Caleb Brackney, a 26-year-old graduate student studying architecture at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, transformed a 1995 Thomas International school bus into a charming and efficient tiny home on wheels, effectively mitigating his student debt. “I couldn’t afford housing, so to avoid taking out loans for living expenses I turned the bus into a home,” says Caleb. “Now I can focus on my studies instead of stressing about paying rent.”

The architecture student has lived in the vehicle, dubbed Roamer Bus, for almost 16 months with his Golden Doodle named Ivy. He purchased the skoolie—previously a yellow-painted bus with 118,000 miles, used as transportation for the Boys & Girls Club of America—for $3,000 on Facebook Marketplace in Rome, Georgia.

Caleb spent six months and $7,000 completing the remodel, employing mostly recycled materials and the help of his brothers and a friend, who assisted with the electrical hookup. “I had a $10,000 budget, which kept my conversion to $7,000,” he says. “It was incredible to be able to put to use what I’m learning in school—the process taught me so many things.”

$2,600 Electrical & AC	$350 Plumbing	$1,100 Lumber
$180 Flooring	$45 Countertops	$180 Ceiling Siding
$110 Ladder	$550 Fasteners & Hardware	$670 Insulation
$250 Paint & Fabric	$1,000 Misc.
Grand Total: $7,035

Caleb painted the exterior of the bus beige with a matte-black graphic of a mountain range along its side. “I didn’t want anything flashy,” he says. “I wanted something earthy that could handle being dirty.” For the interior, he collected a variety of found and secondhand objects that he repurposed as furnishings for the kitchen, bathroom, living, and sleeping areas. “Nearly everything is recycled,” Caleb says. “The curtains are fabrics of different sizes that I cut down and hemmed to fit the windows, and the curtain ties are recycled leather strips.”

“I bought the flooring from an overstock store,” Caleb says. “They were practically giving away a few boxes of luxury vinyl tile. I only needed a small amount, so it worked perfectly and I’ve just enough leftover in case I need to replace a few pieces.” To stay within his $10,000 budget, Caleb confined himself to using a single four-by-eight-foot sheet of plywood to build the doors for the kitchen cabinetry and his closet. “I designed the whole kitchen and the closet based on this constraint and used every inch of the plywood sheet,” he says.

Caleb used recycled butcher-block wood for the kitchen counters, offsetting the warm texture of the wood with ceramic tiles for the backsplash. “The ceramic tile adds a small-scale pattern and compliments the rawness of some of the other materials,” he says. To maintain counter space in the kitchen, he created a mason jar storage system that attaches to the underside of upper shelving. “I drilled holes in the shelf and the jar lids so that the lids screw into the shelf,” Caleb says. “The jars twist in and out of the lids.” Next, he hung outdoor string lights to illuminate the area and provide a decorative accent.

In the open-plan living area, Caleb arranged a sectional sofa with a pullout queen bed and plenty of storage space beneath it. “I created it with one-by-four-inch pieces of lumber,” he says. A seven-foot-long closet accommodates hanging clothes and bins-and-basket storage.

The dining area features a wood counter that Caleb uses as a table and desk, as well as a storage area for his keyboard. “I made a slide-out tray that I attached to the keyboard and placed beneath the counter,” he says. “I grew up in a musical family and instruments have always made a space feel like home, so I wanted to make sure that I found space for my keyboard on the bus.”

For the bedroom, Caleb crafted a plywood headboard with “staggered squares or boxes to give depth because it’s a focal point,” he says, continuing: “I also added LEDs to accentuate the depth changes.” A lighting system made from PVC pipe and outdoor string lights provides another focal point in the bedroom.

“I assembled the piece with a design team for a class assignment,” Caleb says. “When the semester ended, no one wanted to keep it, so I disassembled it and then hung it above the bed.”

A hanging garden made from a shipping pallet that attaches to the rear exterior is perhaps the bus’s loveliest feature. “The design was constrained to the size of the shipping pallet,” Caleb says. “I rearranged a few of the planks and added a base for troughs.” He uses the hanging garden to grow miscellaneous flowers and herbs, depending on his location or what food he’s eating during a specific season. “When I move the bus, I can put the garden inside the rear door and set it in the base of the shower,” he says.

Caleb also built a planter garden for the bus’s rooftop. “During a storm, I thought about how I could channel rainwater for the bus,” he says. “I experimented by building a trough-strip garden with scrap planks and a repurposed grate from an old mowing trailer.”

In the spring of 2022, Caleb will complete his graduate studies and plans to relocate the bus to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he’ll work at a landscape architecture firm. “I’m not tied to one place,” he says. “Last summer, I had an internship in Berkeley, California, and didn’t have to worry about paying rent in Knoxville or Berkeley. The bus gives me financial freedom—it lets me spend money on experiences instead of housing.”

Related Reading:

11 Skillful School Bus Conversions That Get an A-Plus in Our Book

Budget Breakdown: A Shipping Container Is Transformed Into an Off-Grid Tiny Home for $23K

Project Credits:

Design & Construction: Caleb Brackney, Roamer Bus / @roamerbus

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Budget Breakdown: An Architecture Student Turns an Old School Bus Into His Home for $7K