile, with a built-in niche for firewood below. A gallery wall of masks, mirrors, and hand-drawn art — plus a dedicated dog bed for Skye — gives the space the feel of a small cabin rather than a vehicle.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
Exposed Beams and Archways From a Mexican Villa
Look up and the ceiling tells a story. Exposed wood beams and arched doorways were inspired by a villa Jonathan stayed in on Holbox Island, Mexico, and they do the hard work of breaking up the long, boxy footprint a bus naturally has. Underfoot, chevron-laid luxury vinyl plank was chosen partly for how well it conducts the heat from the floors below, and many of the finishing touches — ceramic claywork from New Mexico, window treatments from Colorado, hand-drawn art from Canada — were collected on the road, each one carrying its own memory.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
A Split Bathroom That Hides the Wheel Wells
The bathroom is split across the hallway, and that layout is doing more than it looks. The toilet and vanity sit on one side while the shower sits directly opposite — a configuration that neatly conceals the rear wheel wells and lets a guest use the toilet even while Jonathan is in the shower. The vanity pairs a concrete vessel sink with a black counter, white herringbone tile, and a medicine cabinet hidden behind the mirror.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
A composting toilet keeps the bus genuinely off-grid, set into its own tiled room with a tongue-and-groove wood ceiling and a small storage shelf above.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
The shower opposite feels almost spa-like: a teak surround, patterned Moroccan-style tile, a water-efficient Nebia spa shower head, and a built-in speaker so there’s always music on the road.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
A Lofted Bedroom With Storage in Every Inch
At the back, a lofted queen bed reached by a step ladder sits beneath large windows and a brass sconce, dressed with travel art and warm, earthy textiles. The real story here is underneath: the platform hides a six-drawer dresser and a dedicated shoe closet, and the cavity below holds 100 gallons of fresh water, the in-floor heating system, two snowboards, and Skye’s extra food — a reminder of just how much a thoughtfully planned bus can swallow without feeling cramped.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
A Full Closet in Ambrosia Maple
Facing the bed, a full-height wardrobe built from figured ambrosia maple gives Jonathan something most road dwellers go without: real hanging space. Behind its two doors is a proper clothes rail over a deep drawer, with two more drawers below — the kind of everyday storage that makes full-time bus life sustainable rather than a constant exercise in compromise.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
Built to Live Off-Grid Through a -5°F Winter
This bus isn’t a fair-weather build. Twelve hundred watts of rooftop solar, alternator charging when the engine runs, and an optional 50-amp shore-power hookup keep the lights on, while the wood stove, heated floors, and two backup heaters handle the cold. Jonathan put all of it to the test parking a winter at 10,000 feet of elevation, where temperatures dropped to -5°F — and he and Skye stayed warm.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Perera
Design Details
- Base vehicle: 36-foot flat-nose Bluebird school bus, ~130,000 miles, purchased January 2020 for $7,000
- Conversion partner: Skoolie.com, Hendersonville, North Carolina
- Structure: roof raised 20 inches, new steel walls and hat channels, new strategically placed windows
- Build time: roughly 2 years (extended by COVID-era supply delays)
- Total invested: $170,000+, including about $20,000 in custom woodwork
- Power: 1,200 watts of rooftop solar, alternator charging, optional 50-amp shore power
- Heating: wood stove, in-floor radiant heat, plus two backup heaters
- Water: 100 gallons of fresh water stored under the bed
- Kitchen: full-size four-burner propane range, electric fridge-freezer, custom sage-green cabinets
- Bathroom: split layout with a composting toilet and a teak shower with a Nebia spa head
- Flooring: chevron-laid luxury vinyl plank over heated floors
- Sleeping: lofted queen bed plus a convertible twin dinette
What Makes This Build Special
- Designed from memory, not a mood board. Nearly every finish — the Moroccan backsplash, the Holbox arches, the New Mexico clay — ties back to a place Jonathan actually visited, giving the interior a coherence that’s hard to fake.
- A split bathroom solves two problems at once. Putting the toilet and shower on opposite sides of the hallway hides the wheel wells and lets a guest use the toilet while the shower is in use.
- Architecture beats the box. Exposed beams and arched openings break up the long, narrow shell so the bus reads like a cabin instead of a corridor.
- Mechanicals disappear into storage. Fresh water, the heating system, and even snowboards live inside the bed platform, keeping the living space clean and uncluttered.
- Genuinely four-season and off-grid. Solar, a wood stove, and radiant floors let the bus handle -5°F at 10,000 feet, not just mild campgrounds.
Follow Jonathan and See More
This conversion is the work of Jonathan Perera, who lives and travels in the bus full-time with his Husky, Skye. You can follow the journey and his coaching work here:
- Website: jonathanperera.com
- Instagram: @thejonathanperera
- YouTube: Home On The HWY
Highlights
- $7,000 Bluebird school bus transformed into a $170K+ four-season home
- 36 feet long with a 20-inch raised roof for full standing height
- Globe-trotting design: Moroccan backsplash, Mexican-villa archways, exposed beams
- Residential kitchen with a full-size propane range and custom cabinetry
- Split bathroom with a composting toilet and a teak spa shower
- Lofted queen bedroom over hidden storage and 100 gallons of fresh water
- 1,200W solar plus a wood stove and heated floors for true off-grid living
- Driven 11,000 miles with a Siberian Husky named Skye
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Alex
