Couple Converts Retired School Bus Into Tiny Home
Julie and Andrew Puckett found city life a little too expensive when their rent continued to rise. They opted to transform an old school bus into a tiny home and it's been a successful lifestyle for more than two years.
Updated May 24 2019, 3:27 a.m. ET
In the age of trying to condense our lives and explore the tiny home lifestyle, a couple from Georgia have accomplished the transfer from a house to an old school bus. They revamped a Blue Bird school bus in Stone Mountain, Georgia, from 1990 and converted it into a 250-square foot home. When rent simply became too expensive for them to maintain, they decided to take matters into their own hands.
Julie and Andrew Puckett started creating the “House Bus” in early 2015 and have recently crossed the two-year anniversary of living inside of it. The bus is a significant downgrade from their over 1,000 square-foot apartment in Atlanta. Obviously, the necessity of eliminating extra material was a hard process to go through -- especially when they own both a dog and a cat.
According to Julie’s opening blog post about the “House Bus,” there were a few rules she went by when it came to downsizing. Starting small was the first step. Go into each room and try to minimize clutter in the area. When it comes to buying things, ask yourself, is it something that’s a real necessity?
Instead of objects, ask for experiences as gifts. For example, going out for entertainment or a meal works over a collectable. Keeping things clean and organized is a massive factor. Any laziness when it comes to putting things away or cleaning floors and utensils could cause a lot of stress inside of a small area.
Once the decision has been made on the products that will advance to the new place, it’s time to find out where they can all go. A helpful tip is to keep much of this storage hidden. A cabinet was placed right next to the driver’s seat, and the couch has plenty of storage underneath it. The bed is also raised to provide a closet for the couple, and a bookshelf with one wraparound shelf in the “bedroom” area.
When it comes to the restrooms or taking a shower, Julie says it best in her blog that it’s “not for the faint of heart.” While it’s still comfortable with a toilet that works similar to RVs and using the combination of dish soap and live yeast to keep the waste from dominating the odor until it’s emptied, which happens once a week.
A great way to figure out if living tiny is right for you is to take it for a test drive. There are rentals available through Airbnb and other services that will let people live in a tiny home for a period of time. For those that don’t want to stay overnight in a stranger’s home, they can still get some great ideas with how they’ve downsized.
Going small does have a lot of benefits. While there’s many that struggle in smaller apartments in bigger cities, simply upgrading to a larger space doesn’t necessarily fix things. Those that live with clutter and objects all over the place in smaller residencies will likely just expand it if they find more place. By downsizing, this will force those with bad habits to keep things clean and organized. Ultimately, this kind of living isn’t for everybody, but at the very least it could promote good habits and it could aid those that are forced to live in more cramped areas.
