Hi.This is where and how we (3) live. We have been inhabiting our 1958 white super power bus for 11 years. We bought it for $1500 unregistered from an old man named Harry West who was selling it because he was getting too old to maintain it (he was over 80 and walked with 2 sticks but still managed to change the bus tyres! no easy feat).
The bus was a rusty brownish red colour down the bottom and white on top. Harry had decked it out with toilet, shower, washing machine, double bunks, 3/4 bed, wardrobes, full size kitchen sink and cupboards and the biggest darn fridge i had ever seen. The flooring was carpet on top of the original vinyl squares. Some of the windows had been painted over and had the original rubber seals which all leaked.
Our first decision before moving it was to rip everything out and start from scratch. We had to take the door off to get the fridge out and the kitchen bench weighed a ton. We gave away most of the stuff to the other people who were building boats etc in the yard where the bus was parked.
After scraping the windows off and unblocking the drainage holes in the window seals, the inside was looking a bit brighter. My next job was ripping up the carpet and scraping off the original vinyl squares that were underneath. This took 2 days of hammer and chisel work because the vinyl was so old it came off in tiny little peices. In the end i left some on the back steps because i couldn't handle the thought of doing any more . They're still there. The bus was now smelling a lot better no more soggy carpet.
We decided to paint it on the inside before moving in and chose a creamy white colour to reflect the light and make the space look bigger. Its amazing what a coat of paint can do. I ended up painting the window seals as well because they already had some paint on them and i figured it might help with the waterproofing. I forgot to mention that when we took all the cupboards etc out we discovered that the walls underneath the windows were made out of masonite and were all swollen and soggy so we took them out and replaced them with aluminium pool surround which looks a bit like mini orb. We were now ready to move.
