At the end of January we went to see the minibus and instantly fell in love, we travelled an hour to the garage to view it and within 10 minutes of arriving we had made our decision. Three painfully long weeks later we finally received the call to say our tiny home to be was ready for collection.
On the day we collected the minibus we both had meetings in our diaries that afternoon so when we got home from the dealership we had to leave the van straight away to get to work.
A few LONG hours later we were back home and raring to go…. The first task was transforming the bus from a 17 seater minibus into an empty shell. We could see the bolts holding the seats in place and felt confident that we could ‘pop them out’ in a night on our driveway.
How wrong we were... A socket set, breaker bar, hacksaw, angle grinder and at least 10 hours of labour later, we finally had our empty shell.
We ripped out the paneling and flooring, all of which came out with minimal effort and pulled the carpet from the ceiling. Actually, the carpeted ceiling came down before the seats were out because there should never have been carpet on a ceiling, carpets are for floors. We were so excited to get the carpet off that we don’t even have a before picture with it in situ…. (can you sense our dislike of carpeted ceilings..?)
Once everything was out we could finally see exactly how much space we had to play with, our imagination started to run wild as we could picture where our bed would be, what views we might see whilst cooking dinner, if we’ll be able to turn around whilst having a shower (we will be able to.. what a luxury). The point is, we could really start to see how we could make this space our home and couldn’t wait to get started. We measured the interior space and gave the measurements to a friend who drew them up in CAD for us. Whilst we waited for them to be finished we assessed the condition of the bus to understand what work needed to be done to make sure our ‘foundations’ were as good as they could be.
The dreaded carpet left behind a mass of glue on the ceiling which did not want to shift for love nor money. It needed to come off as it was filthy and more importantly, as we were not yet water tight, mould was sticking to the glue. We thought it was pointless to insulate and board up the ceiling to have to take it out due to a mould issue 6 months down the road. We tried mould remover, glue remover, paint stripper and methanol with no luck. We eventually found that Cillit Bang and a LOT of scrubbing would remove the dirt and mould but not the glue. Finally, we used a razor blade which worked really well. It was a slow process but look at that transformation!
We treated some minor rust in the back of the bus, a fresh coat of paint and now she looks as good as new. One patch looks exceptionally good as Rob dropped half a can of the (expensive) paint after the whole floor had dried.
We were really impressed with the Hammerite rust remover gel, primer and paint! We are going to write up a step by step rust treatment post for those interested, it will be published later this week. A lot time and effort has already gone into our tiny home on wheels and visually we don’t have much to show for it. However, we can continue on with the build knowing that beneath it is a strong and sturdy base….well, as sturdy as LDV’s get.
Rob and Adele
Products used:
Socket Set: https://amzn.to/2Ct8g5x
Breaker Bar: https://amzn.to/2HGKc3J
WD40: https://amzn.to/2CvUM9q
Angle Grinder: https://amzn.to/2CwZaVH
Safety Mask: https://amzn.to/2CzNqSm
Crow Bar: https://amzn.to/2Jwkdh1
Hammer: https://amzn.to/2Cy004u
Makita Drill: https://amzn.to/2WnqCwH
Wire Brush Drill Bit: https://amzn.to/2WiypeZ
Wire Brush: https://amzn.to/2OhBLw9
Rust Remover Gel: https://amzn.to/2CxtHmm
Rust Beater (Primer): https://amzn.to/2Wg63BY
Metal Paint: https://amzn.to/2Jwo0e0
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