See how this young woman singlehandedly converted a bus into a tiny home
DeYana took a leap of faith and hit the road with her converted mini-bus
Video Transcript
DEYANA WALKER: My name is Deyana, and this is my self-converted school bus. Welcome to my home.
I decided to buy a bus because I got out of a relationship about a year and a half ago. And so a week later, I bought a bus. I don't think it's going to be my end-all, be-all, but I wanted to experience it while I'm young. I think that's super important. And now I'll always have a story to tell my kids when I'm older. [LAUGHS]
From start to finish, it took me about 11 months to fully convert the bus. So I hand-painted everything with a roller and a brush. I'm super proud of this mural. My mom had a sticker of it and I really loved it, so I freehanded it on both sides of my bus.
So the back of my bus, I got a hitch put onto it. It holds my propane tanks, one that's used for my stove and my diesel heater; the other is used for my mini-split. It powers my generator that is also on this hitch.
So one cool thing that I'm doing is I'm getting a sticker at every national park that I've been to so I can keep track of them and kind of a visual representation of it. So that's it for the outside. Let's take a look on the inside.
To start, I have my shower. It is just big enough for one person. The middle of my bus, I have my kitchen area. It's kind of split up into two. On this side, I have a nice, deep sink and then a nice spice rack that I was able to use this wall space here, as well as having a nice fruit basket to keep my fruit nice and fresh, off the counter and out of the way.
I have a butcher-block countertop all throughout. And then on this side, I have a three-burner stove. So I can flip up this here and then a full oven down there. I also have a couch space here. I eat here, I work here, and I sit here and enjoy TV, and then I also can pull it out into a spare bed if I have some friends visiting me.
In this space here, I store all of my work stuff-- my pullout table that I can use to eat or to work. And then also at the bottom down here is a diesel heater. So I can just flip this on when it gets nice and cold at night and the diesel heater will heat up this whole space, which is super awesome.
One of my favorite features on my bus is my roof deck up top. So this is my roof deck. It is 8 feet long. I like to just hang out up here. I do some yoga as well as watching the sunrise or sunset. Also on my roof deck, I have three flexible solar panels. That gives me 525 watts that feeds to my 600 amps of battery underneath my bed.
Moving in to my pantry, this is-- holds lots of storage. It goes way back there, so I can store a lot of food up there. I also have a blender, a waffle maker in there. So that's super nice to be able to store lots of things in there. And just below that, I have my fridge/freezer. It was important to have a big freezer space so I'm able to have frozen food.
This side is my closet. I built these doors by myself, actually. And I have almost a 3-foot closet, which is kind of unheard of in a school bus. I'm able to store tons of clothes in addition to things for my dog in here.
Next, moving into the bedroom area, underneath here, I have a bed space for Honcho. And it was super important for me to be able to give him his own space. And then I have a full-size bed in here. Perfect size for one or two people if I need. I also built a headboard that stores my hoodies and sweatpants on this side, as well as my battery monitors. And then this right side is where I put all my dirty clothes.
And then above my bed, I have a Senville mini-split. It's mostly used for air conditioning, although I can use it for heat if I need. The outdoor unit actually hooks up to a generator that I have on the back of the bus that's able to power it when I need it.
Thank you for checking out my school-bus home.
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