Couple Downsizes - Living In School Bus After Remodelling It For 16k

Nov 09, 2020 by apost team

Tiny homes are cool. But you know what's even cooler? A tiny home that is actually a school bus! Chase and Maria from Nashville, Tennessee have converted a school bus into their very own home and are living the tiny home dream on the road.

He is originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, while she is from Venezuela. Chase and Maria met when they were both working in Madison, Wisconsin before deciding to move to Nashville together. One fateful day, Maria was having an especially bad day at work and just had an idea, so she texted Chase out of the blue: "Let's buy a bus." And so on April 6th, 2018, they did!

The couple had their own non-negotiables each. For Chase, it was his hammock. He installed rings on the ceiling of the strongest part of the bus and whenever he wants, hooks his hammock up and lays in it. "This was a nice place of refuge while we were building the bus. We'd open up all the windows ... let the breeze come in," he says. The hammock also serves as an extra bed for guests to sleep in. Chase shares that it took them a total of four months to build the bus and it amounted to less than $16,000 spent, including taxes and registration, etc.

The one challenge with living in a functional bus is keeping the furniture and your things in place. Chase and Maria explain how sometimes their drawers would open and close from all the movement and mess up the things inside their drawer. They say that they are still trying to figure out how to keep things in place.

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One advice that the couple gives for bus living is to make your own things, instead of buying them. Because their space is so unconventional (of course, it's a bus), a lot of items you can buy commercially do not fit into the measurements of the inside of the bus.

Buses have a curved top, and so one of the couple's regret was buying the kitchen cabinets instead of making their own. But besides that, the couple absolutely adores their kitchen. Chase was able to get a deal for the fridge, and it only cost them $250. They placed their sink where it would share the plumbing with the bathroom which was located directly behind it.

The couple's living room includes two separate couches which also serve as guest beds for guests when they come over. It is also where their dog would sit when they are driving, because leaving him on the floor of the bus while they are on the road makes him slide around a lot!

Maria's non-negotiable was her vanity. She is a freelance makeup artist who also does makeup tutorials on YouTube, so having her own space to do makeup was necessary. The vanity is located right next to their bed, which sounds squeezy but is actually placed where it allows a lot of space for Maria to sit and get her makeup done.

The TV area is right in front of their bed, and Maria says Chase spends a lot of time playing video games on it. It's incredible how they have maximized the end of the bus to create their own master bedroom! So far, the whole bus just looks like an RV on steroids, and it's absolutely chic.

"I think the biggest part of driving this bus was the initial fear that it's a 21,000 pound vehicle and you're driving it in Nashville traffic but after about the first 50 miles on the bus it felt like driving a normal car to the point where we get in a normal car ...  it feels very strange," Chase shares.

Chase explains their toilet situation. The couple decided on using a compost toilet for more sustainability. Compost toilets function without water, instead relying on sawdust, coconut coir, or comparable dry items to compost the waste directly. Growing up, Chase went camping with his family a lot, so he's unfazed by cleaning the dump. He also mentions how, since they are on the road a lot, they visit a lot of state parks to settle their toilet needs in-between.

They even have a boot in the bus where Chase stores their rock climbing gear. You have to watch this tour for yourself, words here don't do it justice at all.

What is your favorite part of Chase and Maria's school-bus-turned-home? Let us know in the comments and be sure to get the opinions of your loved ones as well!