doolan family school bus – part 6

by Kaylah Stroup
skoolie renovation

Its been four whole months since my last bus update aaaand holy cow, a lot has changed since then! I really don’t even know where to start.

I kind of got out of the habit of shooting photos and video because it felt like not too much was happening. The work that was getting done wasn’t as big and epic as say, laying down the flooring or building benches. But wow, looking back at my older bus posts and videos (all linked at the end of this post) I realize now that I definitely goofed up by not shooting more. So much has gotten done. As of right now, the bus is even painted a pretty new color BUT because there’s so much else to catch up on, I’m going to save that for another day.

Prepping, priming, and painting has been a huge undertaking. When you only have one day per week to work on something like this, it’s gonna take forever. I think I can speak for the whole family when I say we’re very excited that it’s finally done.

We decided on a two-tone paint job. The top is white, and the bottom… my mom’s favorite color. Like I said, I’ll share more next post. Before any painting could be done though we had to clean the exterior of the bus really well, rough up the old paint a bit, remove all the stickers, and give it a good wipe down. All that before two coats of primer, and then finally paint. It took a lot of work but was truly satisfying. Watching the yellow disappear was niiiiice. I don’t even recognize the bus in these photos.

The inside of the bus has been getting lots of love too! The dividing wall between the main part of the bus and the bathroom/storage room was finished. The sliding door installed. Countertop laid down. Sink and stovetop installed! Wooo. It looks good!

schoolie interior

More than that, it’s now painted as well. We chose a nice, bright grey based white to brighten up the interior. I absolutely love how it turned out.

We picked out a simple gray fabric for the cushions which I am definitely procrastinating on making. The parts of the benches where you can still see wood will be getting covered with dark wood trim. We got a bit of it done already, though it’s obviously not shown in these photos. I’ll tell you what, it’s looking slick. The cushions are really going to tie the whole space together though and make it seem so much closer to being finished.

skoolie interior
Ellie really loved carrying paint brushes around. Such a good little helper pup.
Priming the schoolie
Priming the outside.

Here is the accompanying video. I feel like my previous videos were very similar to the blog posts they went with but since it’s been so long there’s stuff in the video that isn’t in the pictures. The video also gives you a way better feel so the layout and what the back room looks like.

I CANNOT wait to hit the road.

Check out previous bus conversion posts here – 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5.

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3 comments

Kristina B October 23, 2019 - 12:56 pm

I CANNOT WAIT to see what color it is now and when it’s all done!!

Kelley October 24, 2019 - 2:45 pm

I can’t wait to see your mom’s favorite color! This is such a amazing family project, thank you for sharing it with us!

silver lining - THE DAINTY SQUID December 16, 2019 - 7:30 pm

[…] least once per week we get together, eat food and just hang out. Sometimes it’s working on the bus, ziplining or dump digging. Other times it’s just sitting around watching old home movies or […]

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