Cootering

We drove out to Molalla today to look for treasures on an RV being parted out. This thing was seriously disgusting - moldy, falling apart, dangerous. Holy cow! We ended up harvesting four seatbelts, four light fixtures, a 50 gallon water tank and a water pump for $50. It was a serious score! The guy who owned all the junked out cars told me he "cooters" for a job. I didn't ask what that meant to him because I certainly know what it means to me...

How sad is it that this water tank picture makes me proud - like one of my sons just won an award or something. I've been looking hard for one of these! You can see it still has water in it too! Good sign.

A Matching Door

Tropical Bound?

Where are we going with this beast? It's hard to say. Many thoughts going through our heads. The only thing we do know from many years of traveling, we need to be prepared for all scenarios. This afternoon I am trying to figure out if we should tint the windows, put black screens on to act as a tint or put more insulation in and buy an air conditioner. Oregon is cold most of the year, Baja is sunny, hot and dry and Mexico is tropical and hot. Hmmm, tint the windows reflective, screen the whole thing up or focus on the wood stove. It's another school bus conversion conundrum. We'd better plan for it all - knowing us.

Window Coverings & Lessons Learned

In researching "how to" do most everything on this bus, we found that you could harvest sheet metal from appliances to cover up some of your school bus windows. We found a very large industrial air conditioner on Craigslist that was perfect for the job. Unfortunately, the blades to cut the sheet metal ended up costing $20 because the metal was sooo thick. We harvested six sheets, enough for one side of the bus. We think if we could find a washer machine shell, we could get the other four window coverings we need for the other side. You ask why we are covering up some of the windows? Well, there are simply too many windows and we get no privacy. Plus, some are covered up by appliances and beds and need some insulation for the days we'll be camping in rain/snow. We've put insulation in between the metal and window and will do the same on the inside but will cover the windows with wood flooring that we will then paint. So, total cost on the window coverings, $20 for discs, $10 for rivets and a rip in our van seat moving it to our house.

Wood Floors now Painted

The wood floors are painted and hopefully will now dry properly. It sprinkled the night I put the first coat on and so they were still sticky the next morning. We might put a heater in there tonight and see if we can really dry it out. We had some leftover paint from our house project that was actual floor paint. It's dark and I'm not sure it is the best idea as I think it will show every sandy footprint. We plan to lay some carpet runners on top of it that will give it some color and pattern. It definately looks so much better than before

Phelan's Photos

There is a serious lack of color in this thing! I'm dying to paint everything but I know it will get ruined with building and break my heart. So, we wait. It's my job to finish the floors and Steve is gonna start covering up some windows with metal that we do not want exposed. We're trying to figure out if the other windows should be tinted as well. There are so many windows in this thing that tinting them sounds like a ton of work! There are 13 windows in just the living room area. I wish we had more time to work on it but everyday is a new work challenge and balancing the kids and their lives as well as the garden. Such is life.

Ah, Finally Some Color

Bench seats done! We covered the original bus seats with sunproof blue vinyl and made the base with a donated futon frame. That weird black roundish thing is the wheel well, no way around it but around it. The seats pull towards you for storage underneath that we lined with Tom Byrne carpet. The hinges came from an old project from the past.

Waiting for a Home

This is the line to get on the bus. Instead of people waiting for the bus, our driveway is filled with stuff for the bus. There's an old air conditioner in there, cabinets, wood, doors, carpet, insulation. All free and will all be used. These are the greenish paint colors we've been given as well - to be used on the floor somehow. Our latest great item, this awesome wood stove in need of some TLC - thanks Craigslist guy.