How Big, How Blue: Bus Build Part 1
Bringing Home Our School Bus
Published on May 06, 2025 | originally published on my Substack
My husband and I bought a school bus with the intention of renovating it into a tiny home on wheels; this is part one of my series about building our first home! Our 36' Bluebird bus named Alice was originally built in 1997. With the help of my much more experienced handyman dad Rick, we’re dedicated to getting her updated and upgraded for life on the road! If this is your first time coming across a Skoolie build, I’m shocked, but we welcome you on our newbie building journey.
What even is a ‘Skoolie’?
A Skoolie is the term for a school bus that’s been converted into a mobile tiny home! They’re also called ‘bus builds’, and sometimes Skoolie is used to reference the person living the lifestyle.In the Skoolie community, it’s customary to name your bus and we had a couple different options we were mulling over before settling on Alice. Alice was my paternal grandmother’s name, and it felt like a very meaningful fit for a few reasons — My grandma was a bit of a nomad herself for the last third of her life, living in mobile home parks while traveling between the Midwest and Florida in an RV. She taught me a lot about how to maintain a mobile lifestyle, how to conserve limited resources, and the draw backs that lived alongside the freedom of traveling long-term.
We also chose Alice to honor my father, who was very close to his mother and has been a big supporter of our decision to convert a bus. He has been helping us every step of the way, teaching us new skills and providing a safe place for the build to be parked through-out the process. It’s been a labor of love for us, and for my dad.
My husband & I on our first day home with Alice!
Why would you want to live in a converted school bus?
I mean, have you seen them? They’re cool as hell! But in all seriousness, I’ve always been a bit of an out-of-the-box kind of thinker. Can’t you tell from my work? When I was a kid I really, really wanted a huge Victorian to renovate, decorate, and scare the neighbors with. I can still see it in my head, with black doors and black siding and a beautiful garden. Honestly, I would still love that in theory, but my priorities and my understanding of the world has completely changed over time. I’m no longer interested in maintaining a huge property, but I’d still love to call something my own!I started with planning a stationary tiny home, because I wasn’t ready to go completely into alternative living, but the further I got into research the further I got from the norm — and now we’ve landed on a bus conversion.
The bus’ maiden voyage through northern Illinois to Southeastern Wisconsin
A Church & A Pandemic
Timing was a big part of us starting this journey, and so was community. It was the middle of the Pandemic, we were both working full-time in healthcare and pushing ourselves through a lot of suffering. It felt even more prevalent to us that we start building the life we wanted. So when that stimulus check finally came through, we started searching online for the right bus.I really wanted something smaller, so that driving and parking would be more manageable. For some reason I was also obsessed with having a flat-nose style (they are undeniably cuter). Neither of those things happened!
Finding a bus that would check every box on my list would’ve been near impossible, and that became apparent pretty quickly. Some sacrifices to my dream build had to be made to accommodate our low budget and how far we could travel during a lockdown. Our ‘saving grace’ in the situation was a little church in Racine with a big bus rusting in the yard.
The pastor of the church came out to meet us and took us for a tour of the Bluebird they’d previously used to shuttle their congregation around. She had sat in disuse for a while by then, and the lockdown had only rendered her even more useless. He decided it was time for her to move on to a new home, but he wanted to know what our plans were.
I was a little embarrassed to say, because I thought he’d think we were crazy — But he actually was fascinated (or was very good at hiding that he thought we were crazy). He asked how we’d do it, we gave some examples of projects for it, it was fun sharing our dream with a stranger. He looked at the bus with us again and said, “Hmm.. I think the tires will need to be replaced soon and the battery’s not too great. Maybe I should take $500 off the asking price.” We offered to pay full price anyway but he insisted, and we were super grateful. We came back a week later to pick her up for $1500 and drove her home!
Dad showers the floor in sparks while cutting out the bus seats
Demolition & Renovation!
We started documenting the demolition process from the start on an Instagram account (I know, cliche) that then turned into TikTok videos (yep, still cliche, we know). The beginning was really hard. The planning process took me months and truthfully is an on-going process. I’ve never built a house myself, but as a kid I ran around in a few houses my dad was building. I was also forging metal with my dad and brother growing up. I’ve never been afraid of learning a new set of skills! My husband on the other hand had never used power tools before, and has been learning everything completely from square one.We ripped out the seats; we pried open the walls and ceiling to clean out the old insulation; we ripped up the water-damaged flooring; we scrubbed the hell out of every surface! We even pulled out the old heating system and the old dashboard.
And wow, you never know how physically demanding a project is until you’re drenched in sweat and covered in grease for multiple days in a row. Without my dad’s guidance through this, I know we would’ve been completely lost at some points. Thanks, dad!
Finally the demolition process came to an end, and we’re now into the renovation stage! It’s been a slow but steady experience, and at this point we’ve been chipping away at the build for two years.
We learned how to set up a floor plan; we learned to clear and repair rust; we learned how to fill in holes and cracks in the floor and walls; we learned how to build the framing of a subfloor; we learned how to insulate and cover the subfloor. That might not sound like a lot, but it definitely felt like a lot! Now we’re starting to create the framing for the wall and the curved ceiling.
I plan to keep documenting the process as we go, and given that photography is my profession, I’ll have lots of photo and video to share on the process!
What are our plans for Alice?
Our ideal plan for Alice would be to travel cross-country, offering photography and other artistic services along the way! About half of our square footage is dedicated to our shared studio, and we feel like we’ve put off traveling for long enough. As much as we love Milwaukee & Wisconsin, we’re ready to see the rest of the States and Canada!I guess this is it for Part 1! The beginning of this “Part 1” was written two years ago now, but I wanted to reshare it to give some context to the new parts coming out soon! We started building again at the end of 2024 and I’ve got a lot to write about it. If you want to watch some of the new videos and follow along, you can check out my Youtube channel~
And wish us luck, because there’s a LOT more work ahead of us.