Skoolie Conversion into Epic Mancave | Full Budget Breakdown
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Liam lives in his Skoolie bus, The Baller Bus, full time. It had taken him about two summers to build and he lives in it since already three years. The idea of converting the bus came when he was hiking in Myanmar with a buddy: "we should just get a bus and go to Panama in it, from Canada". All this said, Liam ended up converting the van together with his mom, a talented carpenter. Even though the cost was much higher than they had thought, it also got much nicer than they would have thought. Liam recorded every single hour and dollar of the whole built, paid most of the cost and after the trip with his friends, the bus turned into his part time home!
The Baller Bus is an International CE300. He keeps 430 AMP of lead acid batteries for the electricity of his fridge, laptops and other electronics. He did a roof raise and built in RV windows taken from a wrecker. At the back of the Skoolie is a kind of prolonged floor for Liam to put his motorcycle onto and go on trips. On the top of the roof is a nice patio out of wood with 600W of solar panels installed on, which he can pivot towards the sun, and Liam's old rusty surfboard called Patricia. The propane Liam stores in the bus lasts him about three to four months, using it full time with four people. He also stores 400 liters of fresh water.
Liam gives most of the credit for everything inside looking so nice to his mom - who did all the framing. There are five seats with seatbelts, as sometimes they would be checked on this. For heating, he has a Cubic Mini Grizzly Stove, which he can just unhook and put under the bed for extra cold nights. One spot above the kitchen countertop was originally designed for a microwave - however, Liam now uses it as a standing desk for his laptop, which he says works great. As the water freezes in minus conditions, he additionally installed an auxiliary water tank in his kitchen. The stove in the kitchen, which he got from an RV wrecker, is what set the whole color scheme and design for the rest of the place. There is a regular AC fridge, sized accordingly, and it takes half of the solar panel's power on a regular summer day.
Liam's favorite piece of the bus is an extendible ladder out of seemingly nowhere, to access the rooftop from inside. His most recent addition is a punching bag, which at the same time works as a decent door to the back. The bathroom consists of a simple shower and as they were four guys traveling, he installed a urinal that cleans itself with the water from the sink. He also put a bucket for the composting toilet, for which he uses ashes from the stove.
And last but not least, the bedroom. It was built for four tall men to live in, so all the beds are queens cut in half. The bunks can lift up and got some storage space underneath, plus there is a small closet and a TV to swivel in the back.
If Liam could go back in time, he says that he'd slap himself and say: "Listen here, invest in who you want to be, where you want to go, who you want to be with and what life you want to live."
For him it's more than just financial, it's emotional as well as spiritual. He says that we have the choive to either invest in delaying the short-term gain, prospering more long-term - or take that short-term feel-good.
"You can't help someone if you haven't helped yourself. I can't help you financially if I don't have my finances in order. It's not that you can't help someone when you're also struggling, but if you really care about who you're trying to help, the quality of your help should be there, and to get that quality up you need to have yourself in order".
