Building a home for adventure

Martha and I decided we wanted to spend more time on adventures than we have been. We had a very nice camper van we called Rosie. She took us on many adventures, but we found we felt cramped, stinky, and low on sleep after a few days. We thought about building out a Sprinter Van. The cost of the base van proved to be unrealistic for us. After looking around a bit we settled on the idea of building out a school bus.

Our criteria was a real queen size bed, a real size shower, and enough water, propane, and electricity for 2 weeks at a time. Michael wanted it to be a flat front so as to utilize more of the overall length as useful space. At 35 feet long Mz Dazy has 31 feet of usable floor. Here is a quick time laps of the build process. I will do more detailed posts on specific parts at a later date.

The blank canvas as we got her in October 2020. 1991 Blue Bird TC2000 35 feet long.

We were lucky to find a bus with most of the seats removed. Each seat weighs in at more than 50 pounds and hauling the dump would have been expensive. The seats that were still there required grinding the heads off the bolts as the nuts under the bus were just rust.

Removing the old rubber and plywood floor was fun. They use spiral nails at the factory, so I cut the floor with a circular saw set to not dig into the steel. After is was cut into about 18 inch squares it was easier to pry up.

Stripping out all the plywood floor, ceiling and side panel steel, and insulation. We were very excited to find very little rust under there.

We started removing windows from places that need to be covered by solid walls, like behind the shower and closet spaces.We sheeted over the openings with 18 gauge steel.

After patching a rust spot and painting the steel floor, Martha taped over all the bolt holes for the seats. The first thing to fit was the shower pan as most of the other features would need to fit around it. And yes it was cold!!

We installed 1 inch blue foam board insulation and 1/2 plywood subfloor.

The shower and closets are framed in 2x2 and screwed into the steel frame of the bus.

After insulating the side walls with 1.5 inch foam board, we covered it in 1/4 inch plywood. When Martha painted the plywood we found out that paint does not like -20F temperatures.

We decided that we needed to wait until the temperatures got above 0F to resume work. The moose liked the peace and quiet.

The flooring went down and the adhesive took 3 weeks to cure at 0-20F. Tongue and groove was decided on for the deciding walls.

We just remodeled the kitchen in the house, so we replicated it in tiny form in Mz Dazy. Same countertops and stain. Same sink, just a little smaller. We came up with the idea of a toolbox for kitchen drawers so they could be lockable for driving and not made of particle board. Toolbox was $150. It holds silverware, utensils, spices, pots, and pans.

Martha was elected to go up on the roof and sand and paint it.

Mz Dazy with her shiny new white roof to keep the sun from warming us up too much.

Martha and I built night stands to be skinny enough to fit the bed. That is our 75 gallon freshwater tank that the bed helps hold in place on bumpy roads.

The silver Rustoleum paint started going on and the two MaxxFans and solar panels went on. We spent about $100 on paint for the exterior. I don’t think Earl Scheib would have done it for that. We wore rubber boots for a month to work on her while the snow melted.

We call this our Las Vegas shower. Room for two, LED lighting, and color backed clear wall and ceiling!

An 11 cubic foot refrigerator freezer to keep the vittles and beer cold.

The couch and dog throne all set. Those overhead cabinets are framed in steel and bolted to the frame of the bus. You can do chin ups on them.

We got her all new shoes at Big Black Rubber in Wasilla and wanted to make sure she did not get stuck, no matter how far out we go.

Plenty of power for all the conveniences.

A comfy bed.

A nice couch.

Tada!!

We still have quit a bit of finish work to do on the interior, but the house sold incredibly fast and we ran out of time. We will finish it up as we go.