In the Bus Again

Now that the weather has cooled down to about 75, we feel it's bearable to spend time in the bus again!


The first thing we tackeled was the ceiling. We had wanted to finish it before we had left Minnesota, but we were already so far behind schedule that we decided to leave it until Florida. It's a good thing we did because the insulation we sprayed continued to expand! Imagine if we had put the panels up before the full expansion. We would have a creaky, maybe holey, bus ceiling by now.

We are super insulating this tin can. We put a thin reflective panel in between the 5mm ply and the foam insulation. The Reflectix looks like what a cheap sunshade for your car's windshield is made of. Bubble wrap with foil on both sides.

Michael made a helper! We don't have Uncle Frankie anymore to help us with an extra pair of hands, so Micheal made a prop that could hold things in place if I were not around or if the two of us were not enough.

There were some days when Michael would go to work and I would cut the panels and make notches during my free time. Overall the labor came out to about 5 work days. Doing this exercise helped me overcome my fear of the circular saw. Now I know what you're thinking: "Who's afraid of a circular saw?" I'm here to tell you, "This gal!" This gal was, at least. I think it reminded me too much of a chainsaw, something I associate with redneck psychopaths. The shrill sound of the blade turning mixed with its ability to be moved willy nilly in the air. With a table saw, the blade is at least in one position at all times. And with a compound saw, there is only one path it will go - down and then back up again. The circular saw made me imagine bloody body parts and screaming children.

But after a sloooooooooooow introduction, I finally got the hang of it without hurting myself or my family. I'm glad I was able to cut pieces while Michael was away because I was able to go as slow as I had to. I would sometimes stare at the plywood for a good 5 minutes before making a mark or before clamping it down. Many times, I would mark it incorrectly but I wouldn't figure it out until right before I cut. It was nice to not of the pressure (nor the immediate embarrassment) of having to do it correctly the first time. It was a good learning curve done leisurely!

Speaking of curves, the ceiling of the rear of the bus curves down and we had to account for it.

It's hard to tell that there's a curve right? It was harder to figure out how to cut a piece to accommodate it so Michael attached a square piece and then used a Dremel (or oscillating saw) to relieve pressure here and there. It wasn't pretty.

You can see the jagged line in this photo of the painted panels.

After we secured the panels, we painted it with an oil-based primer/sealer/stainblocker paint in white.

The plywood is really porous and sucked up the paint like a sponge. We used a gallon on the first coat. The second coat went on more quickly, but we had timed it poorly and had to race against the sun going down to see what we were doing.

Next up, we're putting tint on the windows! We hope to have this bus ready for some fun day trips in about a month and a half! We won't be complete by then, but we will hopefully be able to retreat to it in the middle of the day wherever we are.