Life on the Bus
Tiny Home Living: Week 1 Report
It has been a crazy past 3 weeks. June 20th, we moved most of our stuff onto the bus before a week-long camping trip in Colorado. We returned to MN on June 27th and that same day we rented a UHaul and moved everything out of the apartment and into a 5x10 storage unit (furniture, some extra clothes, etc). Over the next three days we cleaned, moved a few more things into the bus, and said our apartment goodbyes. Now, we can finally say: WE LIVE ON THE BUS!
Honestly, we love living on the bus. It’s freeing to be in a small space and still feel like we have everything we need. We keep things clean and put things in their place as soon as possible because a mess can make things feel small real quick. It’s not like we are making some huge sacrifice- we are truly living the life we want to live.
Where are we parked? When we moved to Minnesota, we met the Maynard family through church. They are the most generous, hospitable family we have ever met. Their property in Woodbury is about 15 acres, and they have a wooded area with a gravel loop separate from their house where they are graciously letting us park. It’s the ideal situation and we feel ridiculously blessed. We still have both of our cars so we are able to drive to work and run errands whenever we need without moving the bus.
Needless to say, living on a school bus has required us to make some changes. Some things we’ve had to adjust to:
Meals have to be made on the stovetop or in our toaster oven. This honestly hasn’t been that hard and we feel like the meals we make are healthier and easier since they’re typically made in just one skillet. We find plenty of recipes on Pinterest (I may do a post with some of our favorite meals another time). My parents have been living on a sailboat for the past two years, so they have been a HUGE help and resource with tiny living: From one-skillet recipes, to dishtowels that dry super fast, to aqua-bot spray bottles that help you conserve water when washing dishes. They are definitely an inspiration.
move-in gift from mom and dad
The small fridge and pantry size. Thankfully, everything fits! For groceries we keep breakfast, lunch, basic necessities, and a weeks worth of dinner meals stocked. This is honestly not that much
different than what we were doing at our apartment. Simple and no excess. Just enough leftovers to take to work! We’re actually pretty pumped because now there’s a Walmart only 5 minutes away- such big aisles and such a big selection compared to our tiny Uptown Cub!
it may be a puzzle, but it all fits
The bathroom. The composting toilet has been easy to use and clean. Very low maintenance, and zero smell. The shower is a little tricky only because we are cautious to conserve water. The stop and start method does take away from the luxury a bit, but we are thankful to even have the option of showering! If we want to take longer showers, we both have showers at work, or I can use my gym membership. We also found a grey water deodorizer product at Walmart that has really helped reduce any grey water (shower and kitchen sink) odor. We Just poured some liquid down the drain and haven’t noticed any odor since!
new shower curtain
The temperature. This has probably been the hardest part. I work the night shift and have to sleep during the day when it’s warmer. When we first moved in we kept all the windows up so bugs wouldn’t constantly fly in, but that left me sleeping in a hot-box. We immediately began brainstorming solutions. AC units draw too much power so we would need to buy a small generator and that seemed excessive for such a short period of time (before we know it, it’ll be winter again). At night, the weather is perfect, even a little chilly. We knew the windows needed to come down because there’s nothing better than a Minnesota breeze. We ended up making removable velcro bug screens on most of the windows. The velcro is clear so the screens are hardly noticeable and we have the windows down all of the time. The bug screens look great but feel even greater. The bus temperature and my sleep have gotten much better. We also have a plug-in fan and our Fan-tastic ceiling fan running all of the time. At night, we bundle up with blankets in our cozy bed and sleep wonderfully.
breeze in, bugs out
We don’t have internet on the bus yet (we do have a wifi ranger system on the bus, but because of our remote location, there are no wifi signals it can reach). We’ve researched different options and will likely add on a hotspot device to our AT&T account. For now, we’ve just been going to coffee shops or the library when we need to work, or use our phones temporarily as hotspots.
Some other fun things that happened this week:
We found a place 10 minutes away to dump and fill water tanks: SUCCESS!
We had guests! Davis (Kyle’s brother) and Jake (my cousin) came over for a visit. We sat around the living room eating cookies and drinking milk. There was plenty of room for everyone and we had a good ‘ol time.
Overall, it’s been a week of change, adjustments, tweaking, and settling in. Each day gets easier as we find what works and what doesn’t. Communication is critical. We have to always put one another before ourselves. Living selflessly makes living easy and much more enjoyable. We laugh every day and yes, we are still very much in love.
We loved getting to share Emmy with the family!
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