#Double decker bus conversion full#

The downstairs would have an English pub feel, leathers, dark woods, metals, and an overall comfy feel. A dear friend helped me process the look I was after and put words to it. My job was to work on the look of the project while Dustin was doing the heavy lifting on the function. A large farm sink in the kitchen rounded out the plumbing needs and ended up being one of my favorite parts. We plumbed the bathroom to be upstairs and use gravity for the flushing toilet. The black tank would have to go inside the bus and that would become part of the utility closet. Our son, Josiah cleaning the bathroom before the flooring was installed.

The bus does not have a very high underneath clearance (school buses have it made!) so we could only fit one 25-gallon gray water tank that we had custom-made. Everything would run off 120V to help keep it mobile with easy hookup options. Removed the heater and placed an electrical panel there instead.ĭustin laid out the electrical and installed the breaker panel. We couldn’t change everything on this bus!Ĭlick HERE to see a video of the beginning of the build process. Tough decisions to make right out the gate. It made more sense to have the bathroom upstairs by the bedroom, but it would mean anyone over 5’10” would need to duck when walking and sit while showering. The downstairs is taller by quite a bit compared to the upstairs. Took off the upper ceiling material and removed a heater that did not work and was taking up a lot of room. This is hard for someone who can’t see things that aren’t there (visionaries can do that so well). My husband can do anything, and I had to rest on that fact. We sketched out our rough ideas and knew we just needed to dig in and learn as we go.

#Double decker bus conversion full#

This design seemed much more complex, with a full kitchen and full bathroom while attempting to keep the bus mobile. We had never attempted a project like this (besides our first bus). She drove a little smoother and a bit slower (top speed around 45 mph) with an L10 Cummins engine.Īll in all, she was in pretty good shape, but we knew most everything would be changed in our grand remodel. The vinyl-wrapped seats were all intact and had a very similar layout as our first bus. The bus is 33 feet long, instead of 30, and a bit taller than our previous bus as well. We settled on something close to classic race car green. Painting expenses were more reasonable in the country that manufactures them. We did have to decide on the paint color first, school bus yellow was not what we had in mind for our new venture. Tacoma, Washington seemed much more doable of a drive.

Our first bus was shipped to the east coast and had quite the drive to arrive in Idaho. We decided to have it shipped to the west coast this time. In August 2020 we made all the arrangements to ship our 1995 Leyland double-decker bus from England to Idaho. We had been looking at pictures of double-decker buses that were just waiting for a second chance and a new purpose. We had plenty to keep us busy with the first bus (learning the business side), homeschooling six kids, a day job of sorts for my husband, Dustin, and everything else. What if we converted a double-decker into an Airbnb bus? That would be so cool! However, life has a way of slowing those kinds of ideas down. Many of the first comments that we heard from excited customers were things like “This would be so cool as an R.V.!” or “I would love to live in something like this!” Well, it seemed an idea began to form early on. You can read more about this bus here in the December 2020 Issue of BCM. We just celebrated our third anniversary of being open with Double Decker Espresso. We did it again! Our first double-decker bus conversion was so much fun, we decided to take the leap a second time. Editor’s Note: If you are interested in converting a double-decker bus into a coffee shop, restaurant, Airbnb, or a bus conversion to travel in, we have several listed for sale on our Classified Ad page.