In a few weeks, we will celebrate a full year of full-time bus living. The thing about living in a bus-house, skoolie, tiny house - however you label it - it's still a house. And houses mean projects. We have highlighted some of those projects in the past, but this round is for a project that...well, it didn't go quite as planned.
Early on, when Mike and I were new bus owners, we started to chart out the order of projects. Much of the order was dictated by 'first this, then that' order of operations, cash on hand, and what tools and supplies were accessible. We always knew that because our bus didn't come with storage bays underneath, that was something we were going to add. And we thought we would add them early on. We were very wrong.
About two years ago, Mike and I took measurements, looked at our projected needs, looked at the bus, and made our best educated guess, and bought four underbody truck boxes on Amazon. They are 4' x 18" x 18". At the time, the bus was at my parent's house about two hours south of where we live, so we had them delivered there. My parents received the shipment, and we ended up moving them into the bus. They functioned as makeshift sawhorses for a while. We used them as a table to cut flooring, insulation, walls, etc. Then they were in the way and we moved them into my parents' basement. When we moved the bus closer to where we lived, we loaded the boxes into the bus once again. When the bus was in its' workspace, we moved the boxes into a garage for storage. When we were ready to move into the bus, we moved the boxes into a storage unit. When our bus was all set up, we moved them into a garage for storage once again.
Lo and behold, after breaking fingernails and almost smashing toes and carting these 'not heavy for a short distance but wicked heavy for a long distance' boxes all over the NY countryside, they are mounted! Bless the Lord. Mike found the perfect brackets to mount to the bus frame, and miraculously there were already holes predrilled in the frame that matched the brackets. It's almost like God was cutting us some slack! So, with our friend Josh's help, after cutting the skirting, mounting the brackets, bolting the boxes, sanding and painting them to match the bus, voila! Our new 'basement storage' is in use.
Mike and I laugh about how many times we have relocated the boxes, and it's really reminiscent of this whole bus experience. Sometimes you have a plan, sometimes it works, and when you get redirected there's always evidence that it worked out the way it was supposed to from the beginning. Plans are made and remade, but it's what we do with the journey, and for me, how we celebrate the end result! On to the next...which may be solar, generator, trim...hey, it's a house, right? There's always a project.
