Their luxury RV is an old bus converted into a tiny home

Hi there, welcome to my channel where I take you on tours of unique homes and showcase stories of people living alternatively. Today we're meeting up with the Price family to take a tour of their stunning DIY school bus converted into a tiny home. This beautiful schoolie includes a roof raise, tons of creative storage solutions, and multi-purpose furniture, all of which help to maximize space. They'll walk us through their home on wheels and discuss how living tiny has allowed them to prioritize family time. But before we get started, if you like unique home tours like this one, make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification bell so that you know every single time we publish a new video. What's up guys, we're the Price family and this is our self-converted 40-foot long schoolie. I'm Landon, this is Liam, this is our pup Oakley, and this is my wife Megan. Before building the bus and moving into the bus, I was a youth pastor for seven years and I actually started a wedding photography and videography business. But one of the reasons we decided to actually move into the bus was just because we were loving the life that we were living. It just was kind of missing something. We were really searching for just freedom, freedom in time, freedom and money, freedom and just getting to like go out and see the world. And really just be able to spend time with our family. And so that's why we built the bus. It took us a really long time. We literally knew nothing about plumbing, nothing about electrical, maybe a tiny bit of woodworking. She always jokes because in high school I built a bookshelf. That's about all the experience we had. We basically spent like a year or so working on the complete exterior and the And I think it was probably a good nine to ten months of doing the complete interior. How much did it cost? Right at $36,000, but that includes the cost of the bus, the cost of everything, and then the cost of all the decorations and things that we added to the bus along the way. We've been living in the bus for about a year and a half now. Hey guys, welcome to our home. This is a 40-foot international front engine school bus that we took and cut in half, took out all the windows, did an 18-inch roof raise, and now we live in this full-time and travel the country together as a family. We can't wait to show you more of it. As you can see here, we decided to take off the original bus doors and put on a house door. So we made it feel a little bit more homey. My wife decided with that we wanted the welcome home sign and added a cute little porch lot. One of our favorite things about our build is the wood accents that we did around the front of the top. So there's one on the very front, there's one on both sides, so we really love those. And then the wood that goes down along the sides of the bus, we have a lot of people that comment on that and tell us that's their favorite part. It's one of our favorite parts of the bus as well. Unfortunately, when we bought our bus, it didn't come with storage, and so we had to build our own storage, but we added in these two six-foot long storage containers that both shut and seal. And then as you go down the side of the bus, you'll notice we added in a camera. So we have a camera on this side, camera on the other side, and a backup camera. So when I'm driving, I'm able to see both sides and the back. When you're driving a bus like this, something this big, it really helps to be able to have to help you maneuver around in tight spots. One of our favorite parts about our bus is that it has a DT-466 engine. That's gotten us here today. We've been traveling, we've probably gone over 10,000 miles now. Of course, it's an old school bus, and so we're going to have issues with that every once in a while. It just takes a little bit of hands-on work every once in a while to make sure it's in top shape. Our bus is run by three 200 amp hour lithium batteries. So we have 600 amp hours of lithium power, but the way we charge that is the solar that's on the roof. And so we just actually installed a little bit more solar. We now have 2,040 watts of solar on the roof with that battery bank. It keeps us going pretty good. I don't think we've had to charge in over two weeks now, so the sun is doing us really well, and we're thankful for that. We have the 100 gallons of fresh water. We have two gray water tanks that both add up to be about 86 gallons of gray water. And then because of our composting tool, we don't need a black water tank. So that's been really good for us. We haven't had any issues with that. As you go down the side of the bus here, this is where we store two of our 15-pound propane tanks. So our kitchen oven is run off of propane, and then also our hot water heater is run off of propane. And then down towards the back of the bus, we have another storage that we built in, another box. So this holds a generator in case we're running low on power. And then right behind that, we also have our outdoor unit to our mini split. One of my favorite things also about the bus is the very back. We added on a back deck. One of the reasons why is because we also carry around a Honda Grom, a little motorcycle that we can take off wherever we stop and be able to get places quickly. We also hold in here, Liam has a little electric Jeep, and so that goes on the back. And then a couple extra things if we need to just toss them up here. It's extra storage for us. And then you'll notice we also have a hitch because we tow a Jeep. So we tow a Jeep Cherokee. That gives us a way if we ever have an emergency or anything, if the bus is parked at camp or we've kind of settled down, we're able to hop in the Jeep, run to town, run some errands. Liam and the car seat, everything can fit in there with us. And so we've been happy with our towing setup as well. We added the ladder on the back because you can't miss the big deck that we have on top. We have an eight by ten foot deck that we like to go up there, hang out when we have friends over, watch sunsets. We've eaten some meals up there. So we definitely needed the ladder to be able to get up top. Alright, so now that Landon has showed you the outside of our bus, let me take you inside and give you a little tour. Right as you walk into the bus, we wanted it to definitely feel like a home. And so we created this cute little nook that we call our entryway shelf. And we have another on this side as well. These basically just hold trinkets and decorations and then stuff that we may grab when we're leaving really quickly, like some sunglasses, Oakley's leash, some treats, and little stuff like that. Another priority that we had when we were building the bus was just making sure that we had tiny little storage places literally everywhere. So we have some storage here that we can place a couple pairs of shoes in and grab those quickly if we need to. We actually built in storage in this area as well. Literally there's a place for everything. That's like the, I feel like the biggest priority when you're living in a tiny house is just making sure everything has a home. And that's what creating all these tiny little storage places does. Another priority we had when we were doing the build was just trying to make sure that this area was as comfortable as possible and just made things simple and easy for Landon. So there's lots of cup holders for while he's driving. And then all the controls are actually in this cabinet here, just so they're kind of hidden and kept away from our little toddler. Another area that we really focused on storage in the bus was definitely like our living space. And so there's a cubby here for just all of our laptops and things like that. These hammock chairs are actually one of our like favorite things in the bus. I know we didn't build them, but they both hang in the ceiling. There's two different areas for them to hang. When we first moved into the bus, we had Liam and he was a one-year-old and so we still had to rock him to bed. But we also use them for game night in this space. And so another reason this space is like absolutely our favorite is because it's really good for hosting. And when we were moving into the bus, one of our main priorities was just being able to have so much time for like community and space to be able to host things like that. And so we actually have these two couches, which both lift up and have storage underneath, but they also pull together and create a queen size bed for our family and all of our guests. So if you look up top here, we actually created storage cabinets pretty much down this entire area in the bus, in the living space and the kitchen space. That is what doing the roof raise really gave us was just so much more space for putting in storage and cabinets. That actually pretty much sums up the front of the bus. And then if you look towards the middle of the bus, we actually now have our kitchen. I personally would say that we have pretty much all the same appliances that you would have in a house, just a little bit tinier version. Like we said with the roof raise, we got to add more up top storage, which is super nice because I don't know if I would technically call ourselves minimalists. We live in a 40 foot bus. So obviously we don't have as much as normal people do in a house, but we still have quite a few things. We have loved our Furrion oven and it also has the cook top stove. We have baked lots and lots of goodies in this oven. So I'm like super glad that we made sure that we went ahead and got one. We went ahead and went with the butcher block for the bus and I am just so happy with it. It has done amazing. We just went ahead and sealed it and that's kept it safe and protected and waterproof. We have our big, beautiful farmhouse sink. This sink has done so many good things because it has served not only as our sink to wash the dishes, but it's also been our little boy's bath for a really long time. I'm a little bit sad because I think he might be growing out of using this space, but it's something that he has loved and we've loved forever using. So we've used it for that. We actually have a hot water heater stored under our sink in this area right here. So we have our tankless propane hot water heater. We just wanted to make sure that this place felt cozy and homey, so we went ahead and splurged a tiny bit and got these what we call veneer bricks. And so they're super beautiful. We love them so much. And then we put in these little shelves for just like plants and like hanging some fruit and candles because I feel like something that is really important when you're in the bus is just making sure that everything has a place. This little area is actually Oakley's. It is his food and his water and we keep all those types of things in there and there's a couple toys right behind there. These are actually fold up bars and so they just pop up and then we place a bar here just to make them a little bit more sturdy. And our son's little high chair actually goes on the end there. The last area of the kitchen consists of this little cabinet which actually stores our bar stool. And then in this last section here we have all of our spices and teas and then we have our fridge which is I think it's an apartment size fridge. It's worked really well for us. This top part is the freezer and the bottom is our fridge. This drawer holds all of our like dry goods and this one has all of our canned goods and rice. To finish off this front half of the bus before you hit Liam's space we actually have a thing that I like was so adamant about having and Landon kind of fought me on it for a little while because he was definitely worried that it was going to break and I, if I'm being honest, I'm really shocked that it did not is our giant full-length mirror that we use. So we mostly use this just to take pictures in or check our outfits like normal people but it is really nice having and just it's a fun feature that we added inside of the bus. What's your name and how old are you? Liam. How old are you Liam? Liam. How old are you? Liam. Are you two or two and a half? Two and a half. You're two and a half? Do you want to show them your bedroom? Yeah. Yeah okay. Up here. You want to climb that top first? So this is actually how Liam's bed works. We just click it in right here and it keeps him nice and safe. What else do you have up there? Tell them your fan, you have a sound machine. Can you tell them? A sound machine. Okay what is this baby doing? A baby sloth. Okay what else do you have? Um air vents, these air vents, my legs go right, my legs go right, this is my closet. Where are your toys? This is my toys. In these three um drawers right here we actually have all of his shoes and his socks and a bunch of other fun little stuff. You got some more sunglasses in there? Here you go you can hold them. And then this drawer is actually super handy. It's almost always out in our house and almost everything in it is also almost always out in the floor but this just houses all of his other fun little toys that he plays with pretty much on a daily basis. And then we did go ahead and go with the washer dryer combo unit because we had a little one and I'm so thankful that we did. It definitely saves us money and time from having to sit at a laundry mat and wait on those types of things. We absolutely have loved it. Um up top we have most of all of our clothing so I may or may not take over more than half of the closet but this is mine and this is Landon's. This door here was one of the cool features we were able to build in the bus because it not only covers like the washer and dryer in our closet but it also swings back here and it covers the bathroom area. One of the really cool things about our bathroom is we use the nature's head composting tool so we don't have to use a black tank thankfully. We just use a gray tank and then we can dump the compost and so that's really not as bad as people make it. You can't really smell it. We have a fan that vents that out. It's worked really well for us so we've been happy with that. We just use coconut coir to mix that up and clean it out when we do. The reason it steps up is because it's on our wheel well and the same with our shower. So on the other side is our shower and it steps up as well because it's on our wheel well. In the shower we're able to use the click and lock tile on the walls and then we also use mosaic tile on the floor so that's actually a real tile that's grouted and then we built a bench inside the shower with more tile and then inside the bench we're able to build a pullout laundry hamper which again all that's my wife's idea but I love it. It works out really well for us. In the shower we did go with the nebula showerhead so that saved us a lot of water and we've been really happy with that as well. Coming further down the hallway into the back of our bus we have a door that closes off our bedroom and once you open that you'll see on the bottom we have two really big drawers. Both of these are just held in by a couple little child locks so that when we're driving they don't fly out but each of us, Megan and I, both have a full drawer that has all of our shoes but the cool thing about these drawers is they're both on heavy duty sliding locks so that we can step up on them if we need to get into the bed so it makes it really easy to get up into the bed and even Liam can pull them out and get up into the bed as well so this brings you back into our bedroom which we just love so much. We have a full-size queen bed with a memory foam topper so comfortable we sleep awesome at night and then one of our favorite things about our bedroom is our really big skylight up top. As you can tell once you get into our bedroom we have lots of height still even though our bed is really high. The reason why we lifted up our bed so much is because we have 100 gallons of fresh water and that tank is right underneath our pillows over here and then the rest of this the space underneath our bed is all storage so we're able to lift our bed up from the front side to be able to access that storage and then also back behind this wall is our garage space and we can access the storage from underneath the bed back behind this wall as well. Behind our pillows there's cubby spaces. We have three different cubbies. Over here I have my little nightstand. Megan has her little nightstand over there so we both have one of those. Up top we both have cubbies that open up so we have whatever we want to put those each of us get our own cubby. We went with a mini split which is very power efficient so our solar doesn't quite run it but it gets pretty close. Above our doorway into our bedroom we have a really cool bookshelf because I love to read. Megan's starting to like to read a little bit more and so we store all of our books up there if we're not reading them and then I'll show you the garage space is back here. We have a two-foot space that has all of our stuff back there for the garage which houses our batteries, our tools, lots of extra supplies, hiking backpacks. So as you can imagine the garage space can be a little bit messy. The cool thing about building your own tiny house is that once you build it you can pretty much know how to fix all the things that go wrong and so I carry all the tools with us. We also just have some fun stuff like our fishing poles and underneath in our storage we carry our paddle boards and our inflatable kayak but the garage space is just a space where we can store extra tools and the things that don't really have a place they end up coming to make the garage a little bit more messy. Originally we just planned to build the bus and live in it for like a year or two. Now we're at a year and a half and we literally see no end in sight. A year or two is definitely not enough. You can't see it all. We love it. Our little boy loves it. We love being able to see new places all of the time and so we just plan to keep going. Thanks for watching this week's episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Please make sure to like, share, and subscribe and I will see you soon with another unique home tour.