It was spring of 2021, and we were the second year into Covid lockdown. Even with my severe introversion, the depression induced by cabin fever hit me hard. I laid in bed with Jeremy sobbing, as my tears dampened his sleeve and confessed that I felt suffocated in suburbia, and needed to see new places and new things again.

My husband, always doing whatever he can to banish my tears, held me and softly proposed a new plan. Perhaps in the short term we postpone our long-term dream to own land and live in a tiny home, and work toward building a mobile home on wheels instead. We laid there sharing ideas, excited about the possibility. It didn’t take long before I let the idea consume me. I dove in head first, swimming through craigslist, facebook market place posts, and used van listings to find our vehicle, my life line. I soon began to drown, realizing I had no idea what I was doing, no idea how to spot a good used car let alone a bus or van, and Jeremy, the careful tortoise to my hasty hare, pulled me to to shore.

We spent months searching, talking about plans, drawing diagrams of layouts. It was fun and exciting to dream up what it could look like, how much space to allot for different things… the heated debates we had on preferences is almost laughable at that stage, but we were starting something and I was all in, ready to do whatever it took to make this happen as fast as possible. I shared listings with hope brimming in my eyes, and Jeremy reviewed them with scrutiny in his. Where I was seeing potential, he was seeing problem spots that he would have to fix. After contacting a handful, and visiting a few, we found a 2003 Superduty shuttle bus in Vacaville and she looked like she was in decent shape. We went out to see her, gave her a test drive, and due to my relentless pressuring, we bought it.

Little did we know that that this dream would take over three years to complete. Why, you ask, did it take so damn long? Well the short answer was that our girl was in terrible shape shape. It was so bad in fact that we had to completely replace the engine and transmission. To say she has been a money pit, would put it lightly, but we had a dream and the conviction (and privilege of expendable income and financial security) to see it through.

I’m not going to list a chronology of every up and down we had, and there were many. But instead, I will share some of the highlights of how Aurora came to be..

Humble beginnings…

Aurora was already pre-converted and pre-registered as an RV. That was one of the draws in purchasing her. The previous owners fixed her up “on the cheap”, and we knew going into it that we’d want to re-do it all.

She still had her bus windows and bus door when we got her.

She was essentially set up for car camping. She had a lot of mismatched furniture, heavy tiled flooring, Ikea counters, a futon, and converted dinette/bed in the back. No power other than the bus interior lights, and no bathroom. 😳

They used a cooler to keep things cold. They also used a foot pump for water and a small water jug.

There wasn’t a passenger seat with seatbelt, just this futon couch. The TV wobbled every time we turned a corner. I was sure it was going to snap right off the base and break.

It was a massive Queen bed. I loved the size, but Jeremy and I both knew we’d hate having to convert the dining area to a bed and back every day.

There was no insulation and they kept the interior fiberglass shell.

They didn’t bother to remove the useless control panel either. That arm to open and close the doors had to go. It wasn’t secure anyway and we had visions of Zero basking in the sun on the floor infront of that window.

Demolition

We began ripping out everything they did, shaking our heads at the heavy tile they put in for the flooring that they mortarted to the original vinyl flooring. 🤮. This phase took forever. FOREVER FOREVER.

We removed all the fiberglass interior walls and started removing the vinyl flooring in the back. It was a huge pain to remove as it ripped off in small pieces. That light grey stuff is grout they used to tile the floor.

Layout planning

We used Figma to create top-down diagrams in order to quickly iterate and play around with layouts. We did dozens of these, but this is the winning layout.

Prototyping

Next we marked out the floor and made life-sized cardboard prototypes of the furniture. We tested for space, making sure the dogs would fit comfortably under our seating area in the front.

For 7 months, our bus sat at the mechanic as they built and installed the engine and transmission. We got her back and were ready to continue building.

Building better foundations

We framed the sub floor and put in insulation. We also started water proofing the bus.

We finished the subfloor and continued to plug up holes in the bus (see all the black dots? 😨)

And then came time to replace and delete windows…

And I developed a hot firey hatred for fiber glass. That red stuff is incredibly sticky adhesive.

This was the first window we changed and it was definitely a massive learning opportunity…

This is how we had to “delete” windows: Fill them in with plywood then cover with fiberglass on the outside, then fill holes with foam (orange stuff). We took 9 leaky, non-insulated bus windows down to 6 insulated RV windows.

Framing

This is where things started to feel like we were making progress…

Spray foam insulation

The quotes came in for professionally installed foam insulation and we looked at the number and Jeremy said “I bet i can do it for cheaper”. I always admire his confidence that he can just pick up a skill and learn on the fly. So he did. He ordered the material, watched a few youtube video, donned the hasmat suit, and figured it out…

This stuff made a freaking mess, and then we had to cut back all the areas that overflowed. But we’re glad we did it.

Electrical

The walls went up rather quickly, so quickly that i forgot to take photos! Next came wiring up the lights in the ceiling.

Ceiling

Next we put in the flooring, mirror, composting toilet, and door for the bathroom

In progress of the cabinetry and bed platform… getting close!

Here she is..not quite done, but operational

We still have more to do, but this is the state we got her to before my sabbatical in April 2024. I am incredibly proud of what we were able to accomplish.

Just a reminder.. what she looked like before: