This engineer's 2005 Blue Bird International school bus is now his full-time house on wheels, a skoolie named Ellie, which took him under a year to build. It has a wood cabin vibe to it, a huge kitchen, and offers lots of sleeping arrangements.
The name of the skoolie was inspired by the “Up“ animation, which is all about living your life the free, adventurous way. Ellie is off-grid capable, very well equipped, but also cozy and inviting. The bus belongs to Ryan, a former Disney engineer who was let go when the pandemic hit, giving him the push he needed to switch to tiny living, a decision he doesn’t regret one bit.
Ellie is his DIY project built around a cozy cabin theme, so a lot of wood tones can be seen throughout the bus. It was also designed to entertain. Ryan enjoys cooking and hanging out with friends, which is why he went with a huge kitchen that’s over a third of the entire square footage of the bus. It comes with a double, residential sink that’s both massive and deep, a residential oven range combo that runs on propane, and a full-size fridge. With such heavy kitchen equipment onboard, Ellie also needed a way to exhaust the heat during the cooking sessions. So Ryan installed a two-way fan on the ceiling, which can both suck air out or blow air in.
Ellie offers a multitude of sleeping arrangements. The master bedroom comes with a queen-size bed with a thick, 12” mattress and the couch and dinette in the kitchen/living room area also come together to convert into a spacious king-size bed. Also, as a bonus, there are USB chargers in the dinette seats. Additionally, if you just want to chill, there are hooks on the beautiful, tongue and groove cedar ceiling, which allow you to hang two hammocks.
The bathroom area of the bus comes with a tiled shower stall and a composting toilet. Ellie’s got 100 gallons of fresh water on board, air conditioning, and 1400W of solar power provided by the solar panels installed on the roof.
As it was conceived for full-time living, Ellie also comes with a small dedicated workspace where Ryan keeps his computer, so he can run his business online. He’s even got a 3D printer on board to print various things and sell them on the Internet. The skoolie also comes with a video doorbell that connects to the WiFi so he can see who’s at the door via his phone. A 16 ft (4.8 m) flag pole provides him with Internet and keeps him connected regardless of where he travels. He installs it whenever the bus is parked.
Cristina’s always found writing more comfortable to do than speaking, which is why she chose print over broadcast media in college. When she’s not typing, she also loves riding non-motorized two-wheelers, going on hikes with her dog, and rocking her electric guitars. Full profile
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