I turned a SCHOOL BUS into a LUXURY tiny home

In this video, we're going to turn a 40 foot school bus into my personal tiny home. This is the biggest, most expensive video we've ever done and it took us more than a year to complete. I can't believe it, but we're doing this again. Last spring I decided I had it with rent and I bought a full size school bus. Oh it's big, it's big, it's big. This bus was going to make the perfect house because it ran beautifully and was super powerful. I'm going like 70 right now. Once we eventually got it home, there was a lot of work to do. It is time to remove 28 seats out of this bus. So while me and my girlfriend are removing these seats, let me explain to you just how crazy this build is going to be. The very first thing we're doing to this bus is cutting the roof off and raising it up nearly four feet. This will make it possible to put two stories in the back and make nine foot ceilings inside. This will be the highest roof raise any bus has ever gotten on YouTube, ever. Our first step was taking the metal ceiling down and ripping that old nasty insulation out. Then we removed all the windows and yes, this is why all of our videos have bus windows in them. Now we have to drive this, it's like a zombie bus. To raise this roof, our dad actually designed two wooden jacks. These go on either side of the bus and will make it possible to jack this roof up safely and squarely. The next step was to cut the roof off like a can opener. Once we had everything cut off, it was time to try and lift it. Okay, here we go. No way. It is, it's picking up the whole thing. This took so many tries to get right, but eventually we got it. This is our roof raise so far. You might be surprised to know that we're going another foot up. Once we finally reached full height, you can see how monstrous this bus is going to be. But now our number one mission was to get the jacks out of there because a strong gust of wind could blow this roof off. So we had to secure it very quickly with steel tubing. We did this by clamping them in the middle of the metal we cut in half and then just welding it. This took all night, but once we were done, we had a solid shell and all it needed was some siding. Oh, that's a nice big rip. With the roof raise complete, here's the before and here's the after. From the bottom to the top, it's 10 feet high. Woo! Floor's going down, baby! For the floor, we had a nice thick layer of plastic that keeps water outside of the bus. Then on top of that, we have three inch closed cell foam that will keep mold from going anywhere and offer a ton of insulating. Then on top of the foam and two by fours, we went with a nice thick layer of subfloor that wouldn't flex every time you walk on it. Dude, stop flexing, bro. Put a shirt on. Go get him a shirt, dude. He's losing weight. He won't stop going shirtless everywhere. Just because you have abs, bro, doesn't mean... After the subfloor was down, it was time to start framing in the walls. To do this, we used metal self-tapping screws to bolt these two by fours to the poles that we welded. We're going to make this our front door. Look at that! This is in a bus! The layout of this bus is going to be insane. We're going to have a bedroom, an office, a full-size bathroom, and a second bedroom. What we're framing out right now is a second bedroom, which is technically just a loft. The wall that supports this loft will also close off the driver's compartment, making it its own room. Then we framed out a flat ceiling. A lot of school bus conversions I've seen online have curved ceilings, which are cool, but I think flat ceilings like in a house would make this build super unique. Then we started framing out the bathroom, which is going to have a toilet, sink, and a full-size shower. And of course, in the very back of the bus, we have the master bedroom and the office. This big empty area up here is going to be the office. So I've got to put a floor in here. I think that's about it. I was trying to think of a list there. In case you haven't noticed, the back of the bus is going to be two stories. On the second story is my office, and right now we're just putting in the floor and finishing up the framing where we can put the walls on later. Meanwhile, my dad was installing the windows in the kitchen. Jay's not doing a video, Colby's helping him, I'm stuck here doing windows. Measure twice. Two windows are in. I think they'll look great. It's coming along. The next challenge was installing massive water tanks underneath the bus. In this bus, or really any RV, there's three types of water tanks. A fresh water tank, a gray tank, and a black tank. The fresh water supplies clean water to everything in the bus. The gray tank is where the waste water from the sink and the shower go, while the black tank is what you flush down the toilet. Now according to Google, the average black tank size for an RV is 15 to 50 gallons. Mine is going to be 200. These black tanks are absolutely massive. I'll get like 250 flushes before I have to drain these tanks. Then the fresh water tank is 100 gallons. And finally, the gray tank is 100 gallons. That's it, that's it, that's it. And now that the water tanks were in, we could start plumbing. This was the last step before spray foam insulation. At this point, the bus was really starting to look like something. The windows were installed, the ACs were installed, the electric was done. The next time you see this bus, it's going to be spray foamed. I can't wait. I think now's a good time to tell you what this bus is for. About six years ago, I met my girlfriend Kelsey. And her and I made the decision to move out of our apartment and turn this bus into our dream home. And she has absolutely no idea, but when this bus is done, I'm taking it to the beach and I'm going to ask her to marry me. Yep, that's a pretty crazy plan for a YouTube video. But for now, it's time to cover up all this spray foam with drywall. As you can see, there is a lot to put up. Alright Kelsey, you are going to put this sheet up. There you go. A little higher. Alright, hold on. Stop it there. Can I help? Yeah, you're good. Once Kelsey headed out, Colby and I finished screwing in the first sheet where we could move on to the hallway, which was pretty difficult. This is arguably our sketchiest piece of drywall so far. Will it tilt? Okay. I gotta help him. Alright, we got it. Now we're just screwing it up. Then when we finished up the living room slash kitchen area, we were able to drill a ton of holes for the can lights to go inside the ceiling and make this bus extremely bright. Wow, this looks so cool. And after nearly two months of working in a dark bus, we finally had light. Then I constructed my pantry. That way we could finish up the drywall in the kitchen. Right now Colby's finishing up the laundry room and the end of the hallway where we can get started on the stairs and then the master bedroom. Meanwhile, I'm finally closing off the driver's cab until we put a door there. When I was designing the interior of this bus, I actually incorporated a nine foot attic space above the bathroom. This will give me plenty of storage when I'm living in the bus, but more importantly, it's a great place to put the dehumidifier. So the dehumidifier is sitting right there. Look at that. Yes. When you're living in a bus, or any tiny home really, one of the problems you're going to run into is humidity. And to put it simply, humidity is how much water is floating around in the air. Usually your ACs take care of this, but in my bus, the area is so small, the ACs will cut off before it can get all the moisture out of the air. And if the humidity level gets too high, it can cause mold growth and a ton of health problems. So this dehumidifier, in my opinion, is completely necessary to this build. That is amazing. We also took the time to run a kitchen vent and two bathroom vents. Then we routed these vents to the outside of the bus where we could finally put on our bathroom ceiling. And now we could somehow turn this mess into a luxury bathroom. Okay, this is the fun part. We get to do some waterproofing. The shower is obviously one of the most important parts of any bathroom because it's something that will be used every single day. This shower is big enough to fit two people at one time with dual shower heads and dual controls and dual sprayers. We even incorporated a little shelf to hold shampoo and stuff. While my dad was working in the bathroom, I was working on the front and the back of the bus, putting in the office and the loft ceiling. I think it's really cool to have a section of curved ceiling to remind you you're still in a bus. Plus they give me a little extra height where I need it. Let's see what they look like. Oh man. Wow. Back to the bathroom, we're finally installing the tile. Kelsey and I wanted this whole bathroom to look luxurious and feel like a spa. So we used the same high gloss tile everywhere. And for now the bathroom was done and it's time to move on to the kitchen. Colby and I just got done designing the kitchen in the bus. Look at it. Oh, it's going to be insane. Cabinet day is always my favorite. You're about to see how these cabinets transform the whole kitchen. And while Colby was installing cabinets, I started working on the very nasty driver's cab to make it to an area I'd actually want to spend a couple hours in. All this is getting a makeover. To fix all this mess, I had to strip all this stuff down to nothing. And yeah, it looked pretty scary, but this is the only way I could clean it properly and rip out the entire floor. So we're about to fill in this empty space with our overhead cabinets. Here goes nothing. You see those little marks inside those top cabinets? In those top cabinets are going to be these can lights that connect to a dimmer. So we'll have some ambient lighting on the very top cabinet. Back to the driver's cab, I decided to go ahead and repaint my plastics because they look so old. Then I put a nice new vinyl floor down. I ended up making the cab go from this to this. Back to the opposite side of the kitchen, we assembled the bar. This is basically my kitchen table and will seat up to four people. And now all the cabinets were finally ready for paint. Wow, what a good color. Once the cabinets were done, we were finally able to move on to the more detailed stuff, like putting up the crown molding to hide that last little bit of curve. And the window trim. Then Colby got to work on the cabinet doors and even made the top ones with frosted glass panels. Once they were all primed and painted, he put them up. This is one of those things where I've been wanting to do it, but not wanting to do it. And that is getting this huge washer dryer in the bus. One of the things I promised Kelsey was a full size washer dryer and the space we made for it was perfect. But the problem was getting it around the stairs and through the hallway. Can you guys set it down on something? Yep. Good stuff. Clean it up. Okay, lean it back down. Lean it back down. Hang on. I'll set it down. There's no way we're lifting that up our stairs. Obviously this unit's a little big, so we figured out how to take the dryer off and we put it in the office. The original plan was to get this in here before we put the stairs up. Then once the washer was over the stairs, we could put the dryer back on, where we could barely squeeze it in the spot that we made for it. The idea was to make it really tight where it wouldn't wobble around while you're driving, but it probably could have been a little looser. I hope this thing doesn't break, because it's not coming out. Then we installed our full size refrigerator, which was actually way easier than the washer and dryer. Dude. That could not look better. This is your freezer right here, dude. Dude, this is crazy. This is the biggest part because you have... At this point, we're about four months into this build. Kelsey still has absolutely no idea that I'm going to propose at the beach. I've known her for six years, and for the last three, she's been patiently awaiting the question. Hey, babe. What's it missing? I don't know. What's it missing? I don't know. What is it missing? What most of you guys probably don't understand is she's been supporting me since day one. Literally, on the first video of this channel, she stayed with me during that entire challenge. Babe! I brought sandwiches. Thank you! Thank you so much. Today's one of the most important days of the entire build. We are starting on the roof deck. And why is the roof deck so important? This is where I'm doing the proposal. Putting railings on this deck is very complicated because the bus is already at the legal height limit. So I designed custom brackets that bolted onto the sides, allowing the railings to fold down when they're not in use. Then after I welded the railings on, Colby and I ran cable through them to make it safe. Definitely don't want Kelsey like fainting and falling off or something. Then we put up the ladder, and for now, the deck was done. At this point, the bus only had a couple more major things until, well, we were done. Right now, Colby's in the master bedroom installing insulation on the ceiling for soundproofing where we can finally get the drywall in and the lights. Meanwhile, on the other side of the bedroom, my dad literally built a closet into the staircase while I was getting ready to install our off-grid system. At the heart of the system were four 200 amp hour 12 volt batteries. Whenever we're on the road, these will basically plug into the bus, giving us complete power. Each one of these batteries is 135 pounds. I wired them together and then took two wires back into the engine compartment to hook up to a second alternator I installed myself. This will charge the batteries while the bus is running, pretty much giving me unlimited power on the road. Once I made sure everything worked and looked good, I put carpet down where I could start building my bed. I'm building this bed in two parts, one that goes on this engine cover, and then the other goes over top of everything on hinges so it can fold up and down like this. Meanwhile, directly above me, the office was finally ready for carpet. This pink stuff is what goes underneath the carpet to make it feel a bit softer. I also did the loft in the front of the bus. Carpet's great for many reasons, but the main one for me is just something about it makes it feel like home. I mean, just look how nice and cozy these spaces feel now. Now it's time to do something I've been waiting on for months, install the ceiling fan. We have to be the only bus in the world with a ceiling fan on the ceiling. Then it was back to the bathroom to install a bidet smart toilet, give the ceiling a coat of paint, install the dual shower heads and controls, and finally the vent covers. Then it was time for tile. This tile has no business being in this bus, but we don't care because it's got to go in the bus. All right guys, today's the day where we get our countertops in. So this is my living room, and it's obviously missing a couch. Now I can't just run out and buy a couch because nothing's going to fit in here. So it looks like I'm going to be learning how to build a couch. To build this couch, I can't explain to you how many YouTube videos I had to watch because none of us have the slightest clue on how to build furniture. But honestly, during this video, we had no idea how to do a roof raise. We still don't know how we're going to paint it. And we definitely didn't think a roof deck was possible. So many things we had no idea what we were doing. But you know, a lot of times, if you just commit to a goal and stick with it, no matter what, you'll be surprised by the end result. Oh my God, it looks so good. We built a couch. Who knows how to build couches? The bus was starting to look amazing on the inside, but on the outside, it still looked the same as it did six months ago. So it's finally time for a paint job. Meanwhile, I booked the perfect campsite five hours away, right on the beach. And on the inside, my dad killed it with the backsplash in the kitchen. And then we installed the beautiful curved hood vent that Colby made. With a couple more finishing touches like the office and the mattresses, the bus that we've been working on for the last half year is done. This is our new house. Kelsey, you ready to take our house to the beach? Yeah. Let's go. Kelsey, we're here. We're here. I just want you to know who I am. Just want you to know who I am.