Environmental educator Tanya Nestoruk and photographer Arya Touserkani converted a school bus into a tiny house on wheels, complete with a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a roof deck. They now live in it while traveling throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico.
Nestoruk and Touserkani’s bus on a beach. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya Touserkani
“Usually I work nine months on, and I have three months off. I’ve been addicted to that travel, work-hard, play-hard lifestyle,” Nestoruk, the environmental educator, said. “We both lived in a van, but wanted more space, and so this checked that box off for us.”
The couple, who are in their mid-30s, bought the school bus for $7,200 in Vancouver when it was being retired to make way for a new fleet.
Nestoruk and Touserkani in front of the bus they bought before they converted it. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya Touserkani
Once they got the bus, they spent seven months converting it into a home. During the demolition stage, they tried to recycle everything they could.
They donated the seats to a local kid’s adventure camp and sold the luggage racks to someone who repurposed them for garage storage.
The interior of the bus before demolition. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya Touserkani
“Our goal from the beginning was to try to reduce waste and to try to reuse or recycle anything we could, to give it a second life,” Nestoruk told Insider. She turned to Facebook Marketplace: “I posted everything I could: old light fixtures, scrap metal, scrap wood — anything that we could take out of there.”
They donated metal and other scraps, too. People reused the bus insulation for interior walls in their own homes, and someone who bought the its heater used it on their boat.
The inside of the bus after seats and luggage racks had been sold and donated. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya Touserkani
This is the bus at its most bare — after the couple removed the seats, luggage racks, insulation, wood panels, and rubber flooring.
The bus towards the end of the demolition process. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya Touserkani
They also took the roof emergency-escape and ventilation hatches off and made holes in the ceiling for skylights.
They intended to complete the skoolie renovation outside, but the weather worsened and they decided to rent a workshop space.
The empty bus under construction in the workshop. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya Touserkani
Next, the couple installed spray foam insulation so that they could stay warm in Canadian winters and cool in Mexican summers when they hit the road.
The insulation is the green material lining the walls. Tanya Nestoruk and Arya Touserkani
Before putting the insulation and flooring in, they cut the holes for the skylight.
“It ended up being pretty tricky to build a skylight because of the curve of the roof,” Touserkani said. “So instead of getting a prebuilt skylight, we just did something custom and built a box that fit to the curve of the roof.”
They also laid the subfloor, made of insulation with plywood on top of it. “We saw inspiration online,” Nestoruk said. “Seeing that people were out there doing it — and knowing a bus conversion was possible — really inspired us to do it.”
The bus after the plywood floor was installed. Tanya Nestoruk and Arya Touserkani
Next, they framed out the walls for the bathroom and ran plumbing throughout. They started buying appliances — many used and from Facebook Marketplace.
The walls for the bathroom and plumbing. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya TouserkaniAfter the plumbing was put in, they built out the home from back to front. The first step was building a platform at the back of the bus for their bed.
The platform, when finished, fits a king-sized bed. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya Touserkani
The couple bought a solid wood door off Facebook Marketplace. Nestoruk stripped the wood and sanded it, then Touserkani used a table saw to make adjustments to its height and width to fit on the bus.
They couple replaced the glass in the door with polycarbonate to reduce the risk of shattering. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya TouserkaniAbout two-thirds of the way through the conversion, they painted the exterior sea-foam green. Nestoruk said the pale color is based off a T-shirt from the couple’s “home away from home”: Zoe’s Coffee and Bakery on Vancouver Island.
Touserkani using an air sprayer to paint the exterior of the bus. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya Touserkani
The industrial enamel paint was effectively applied in just one coat. “Every time we tell people it’s only one coat of paint, they kind of freak out,” said Touserkani, adding that bystanders assume it took more coats. “It ended up being a really nice even coating.”
The couple also put solar panels on the roof, which so far has provided all the energy they need. The conversion cost $40,000 total.
The couple upcycled and reused many of the materials used to furnish their new home. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya TouserkaniWhen you walk in the front of the bus, there is a gray couch with a small L-shaped kitchen behind it.
The ceiling is a whitewashed tongue-and-groove knotty pine, and the floors are vinyl. The molding is derived from basic spruce, pine, and fir lumber from Home Depot. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya TouserkaniNestoruk sewed custom curtains for the bus windows and skylight using canvas material.
The couple bought the living-room rug during their travels. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya Touserkani
A seamstress who designs costumes for movies sewed the cushions on the L-Shaped couch.
To make the kitchen countertops look like faux concrete, they put a cement-base mortar on top of a plywood base before covering it with food-safe sealant.
The long narrow table across from the couch and kitchen is made from a piece of oak that someone was selling on Facebook Marketplace. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya TouserkaniPast the kitchen is a hallway that leads to a bathroom. A barn door that Touserkani made from wood scraps opens to the bathroom.
The bathroom, which the couple hasn’t yet photographed, is behind the barn door. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya TouserkaniThe bedroom is at the very back of the bus, just past the washer-dryer.
Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya TouserkaniA ladder in the bedroom leads up to a roof deck.
A view from the bedroom toward the front of the bus. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya TouserkaniA friend of the couple welded the framing of both the roof deck and a rear deck, which holds the couple’s bicycles.
The bus-turned-tiny home from the back. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya TouserkaniAfter finishing the bus in November of 2022, Nestoruk and Touserkani drove along the Pacific Coast through Washington, Oregon, and California, then into Mexico and Arizona. They got engaged in February 2023 and are now driving the skoolie through Southern California.
Nestoruk and Touserkani after they got engaged in Mexico. Courtesy of Tanya Nestoruk and Arya Touserkani
The couple chronicles their adventures on TikTok and Instagram.
“We were like, if we could build our dream house, what would we do?” Nestoruk said. “This is a dream house within a budget.”
SOURCE: businessinsider.com
