This is one family’s converted skoolie for sale (sold) in Santa Fe.
Meg and Adam are selling the home on wheels after moving into an RV:
Still tiny living but a bit more comfortable for the 5 of us and our big dog. We decided to go tiny instead of rent because it allows us to save enough money pay for our kids to go to the local Waldorf school.
Awesome reason to save! Enjoy pictures of the skoolie and get price, details and contact information below.
They chose a bus conversion over a traditional tiny house because it would cost less (they spent $17,600 on the build, see the breakdown here) and be easier to transport to accommodate their travels. The coolest part? You can follow the whole conversion on their blog, and if you have questions about this skoolie conversion, they provided a handy list of FAQs which they answered for you.
Check out their beautiful pictures and then enjoy the video tour on the last page!
From the outside, you can see vestiges of the house’s former life as a vehicle for transporting students, but the exterior of the bus has been painted burgundy. The body of the van has been enveloped in wood-siding to give a more “house-like” look and feel. The coolest part of this bus transformation? It runs off of vegetable oil!
When you go inside, you’ll find beautiful fir floors and an entirely wooded home. The roof has been cut off of the bus, allowing for a 2×4 construction house with a taller ceiling to be built in its place. The bus includes a wood stove and right next to the home’s heating source is a door that leads below the bus where he can load wood from the outside to fuel the fire. During the winter, he heats his house and water with an antique-looking oven, but during the summer, he has a smaller stove and oven that runs off propane. He has a typical RV water tank system, with grey water going into one tank and black water into the other. His stand-up shower has a beautiful pebble floor and a skylight for brightness. Watch the video below for more details!
From the outside, it looks like a tiny cabin until you notice that it’s built right onto a school bus frame! When you go inside, you’ll find a cozy living area suitable for a family of three with room to sleep, store their belongings, play guitar, cook, eat, bathe, relax, and more!
Since the both of them love to travel and did not want a home with a 30-year mortgage they decided to go tiny. So for only $10,000 they bought this partially-converted school bus and did the rest of the work to turn it into home.
Once you go inside their bus you almost forget you are even in a school bus! Instead you feel like you’re in a rather a chic and stylish cottage. I think you might agree that they are making the most out of simple living. Please enjoy and re-share below. Thank you!
This School Bus Tiny Cottage Lifestyle Update is a guest post by Marsha Cowan – share yours!
I came home from Arizona to North Carolina to visit with my family for the summer (am parked in my daughter’s driveway), and while here have been able to do some renovations on the tiny red bus in which I live full time in an RV park in Arizona. Almost finished! When I do get finished (hopefully in the next week) and cleaned up, I’ll send some pictures, though the solar vent fan/light I ordered from Lowe’s won’t get in until it is time to leave to go back, so that will have to be installed after I get back to AZ.
Some of the changes have been a stained/varnished floor, new boxcar shelves, blinds on the windows, and Plexiglas shutters on the back windows. There are a few other changes as well that have made life so much easier for me, but as usual, I am still off grid. Can I put in a plug for Goal Zero, my new hero? Lol!
Here are the pictures of the remodeling on my tiny red bus which I call Baby Boy. The biggest improvement was the stained and varnished floor. As with the partitions in the bus which have worked out so well, I used 1×6 pine fencing to do the floor. It only took me about $20 worth, then small cans of stain and marine varnish. So far it has been very easy to keep clean!
The idea first came to me last winter as I was sleeping in my truck. Cold, cramped and no good way to dry out my snowboarding gear, I started thinking about how I could have a little more wiggle room without the cost of an expensive RV.
A short school bus came to mind and I learned that a handful out there are 4×4. After many nights of research I found the bus I was looking for. A 2001 GMC Savana chassis with Corbeil bus top and a 6.4 Turbo Diesel motor. The bus was located in Albany, NY and we flew out to drive it back to UT taking only old highways and side roads while documenting the whole thing.
My summer and fall has been consumed with removing all the bus seats, chopping the back four feet off and reattaching, welding a deck on the back for two snowmobiles and converting the inside to a cozy 76 sq. ft. living quarter.
The inside is complete with a bathroom, kitchen, dining area that converts to a bed system that will sleep four, clothes closet, nook and plenty of space to store everything one would need to live simple. Most of the walls are recycled pallet wood that I sanded and applied a clear coat to.
