How to Renovate a School Bus into a Tiny House / RV. Today on Modern Builds I'm starting my biggest DIY project to date. I'm turning a vintage SCHOOL BUS into a mobile TINY HOUSE on wheels!! This bus build will be a six part series, with each episode focusing on the buildout of an individual room (bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room, & exterior). I'm calling this first episode the "clean slate" episode to get the bus ready for the episodes to come; I tackle the demo, design, interior paint, framing, basic electrical, and plumbing rough ins. It's a lot, but I've done my best to keep all the information as clear as possible.
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00:00Hey everybody, my name is Mike Montgomery and I just bought this school bus to
00:04turn into a tiny house. Now this is a huge project I've never done anything
00:08quite like it before but I'm going to be sharing every step of the process that
00:11way you guys feel comfortable trying something like this for yourself. So
00:15without any further ado let's go ahead and get started on Modern Builds.
00:20Today's video is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com slash
00:25modern builds for 10% off your first website or domain. So I don't know where
00:29this rain came from but we're gonna keep this intro rolling. I bought this 35
00:32foot long school bus for about $10,000 from El Reno Public Schools or actually
00:37my cousin bought it from El Reno Public Schools and I bought it from him. Before
00:40he had bought it someone had already taken the seats out and turned it into
00:43some sort of redneck RV or hunting cabin. I really have no idea but as you can tell
00:47from the before pictures it looks terrible. It's ugly, it's gross, and it's got to go.
00:52And first things first, it's demo day. Let's get this bus cleared out. As you
00:57probably guessed there wasn't much to keep in this bus so I got to be a little
01:00destructive and really tear this thing apart. The goal was just to get the El
01:04Reno to the same starting point as anybody else would on their bus project
01:08once they get the seats removed. And after taking a few trips to the dump
01:11getting rid of a lot of trash I could start taking down the air ducts that take
01:15up a lot of headroom in the corners of the bus. The majority of the components
01:19especially all of the sheet metal components of this bus were riveted in and to
01:23remove them I just used a drill bit to strip out the head of the rivet and then
01:27I could knock down those air ducts.
01:30Smooth.
01:32Typically on modern builds we're building things instead of destroying stuff so
01:36this was a really fun change of pace. I also needed to get rid of these extra
01:40high-tech TVs that were mounted to the ceiling of the bus but they were just
01:44attached with wood screws. After that I could remove what was the bed platform as
01:48well as the holding tank and hot water heaters which I saved for later. I'm not sure
01:52yet if I'm going to be reusing them I need to check and make sure they're good
01:55first. Just in case you don't believe me this bus was dirty and I needed to
02:02remove the vinyl cover over the engine compartment so I made sure and put my RZ
02:06mask on so I wasn't breathing all of this nasty dust. And with that done I could
02:10just keep working removing more and more pieces to this bus.
02:26So these lines go between each of the floor heaters in the bus and they carry a
02:30coolant so that nothing overheats. So I went to the engine compartment in the bus
02:33and I turned off the valves controlling the flow to those heaters. This is one of
02:41the first of many moments where I had no idea what I was getting myself into on
02:45this project. Of course I turned the valves off thinking that the fluid wouldn't
02:49come out of these heaters but unfortunately I spilled all over the
02:53place as you can see right here. Super pro. At this point I figured I was already
03:05in too deep and it already made a huge mess so I just kept removing the second
03:08heater and I figured I could clean up all of that fluid afterwards. And trust me
03:13it was a mess. Once I had everything cleaned up I could take out the stock AC
03:18units that are taking a lot of headroom. Now it's important to note that I
03:21already had the Freon removed from the AC units. If your units are already charged
03:25you're gonna need to call an AC guy to get that Freon released properly. Otherwise
03:29we can grab the angle grinder and get started. These units were attached with a
03:33few bolts coming down from the ceiling so I used an abrasive cutoff disc on the
03:37angle grinder to just shear those bolts off.
03:47Nailed it. Okay so at this point the bus is completely
03:51torn apart and our next step is to start putting this thing back together. Let's
03:54get it.
03:55My first step was to patch up all the holes in the floor and the walls of the bus
03:59especially where all of the seats were originally mounted. As you can see those
04:02holes were never filled and I want to make sure that they are. I've used this
04:06all-purpose putty from Bondo a few times in the past mostly on wood and metal
04:10projects but I was happy to see that it stuck to the vinyl floors with no
04:13problem. So I just sanded everything down flat and prepped for paint.
04:23I hooked up a flap disc to the angle grinder so I could smooth out anywhere
04:28there were rivets that were poking through the ceiling also where those
04:31bolts were holding on the AC units. The rest of the metal was in pretty good
04:35shape there were a couple spots with a little surface rust so I touched those
04:38with the flap disc and then I could get ready to primer all of those spots. As you
04:43can imagine masking off all of the windows in a school bus took a long time
04:47but I was really thankful to have my friend Jesse there to help me out and
04:50we were able to burn through this pretty quick. It just took a couple of hours.
04:56We came up with a pretty good system where we use painters tape to edge all of
05:00the windows before we added any paper that way we were sure to get sharp lines
05:04around all of the windows. Then we could suit up and get prepped for paint.
05:13Rust-Oleum makes this rusty metal primer that you see me use all the time on my
05:25metal projects even when they're not rusty. This stuff does a great job of
05:28sealing any surface rust or imperfections allowing your paint to bond really
05:33well for a great finish. We hit all the spots that had surface rust or met up
05:38with the windows. Then I went to Home Depot and I got these turbo spray cans of
05:43white primer. Each of these cans hold four times as much paint as a standard
05:47rattle can and have this really wide spray almost like an HVLP sprayer does.
05:52And I just want to hedge off some of the comments. Obviously this is not as cheap as
05:56if I bought bulk paint and used a sprayer but I was really curious when I saw this
06:01product at Home Depot and I just had to see how well it worked and I was
06:04genuinely surprised to see how well it did. If I remember correctly we used about
06:09eight turbo spray cans of this primer before we used another dozen turbo spray
06:13cans of Rust-Oleum gloss white protective enamel. Links for both the paint and all
06:18the other tools and supplies for this project will be linked down in the
06:22description of this video so if you're interested be sure and check it out. Oh
06:25and yes I am leaving all of the stickers on the inside of the bus and I'm just
06:29painting over them. I think it's gonna be a really cool texture and add to the
06:32whole authenticity of this project. Of course from a distance you don't really
06:36see the stickers but up close it's a really cool touch.
06:46So there you have it this paint job came out looking so awesome. Taking a little
06:51bit of extra time and energy to make sure everything was masked well definitely
06:55paid off. A couple of the windows though did have a little bit of chip out on the
07:00existing paint but I can fix those later. The majority of them came off clean like
07:04this. One of my favorite paint details is how I separated what I'm calling the
07:09cockpit of the bus which is just the front where you enter and drive at from
07:13the rest of it. Eventually these are gonna have really sheer curtains
07:15separating it from the rest of the living space and I wanted to keep all of the
07:19original paint and equipment there. Almost like a time capsule but just check out
07:23how great this paint looks. Of course Joshua Tree in the desert is a great
07:28backdrop but this clean white interior is exactly what I was looking for.
07:39So we're really making progress on the bus and I couldn't be more excited with
07:43how it looks. I'm about to paint the floor but first I'm gonna apply a coat of
07:46this primer to seal in any of the stains and give a good base for the floor
07:50paint to stick to. So let's get it. I kept it simple using a standard 3 8th inch
07:54nap roller and I applied one coat of the primer to the floor. I was really
07:58surprised at seeing how fast this dried. I really didn't even have to wait
08:01before I could move on to adding paint. I knew I wanted to paint the floors the
08:05color that would really pop against the white walls and the rest of the bus so I
08:08went back to Home Depot and I grabbed some floor paint and then started sifting
08:12through all of the paint swatches. Immediately the blues caught my eye and I
08:16knew I wanted something with quite a bit of color that wasn't too saturated. I wanted a
08:20deep blue not a really bright blue and I came across this color Hacienda Blue
08:25which looks great. I chose a low gloss finish so that light wouldn't reflect off
08:29of the floor too much and I applied two coats as the sun was going down. Like I
08:34mentioned before keeping the feel of a bus inside of this project is really what
08:38I was trying to do. That's why I didn't remove any of the tread or the old
08:41vinyl floor. I just figured painting over it and color blocking this whole thing
08:44could be a really cool texture move.
08:58The next day I could remove all of the masking tape and reveal the finished
09:02floors and I could not have been more excited with the results. When we started
09:06this bus was disgusting but now it's clean fresh and I cannot wait to move on
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10:03Before I started working on the bus I had already made a sketchup model of what I
10:07intended the interior to look like but you never know how it's actually gonna feel
10:11until you get into the space so I marked everything out with masking tape so I
10:14could get a feel for the space and make minor adjustments. The bathroom is the only
10:19completely enclosed room in the space. I really want to keep that open airy vibe
10:24that we've already got so here I'm breaking down some 2x4s to attach to the
10:28plywood subfloor underneath the vinyl flooring in the bus and I was able to
10:32attach everything just using standard construction wood screws. No problem.
10:37Aside from the 2x4 plates that I attached to the subfloor I also attached a 2x4
10:42runner on the wall of the bus which we'll be using later on in the build.
10:47After that was complete I could start breaking down all of my 2x3 studs that
10:51I'm framing this bathroom out of. As you can see I'm not cutting square ends
10:55because of the radius on the roof of the bus. These slight angles on the 2x3s don't
11:01have to be perfect but doing this is gonna make everything a little bit more
11:04of a snug fit. I had to get a little bit crafty using these small angle brackets
11:10to make all of my 2x3 connections since I'm framing in a non-traditional way. The
11:14other weird part about building in a bus is that I couldn't use a level to do any
11:18of my framing because I don't know that the bus is perfectly flat. Instead I used a
11:2312-inch speed square as well as a framing square to constantly check to make
11:27sure that I was always installing my 2x4s square to the frame of the
11:31bus. I know this isn't a perfect method but I did give myself a little bit of a
11:35margin for error and the bus has a lot of reference points between all of the
11:39lines on the roof, the windows, and other components. After my two end walls were
11:46complete I had the idea of using another 2x3 as a positive stop so that I knew all
11:51the rest of my 2x4s were straight or at least in line with the 2x4 studs on the
11:56corner. And after those were installed I could add the header for what will
11:59eventually be the door leading into the bathroom. Once again I used more of those
12:03angle brackets to connect. At this point in the project I had a lot of scrap wood
12:09so I started cutting those pieces down for some extra blocking in between each of
12:13my 2x3 studs. And just so nobody's confused I thought it would be a good
12:25idea to talk about the screws and fasteners that I'm using throughout the
12:28bus. Anytime I've been screwing wood to wood I've just been using classic
12:32construction screws. You guys see me use stuff like this all the time and they've
12:35got this star bit driver that works really great and doesn't strip out very
12:39easily. Anytime I was using these angle brackets to attach 2x4 studs to the walls
12:44I used these 1 inch sheet metal screws that are self drilling. And the next
12:49thing I have to do is attach 2x4s onto the sides of the wall below the windows.
12:53I'm going to create plywood half walls. And to do that I'm going to use 2 inch
12:56versions of these same screws. These have the same tips that drill through metal
13:00they've just got a little bit longer of a thread since I've got to go through a
13:03full 2x4. Attaching wood to the sides of the bus isn't hard but it's
13:08definitely not convenient. You've got to use these long sheet metal screws that
13:11take quite a bit of time to finally drill through the metal and eventually grab on.
13:15So I wanted to attach these 2x4 rails to the sides of the bus that way I could
13:20then attach the rest of my pieces onto the studs and not have to worry about
13:25drilling into the metal anymore. After 2x4s were attached everywhere I'm doing
13:31half walls I could get all of my electrical supplies out and start attaching
13:34electrical boxes onto the bottom of some of those 2x4 rails. I picked up these
13:39shallow boxes from Home Depot and they weren't expensive they're just a specialty
13:43box that doesn't take up as much space and they worked great. Once I had them
13:47installed I could run Romex between all of my boxes using electrical staples to
13:51hold everything in place on the bottom side of the 2x4s. And this is where I give
13:56my standard disclaimer I'm not an electrician, plumber, tradesman or anything
14:00like that I'm a DIYer just like you guys so make sure and do your own research and
14:04only do the projects you feel comfortable with that way everything is
14:07safe. One thing I do want to note though is these lines are not going to a
14:12circuit box instead they are going to end in a plug. And then those plugs are
14:15going to be powered by this this is the Goal Zero Yeti 3000 portable power station
14:20and it's going to be the electrical hub of the whole bus. This Goal Zero unit is
14:24going to act as the battery storage as well as the inverter for the bus. I have one
14:28circuit powering the kitchen outlet in the fridge and a second circuit running
14:32the lights and the plugs throughout the rest of the bus. The Goal Zero can then
14:35be hooked up to the grid using an extension cord in a standard household
14:38outlet or I can charge it off the grid using the Goal Zero solar panels to make
14:42this a really cool hybrid system. And if you want to learn more about this I'll
14:46leave links to this down in the description and I'll be doing the
14:48installation in a future school bus episode. So let's keep this project moving.
14:52On to plumbing. I want this plumbing system to be as simple as possible for the bus. It'll be
14:56coming through the floor here where the air conditioning unit ran lines and it'll
15:00go to the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, as well as the bathroom shower. I'm using
15:05the same half-inch PEX tubing that I used on the mini kitchen build-out from a few
15:09episodes ago along with SharkBite connectors. These things are amazing.
15:13All you have to do is push to connect. No crimping tools or extra techniques
15:18required. When it comes to plumbing this is about as simple as you can get. It's
15:22really plug-and-play. Just run lines to where you eventually want
15:25connections and use those SharkBites to make everything happen. And while I was
15:31at it, I ran all of my hot water lines the exact same way I did my cold water
15:35lines.
15:40And as you can see our hot and cold lines feed from the floor of the bus and
15:46it'll eventually wind up in this locker underneath the bus. As you can see right
15:51now it's full of tools but eventually there will be a hot water heater where
15:54these lines are connected to the hot and cold outlets. The rest of the plumbing
15:58though will be in the bathroom episode which is episode 3. And for now I'm going to
16:03finish off the framing portion of this episode by closing up the bathroom. I cut
16:08up a bunch of small pieces of thin plywood that I could use to create a
16:11template to match the profile of the side of the bus. There's a lot of angles, a lot of
16:16curves, and even 2x4s that I need to work these walls around. Trying to scribe and
16:21cut one big template seemed impossible but doing it in 12 or 18 inch sections
16:26seemed totally manageable. Of course I almost never got this right on the first
16:31try but I took my time, made sure to get as tight of margins as possible, and it
16:35came out pretty great. I used this contour gauge anywhere there was a
16:39complicated profile that I needed to match and it really did an awesome job.
16:42I'll be sure to leave an Amazon link down in the description. But to be honest I do
16:46wish it was a little bit taller. It got me thinking while I was building about how
16:49I could make a contour gauge of my own, one that was all the way up to 4 feet
16:53long or even 8 feet long for some complicated scribing. I used Gorilla
17:00Tape to help clean up my edges a little bit more then I could remove the
17:04template that I created from the screws on the back of that 2x3 stud. At this
17:10point in time I still wasn't sure if this whole method was gonna work so I got
17:14another piece of that thin plywood and I traced the lines from this template onto
17:18that piece and cut it with the jigsaw. I made sure to take my time and cut slow so
17:23that I didn't introduce more errors into this template and I could check the fit
17:27of this single piece. I was happy to find that the margins were amazing and I
17:32could use this as my standard template to cut the rest of my 3 quarter inch
17:36plywood pieces. Throughout this build I'm going to be using 3 quarter inch
17:41radiata pine plywood from Home Depot just about everywhere that's visible. The
17:46reason is because it's got a thick face veneer almost as thick as the inner
17:50plies of the plywood so if I need to sand anything down I can do that without
17:54sanding through that veneer which happens on hardwood plywood more than I
17:58would like to admit I repeated those exact same steps for the wall on the
18:21opposite side of the bathroom I just had to make some careful measurements and
18:24jigsaw out an opening for the outlets in the kitchen. Before I broke down the
18:31panels for the front of the bathroom to size I set my circular saw to a slight
18:34angle for the same reason I cut my 2x3 studs at an angle. They'll just help fit
18:39everything up to the ceiling a little closer. Then I ran back into the bus
18:43marked the door opening in place on each of my panels and then cut that freehand
18:48with the circular saw. In this episode of the series I'm only going to be cladding
18:58the outside of the bathroom walls and as you can tell it really wasn't too tough.
19:02Scribing and marking everything to cut was simple it just took a little bit of
19:06time but it was really cool to see everything line up flush and finally get
19:10everything tacked in place all right everybody the exterior walls on the
19:18bathroom are done check it out this looks so sick of course I'm gonna paint a lot
19:24of this I might keep this wall bare wood so it can play off of the kitchen now the
19:28inside of the bathroom on the other hand still has a lot of work but we're
19:32getting there. No matter how good you are at scribing weird lines and cutting
19:36crazy shapes there's still gonna be an air gap between the walls that you build
19:39and the existing bus frame so I just used some caulk to seal everything up from
19:44the backside of those walls that we built. Since the inside of these walls are
19:48gonna have another layer of plywood on the other side of the studs I applied
19:51this coat really heavy that way I had a good waterproof seal then I ran a clean
19:56tidy bead on the outside of the walls for looks. I used this white caulk on the
20:01walls where I'm planning on eventually painting that way there's a smooth
20:04transition between the walls and the bus and on the front wall where I think I
20:09might leave the wood I used a beige caulk that way it blended into the wood a
20:13little bit more.
20:25The last big step of this project is to create the actual half walls running down
20:30the length of this bus and to do that I made a quick template of the wheel wells
20:34so that I could cut that out on each of these panels. I did have to do a decent
20:39amount of scribe cutting on these plywood panels but it really wasn't too much.
20:42Just like before I took my time to make good templates and that gave me a good fit
20:47with almost no headaches and I used these finish screws with a trim head which is
20:52super small to attach those plywood pieces to the 2x4 rails. I was sure to
20:57recess those screw heads beneath the surface of the plywood and I'll come
21:01back later with a little bit of wood filler to cover up those blemishes.
21:16And really quickly I'd like to take a second and plug my podcast the Modern Maker
21:20podcast. It's a show that I release every Thursday with my two co-hosts Chris
21:24Salamone from Four Eyes Furniture and Binueta from Homemade Modern. It's a not
21:28so serious show all about designing, building, and our day-to-day lives. If
21:32you're interested in checking it out I'll leave an iTunes link down in the
21:35description.
21:40The final and most complicated pieces to these half walls are the ends where the
21:45engine compartment meets the walls. And instead of making a template I just made
21:50measurements off of the half walls that I had already installed and transferred
21:54those measurements onto this piece of plywood. Then I could cut it out with my
21:58jigsaw and hope that everything lined up right. And after doing some more
22:02measurements and cutting out another opening for outlets I could actually
22:06check. And I hate to be the guy that says it but that is super pro. How clean is
22:11that? One more question that I expect to get in the comments is how come I didn't
22:19add some rigid insulation between the plywood and the existing walls of the
22:23bus. And that's because it's already insulated as you can see here. Now I know
22:27some school buses have no insulation and in that case adding any is absolutely
22:31gonna help. But my half walls also don't cover the entire bus so it's fighting a
22:36losing battle in my book. So that's where we're leaving it for today's episode.
22:40We've got a couple of walls where I didn't put up plywood and that's where
22:43we've got exposed electrical and plumbing that I still want access to. And in
22:47episode two I'm gonna be turning this space into the bedroom. Obviously I've
22:50got to cover up this engine compartment. I'm gonna build this really awesome
22:53window seat and a platform for the bed to set on. So make sure and click that
22:57subscribe button. That way you stay updated every time I post new videos. Oh and
23:01while we're at it let's look back at what this bus was before we got into it and
23:05how clean fresh and modern it is now. Obviously we've still got a long ways to
23:10go and a few more episodes before this series wraps up but I could not be more
23:14excited with how it looks now. This is a perfect clean slate for me to be able to
23:18build the rest of the spaces onto. And if you want to keep up with me in between
23:23YouTube videos you can follow me at Modern Builds on Instagram. I'm posting there
23:27almost every day. Really guys thanks a ton for watching and I hope you enjoyed this
23:31series. It's gonna be about six parts so we've got a lot more to come. So see you
23:35next time on Modern Builds. Bye everybody!