We’re putting a lot of time and effort into the design process of our Skoolie floor plan. Partly because it’s too cold to do anything else, but more importantly, with only 200 or so square feet to work with on. a school bus conversion, we need to use such a small space as efficiently as possible.
While everyone’s needs (and bus size) is different, this is what we chose to do.
Space Needs in our Skoolie Floorplan
Although it’s obvious, the skoolie floor plan needs to fit our desired lifestyle. So we need to incorporate various functional spaces into our design.
General Layout Ideas
Both of us like “texture,” so we wanted to avoid a center aisle layout. Julie says it looks too much like a bowling alley. (We have nothing against bowling alleys, we just didn’t want our floor plan to use it!). So we looked for ways to incorporate zigs and zags into our living space.
Garage
We plan on traveling with a two kayaks, a small inflatable raft called a Shredder, and, possibly a 16 foot raft in a limited space. (Deflated…but it still occupies some space!) .
And that’s just the boats.
We’ll need space for throw-ropes, paddles, and paddling clothing that honestly doesn’t smell so good after years of being dunked in the river. All this stuff needs it’s own space to live when not being used. So the back several feet needs to be a garage.
Living Room
Our living room has a couch that turns into a sleeping area and our breakfast nook. It’s mostly a place to eat or hang out. We don’t watch a lot of TV, so there was no need for an entertainment center!
Bedroom
We don’t require acres of space for a bedroom. We’re both 5’7″, so don’t need a king-sized bed. We traditionally sleep in a queen but are considering downsizing to a full bed.
We will use the space underneath for storage, but haven’t fully worked out the details yet.
Nor the orientation. We both would prefer to be able to get in and out of bed without crawling over the other. (As an early riser, I don’t want to wake Julie at 4:00 am every day!) Thus, we envision a bed with a headboard up against the garage wall.
Bathroom
Since we don’t want to deal with a black tank on our bus conversion, we plan on building a composting toilet. We don’t even use the bathtub in our real house, so a shower will suffice for washing off the funk of wet polypro. And warm us up after a chilly day of paddling.
The challenge so far has been to try and work the bathroom around a wheel well. The toilet can sit up there, but the shower can’t. So it appears that the bathroom will have a multi-tiered look that steps up from the shower to the wheel well perched toilet.
It was tough working in enough space for a bathroom sink. I ended up putting the supply plumbing there in case we ever wanted one, but for now, we just use the kitchen sink.
We considered making this step up sort of a bench, but I hesitate to create an empty space in the framing that might let in moisture. We’ll have to keep you posted on this design.
Kitchen
We both really enjoy cooking.
Especially with wine.
Sometimes we even put it in the food.
And food often becomes social. We spend a significant amount of our summer making stone soup meals with our river friends. The planning goes something like this:
Me: “We got any dinner plans?”
Paddler #1: “I have some chops that need to be cooked before they go bad.”
Paddler #2: “I’ve got a squash”
Me: “I’ve got stuff to make an apple crisp.”
Paddler #3: “I’ve got stuff for margaritas”
Paddler #4: “I’ve got a tomato.”
And so on.
Next thing you know we’ve stuffed ourselves with everyone’s contributions and are sitting around playing cards.
So, we need an open concept kind of kitchen and a place for several people to sit. We often do a lot of cooking outside using a charcoal grill and Dutch Ovens, but will occasionally need to escape weather or bugs. So, we don’t feel that we will need an oven. But we will need seating and a table.
A significant consideration has gone into the fridge. A mini-fridge gives you more storage for dishes and pots and pans, but not much room for food.
And I’m still working on a skoolie floor plan that lets me spin the driver’s seat around to function as furniture.
Heat
Although we plan on using our skoolie mostly in warm climates, there will be times in spring and fall where we may find ourselves wanting warmth.
As much as I enjoy heating with wood, I’m not sold on a wood stove for a bus conversion. They look cozy but the challenges of wood storage, insurance, and cost preclude their viability.
However, we salvaged a propane furnace from a camper that cranks out some heat. Unfortunately, it seems to crank a lot of it right out the exhaust vent to the outside. So, I’m in the process of building a heat exchanger for it.I plan on using one of the heaters from the bus, so it will occupy some space.
[Update] We ended up using a diesel heater. which has worked out great!
Skylights
The stock emergency exits in the roof are notoriously leaky, and we wanted a source of natural light. So we custom built some out of cedar!
Extra Storage
We designed two closets. One houses the power center for the electrical system. Since it’s opposite the bathroom, we also keep towels and peat moss for the composting toilet in there.
The other closet hosts the on-demand water heater, the mop and broom, and “hanging” clothes like our coats and paddling drysuits!
Water Tanks
Water tanks take up space. They can also freeze. Therein lies the rub. If you put them inside they use up valuable living area space. Put ’em outside and you need to heat them if traveling in winter.
We hope to avoid colder temperatures, so we hung them under the bus.
Designing the Skoolie Floor Plan: 2D
Graph Paper Maleable Puzzles
And the part of my brain that processes spatial problems doesn’t work so well. So we started off with some graph chart paper and paper appliances cut to scale…kind of like playing with paper dolls in a doll house.
We took the exact dimensions of the school bus and scaled them to a chart paper footprint.
One thing to keep in mind, though, is how it translates. Wall framing actually takes up a few inches, so be sure to take them into account!
Also, make a few different kitchen counter shapes. Playing with both straight and L-shaped counters may open up some ideas.
Finally, play with a few different sizes for the kitchen sink. We originally thought that smaller was better, but am glad we went with a full size sink!
It turned out to be a fun game, actually. People would come over and we’d crack open a beverage and hand them some paper pieces and say, “Let’s see what you come up with!”
We might actually continue to play that game even after it’s built.
Anyway, it’s tangible. You can pick things up and move them around easily. Also, there’s no real learning curve like there is with software, so you don’t get bogged down in trying to work the program, you can focus on the skoolie floorplan issue of cramming 5 pounds of life into a one-pound bag.
Google Sketch Up
However, if you prefer a more professional or polished approach, you can use software. Sketch-up is a free drawing application that you can use to create your skoolie floorplan. I used to use it often for woodworking, however, the free version now runs on-line rather than from a downloaded program on your computer. I find the workflow different so I’m significantly slower (and more frustrated with it) these days. It can produce some professional-looking results, however.
Photoshop
If you are more familiar with photoshop, you can create your school bus conversion plans with it. I do like the way that you can create a variety of bus features as different layers, hide or show the layers, and move them around.
Unlike Sketch-up, however, you can’t really create three-dimensional representations or do “walk-throughs.” I also struggle with scale in Photoshop. In Sketch-up, it’s easy to set the dimensions of an object. In Photoshop, however, trying to define scale in terms of pixels, or even scaled inches occupies more spatial brainpower than I can spare.
Designing the Skoolie Floor Plan: More lifelike 3D
Two-dimensional floor plans don’t tell the whole story, however. It may look good on paper and think that 18-inch passage is enough to wrangle your shoulders through until you try it.
So we wanted to take it a step further.
We tracked down a bunch of cardboard and started building a mock-up of the bus layout. This process did a much better job of creating the sense of space that our design will have. Moreover, it helps us foresee spatial problems that we can work on solving now rather than when we are full speed into the construction process.
The Floorplan so Far
I’m liking the way that the living room and kitchen are shaping up, and the bedroom and garage are pretty straightforward. However, jamming everything into such limited square footage is a challenging process!
But don’t feel like to need to have the perfect layout…there’s no such thing. Just do the best you can to match your priorities to the design!
Check us out on youtube at: https://youtu.be/I1NlZvZNHfE
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