Barnorama All Fun In The Barn
Charlie MacVicar, 26, and her partner Luke Walker, 27, decided to move in together, but wanted to live mortgage-free. Since Charlie’s dad owned land in Essex, United Kingdom, where she and Luke could’ve lived on, they considered multiple ideas on how to make use of it, and eventually got themselves a double-decker bus to have more space.
After their renovation, the first floor of the bus has a spacious kitchen, WC, work desk, and a guest room/ living room with a woodburning oven. Second floor has a bedroom, bathtub, and a walk-in-closet. The bus itself was £2,500 ($3,470) and the couple spent around £15,000 ($20,830) on the conversion.
Naturally, renovating the bus (which still had all the seats inside) for someone with no previous construction experience can be tricky. And Charlie acknowledged that the process was challenging at times—after all, it was her first time picking up a screwdriver! But the couple were lucky to receive some help.
“Myself and my boyfriend are not your typical creative type. We have mostly worked office jobs and there were some parts of the bus we simply couldn’t do ourselves. The electric, plumbing, and carpentry were done by either family or professionals. As much as we would like to take credit for the hard work, we certainly couldn’t have done it without others,” she explained. Nonetheless, this doesn’t take away from the amazing results.
The first floor has a spacious kitchen, WC, work desk, and a guest room/ living room with a woodburning oven
“[But overall], there weren’t many challenges with the bus, we got very lucky with the condition we bought the bus in,” Charlie said. “So the conversion went quite smoothly. Building upstairs was more of a challenge as on the top deck, the floor is slightly curved so we had to custom build the bed, level the bath, and other furniture.”
Keeping the heat in the bus can also be challenging with all of the windows but the couple has recently installed a new heater which is helping massively with that! Plus, they have a log burner downstairs.
They also did some amazing things with the outside space:
Now, even though MacVicar and her partner pay her father a small amount of rent to park on his land, they keep their expenses minimal.
Their home is parked right next to a lovely pond, and the couple keeps two goats, Monty and Darwin.
The bus itself was £2,500 ($3,470) and the couple spent around £15,000 ($20,830) on the conversion
“I believe it was completely worth it and honestly, it’s the best thing me and my boyfriend have done”
“We love living here and the freedom it gives us”
People are absolute loving the double-decker home
