Building a Bus: How to get a Fridge Through a Window

Yes, you read that title correctly. The fridge is 30 inches wide and the doorway is significantly more narrow(I didn’t measure). The only alternative was to completely remove on of the side windows and hoist it up and into the bus from there, which worked out perfectly because we were removing the windows to be painted anyway. For those of you who saw pictures of the windows before, they were an odd light bluish color and didn’t match with the gray of the rest of the bus; the reason for this being that they were custom jobs taken out of another coach and installed into ours.

Not wanting to leave them that wretched color, we found a shop to paint them. First however, they had to come out of the bus. The first step was getting up to the windows, for this we thanked God for The Flash(our red, Ford Expedition).

These pictures are slightly out-of-order, but we drove The Flash underneath the window and two of us climbed on top of the van. The way it had to work was that we would raise the window off the sill and place on foot there and the other on the roof of The Flash. We would then lift the window out of the channel and hand it down to the third man on the ground who would hold it until one of the guys on top could slide down and help him maneuver the window into the back of the van.

You can hardly see that funky blueish color, but this is one of the old windows. It almost looks greenish/grey. Well, that one went into the back of the van and then we pulled around to the other side to repeat the process for the matching window.

Here’s what the bus looks like from the outside, looking through an empty window frame right now. It’s sitting in a farm workshop near Dunn, NC where a family has offered to not only allow us to park and work on our bus, but also stay in their home for several days. God is amazing!

Well, the windows went out and came back a nice ebony black color.Which looked a little like this next picture.

We pulled those out of the back, remounted The Flash, and put them in place. Now the bus looks more normal in the front. However, before we put the windows back in, we needed to get the new fridge into the bus. This was about 10 times a tricky and difficult as the windows were. The easy way to do it would’ve been with a forklift, however, we didn’t have one handy and so we did it by hand. You’ll never fully appreciate your refrigerator until you’ve lifted it, by hand up through a bus window.

So, this was the basic objective: lift the fridge vertically up onto the stepladder, get a guy inside and feed it up onto the window sill horizontally, then slowly pull it into the bus and then set it upright. It sounded easy enough, but those things are a lot heavier than they look. It took a lot of effort and strain, but eventually we had success.

Yeah, the bus is a mess right now, but the fridge looks great! Oh, and if you were wondering, it’s not going to stay there. We have a much more convenient place for it, I’m just excited we got it in. The fridge was by no means the most difficult thing we’ve done on this project so far, and it is far from over. But, little by little it’s all coming together.

So, there you have it. If you’ve ever wondered how to get a fridge through a bus window, you just need three guys, a stepladder, and a little faith that it can be done. I think I’m going to call this fridge “Mountains”, that way I can say that I had faith and moved mountains.

As always, thanks for reading, and keep up with me on Twitter and Facebook for more info and pictures as the building of the bus progresses.

–the anonymous novelist

Building a Bus: An Electric Experience

Base board for the drop ceiling

Unwrapped wall and ceiling boards and outlet cutouts in bunks

Frame for the back bed

Frame for the kitchen counter and sink area

Holes in drop ceiling and wires run for lights

Those pictures summarize the work on the bus over the past few weeks. It’s coming along, starting to look more like what it eventually will be. A lot of fixing had to occur, recutting, refitting, and redesigning, but at least everything is now square and proportionate.

This is the basic, unwrapped dropceiling in the front that we built over those rafters I showed you in an earlier post. The wire is an average extension cord that will run the electirc from the inverter to the can lights that will be fitted into those hole after we wrap the wood with vinyl or whatever we’re planning to wrap it with.

This is the basic support for the drop ceiling in the back. This is basically where the drop ceiling will rest and screw up into. You can see the closet space on the right, each one of those slots will be a door to access a single, large closet.

This is the unwrapped wall and ceiling boards for the bunk, and outlet cutouts in the wall. The slots had to be cut out using an oscillating tool and are on the back wall of all 6 bunks.

This is Dad’s project: building the frame for the back bed. This bed will be Mom and Dad’s when it is completed. Those slots on either side are for closets, and the frame above the bed will be cabinet space. The are undet the bed will likely house drawers of for clothing. As you can see, the electrical is in place for the AC units, but is not yet hooked up. We’re still working on that.

In the front room, on the right side as you walk into the bus is this contraption. This happens to be the basic frame for the kitchen counter and sink area. Its position cuts into our space in the front where we had been storing the lumber, but we’ve been able to work around it. Things are practically building themselves before our eyes, but it definitely takes some work to get it all together. I’ll keep you updated as things happen so you can be along for the ride with us as we continue this wild journey.

As always, thanks for reading.

–the anonymous novelist

 

Building A Bus: Bunks!

We have been in Myrtle Beach, SC since the beginning of this week and it has rained every single day. On Sunday we parked the bus at a church where we were singing that night, and they graciously allowed us to work on it while we are in town.

The rain has been brutal for the past several day. More than a few times we have had to pack all of the tools and wood back in out of the rain only for it to let up 10 minutes later. Yesterday we were almost rained out completely, and even left the work site for the day because the conditions were so bad.

We tried to move everything inside the gym, but hauling wood back and forth through swamp land in the rain wasn’t something we felt like doing. 

So, we gave up on work for the day. But, only a few hours later the rain let up for good and we went back to see how much work we could cram into the rest of the afternoon. It wasn’t much, but over the last several days of work, things are starting to come together.

On the right side are shelves for the bunks. The left side base was framed out and would soon have a sheet on top to match the rest.

We were also able to work on the ground skeleton on the back bathroom area. Building a framework for the platform of the shower and toilet. The pipe has just been added as we’ve gone along.So, lots of work left to be done, but at least we have a start on where we will sleep. Next I think we should install air units. Without them, the bus can become a microwave on a hot day. It’s coming along, slowly, but at least it’s moving. As things get built, I’ll post more pictures and updates.

As always, thanks for reading.

—the anonymous novelist

By Your Grace

We didn’t get a ton of work accomplished in building the bus yesterday, so I’ll just post three pictures of the same thing. 

These are basically rafters on which to build the drop ceiling on. Up in those rafters will run the air ducts, lighting, and whatnot.

There is about 2 1/2 inches of clearance to work with up there and the ceiling will still be about 6’3 or so. The bus itself is a bit over twelve feet tall with the raised roof, so there should be plenty of room to work with.

Those wooden brackets were a pain to make, and there were so many of them. We had four to a beam and six or seven beams. Today was fun.

That video is the start of something I’m calling “Songs For The Blog”. Whenever I can, I will post these videos to help you get the message of my post. Some of the songs will be original… This one is a Gold City song. If you’d like to hear the rest of it, you can look up either Gold City or Austin and Ethan.

“What kind of life would I be guilty of…”

That’s my favorite line in the whole song. Because just the chorus alone sounds like a living for Christ song and doing the right things… But this line adds the dynamic of being sheltered and protected by God’s love. What kind of life would we be living if we had not accepted Christ’s gift?

We live by the grace of God, it’s conditional that if He spares our lives His wrath, we must live for His glory. We should want to. Everything: building a bus, singing, teaching, hanging out with friends, listening to music, going to the movies, eating, sleeping, and everything we do should be done to the glory of God; for its only by His grace we can do those things.

Just a thought for today, not a theology or theory… Just a simple thought that could change the world.

As always, thanks for reading.

–the anonymous novelist

Building A Bus: Episode… I Forgot

We are in North Carolina and have a few days of free time. So, what do you do when you have a day off from work? You work. Right now, living is a full time job. Between building the bus, singing, and blogging, It’s hard to find time to do anything else.

With several days where we can work on the bus, we parked it at a church near our hotel and basically took over their carport area. Lumber and tools all had to come out of the bus, which was a big job all by itself.

This is probably the most updated picture of the interior of the bus. It’s still pretty much just the raw wood, but you can see some wall structure going in as the skeleton of the inside is being built.

This is a shot from the back of the bus looking out to the front. Some closets are being built and rooms being framed. It’s pretty simple stuff… Until you realize that everything you’ve done so far is not square or level…

Yikes! At first, it was just the bowed wood that made everything not center or be square. So, we took a string line to it. 

But, because the bus has an air pressure leveling system, and the front airbag has a leak, the bus leans forward. This caused our string lines to be incorrect. So, much of today was spent fixing things.

We did manage to get the supports in place for the shelves that the bunk beds will rest on, and started building the support from the front bathroom countertop; found the air leak, fixed all the squaring issues… It was a busy day.

Life has been interesting, and it’s been difficult for me to find time for what I consider to be really important. I find that the things I really care about are the hardest to fit into my schedule. I hate having to make room for the most important things… But does that mean they are not the most important things? If I’m not prioritizing them, does that mean I really don’t care that much about them?

The big, time-consuming things are big and time-consuming for a reason. The problem is finding out why God put these circumstances into your life and why they are taking the most of your time; then learning from them and using them. God didn’t make them the main thing in your life for you to have to work in the important things around them. They are important, you just need to find out why.

As always, thanks for reading.

–the anonymous novelist

Building A Bus

Because my older brother Josh is doing a YouTube series which is also called “How to Build a Bus”, I decided to change the name of my own saga to “Building a Bus”. The video above was the easiest way to get everything into one place, and include the short video clips you saw. All of that is a taste of what’s been going on. I haven’t had my phone around to catch everything we’re doing on video or in pictures, but there has been a lot more going on than what you see.

Some of the things you haven’t seen are what’s been done under and over the bus. On the top, myself and Josh laid down strips of seal tape for insulation along the entire outer edge to guard against leaks. Beneath the bus we built a wooden housing case for the massive tanks that will go under it. The front two cabinets have been cleaned out and in the first one is all of our sound equipment and product, (it was a tight fit, but thankfully I’m good at puzzles). The second cabinet holds the majority of our worldly possessions. 

We returned the trailer that we had borrowed to haul all of our stuff around while we were in between buses, so the stuff had to go somewhere. We thought about setting it inside the bus, but having to move it out every time we wanted to work was not a pleasant thought. Even though we returned the trailer, we are still traveling in The Flash, our Ford Expedition, and the bus tags along behind.

It’s a lot of work, and we keep running into little road blocks, but it’s coming along and hopefully will be done sooner than we think. 

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
–Romans 8:28

As always, thanks for reading, and watching.

—the anonymous novelist

How to Build a Bus: Starting to Look Like Home

The bus is starting to feel more and more like a home every day. We are currently in Independence, LA at my Uncle Rodney’s house and have been working on the bus non-stop since we arrived. It’s been tiring work, but the bus is coming along.  

   
This is what the inside looks like now. As you can see, those side boards on the ceiling were added as well as the vent boxes on the floor since the last time you saw it. 
I’ve been working on insulating and building those vent boxes that run along the sides there. They look better up close.  See. We’ve set up our own workshop in the back with a few saw-horses and an extension cord running through the back window to power the three different saws we’re using.  

 It makes an awful mess, and we probably sweep the bus out four or five times a day. This has been the past several days here in Louisiana. It’s been fun, but very difficult work. Most recently we’ve mapped out the floor plan and started building framing from the back to the front. This bit will be Mom and Dad’s bedroom. Those window-like slots are openings to closets on either side that we will eventually close in with doors. It rains a lot here. There was actually a lot of flooding before we even came to Louisiana, and so the tools are piled in the bays under the bus.  It’s a pretty bus, and things are progressing nicely. Soon it will be home for me and my family, and home is starting to sound really good. When you travel the world, you need one safe place where you know you can get away from the crowds, the noise, and the business. You just need a sanctum of solitude: home.

As always, thanks for reading.

–the anonymous novelist
  

How to Build a Bus! – episode 2

For those of you who were wondering: no, I’m not going to do one of these every day. We won’t even be able to work on the bus every day from here on out. However, yesterday’s post didn’t really have a point to it. I know, it was informative, perhaps even appealing, but there wasn’t a message in it. Today, I not only want to show you the method to our madness, but also the meaning to our madness.

So, yesterday we did more floor work. Yesterday we stripped the vinyl coverings off of the floor and discovered more rot closer to the back of the bus. But, taking the vinyl off was not as easy as just 1-2-3. It started like this:

 
We had to grab the edges of the vinyl covers with visegrip pliers to get a good grip on them, then we would angle one way and tug, then the other and tug harder. This went on for a while. Then, after much pulling and tugging and general hand-hurting, the floor looked like this:   

 A bit more pulling and tugging, a lot of aches and many sore muscles, it started to look like this:  

 It wasn’t long after that and we had cleared the third one as well, and the floor looked like this:  

So, maybe it was as easy as 1-2-3. But it wasn’t easy. Notice the heavy rot damage on the right planks, that was where the real work began. Now, these planks are surface, but there is a second level of plank beneath them that had to be removed as well. We went to work and after several hours the floor took on an entirely different look.  

 As you can see, these planks we are tearing up are, at times, resting on the naked frame of the bus. We couldn’t just leave it like that, so we cleaned off the space and threw down some board to cover the holes.  

 The point of all of this is that we couldn’t just throw down new flooring on top of the old; it would be unstable and unsafe. We had to get rid of the old and worthless wood and replace it with new before we could live in the bus or even continue our work.

The message to our madness is that we are taking an old bus, an old bus in good condition, but that has suffered in some ways from the world. The rot, the window leak, the ECM… This bus isn’t perfect, but we’re taking it as it is, knowing we can make it into something beautiful. We want to live in this bus, and we want a good home. We’re not doing any of this by half measures.

God does the same with humans. He takes us as we are, seeing the potential within us, and he removes the old and useless trash in our lives, building Himself a suitable home in which to live. God’s spirit resides in us and changes us daily. This bus is already teaching me lessons. 

Is your life structurally sound, is it scripturally sound? Are there things that need to be torn up and thrown away, replaced by new things? God wants to change you, He’s ready. 

As always, thanks for reading.

–the anonymous novelist 

How to Build a Bus! -episode 1

  

This is what the inside of the bus looks like currently. This is where we start our building project. It’s not much to look at, but it’s a whole lot to work with.

Day Two:

These pictures are from day one, (yesterday), but today is the second day of work on the new bus. Yesterday we layed the groundwork, literally. Yesterday was all about ripping out the old, rotted floor so that we could lay down the new floor. However, when I say “floor”, I really mean the plywood surface upon which the floor will be built.

When we got there, the original wood flooring was covered with a thick material cover and looked something like this:  

 However, once we cut and peeled that back and got underneath to the wood, it was rotted to splinters. So we took hammers and tore the front floor to pieces. During which, it looked something like this:  
 It took a long while to rip all of the bad wood out and find the bolts and such, then remove them. It was almost perfect, the front boards were rotted and we could’ve just removed them. But the rot had spread to the edge of boards farther back, this required the use of a buzz saw. 

But, after the major destruction was done, cleanup began. The front is no longer rotten, neither is it piled with splinters and chunks of wood. It actually looks a lot more like this:  

 all cleaned up and ready for the plywood to be layed down. This will be done today, because we ran out of time yesterday. This is the bus. This is the work. I’ll keep you updated with pictures and posts, stayed tuned for a crazy, bus building adventure!

As always, thanks for reading.

–the anonymous novelist