So when we dropped our bus off to be renovated we were hoping it would take a month for all the work to be completed. Just to continue the theme of our journey in to bus living the renovations have taken much longer than we wanted as well. But finally almost seven weeks after we dropped her off the day had arrived to pick her up. Wayne had been popping in most weeks to check on the progress but I had only visited once and at that time everything was still pulled apart and not yet put back together. So I was actually a little nervous of what I would find, would I like it? Because if I didn’t there was no changing it now.
Thankfully I absolutely loved the end result. A lovely bathroom, surprisingly compact but still roomy enough to be usable. Lots of extra ventilation, a nice new oven and fridge installed and lots of little touches like extra draws under the bed, a shelf above the kitchen window, a pull out spice rack in an empty space we had beside the oven. And then the fire, I am so incredibly grateful we decided to just go ahead and put in the fire. With a lovely stone tile hearth and timber surround it really turns the space into a little house. Instantly my mind is drawn to those south island winter nights that we will be experiencing soon and how wonderful it will feel snuggled up in front of that fire.
I know the last few months I have questioned at times if we should have just brought a bus that was already in a livable state and didn’t need renovations. I am 100% glad now that we chose to take the risk and buy this bus, we have something now that is far nicer than what I had ever imagined we would be travelling in and something that we hope we will find a place for in our lives long after we settle down again.
It is incredibly hard to take photo’s in such a long narrow space and I fully intend to spend some time figuring out the best way to do it with the camera. I will probably leave that until I have had a chance to put all our stuff in and get all the little finishing touches in place. But for now I actually had better luck on my phone, so here’s a few of what the inside looks like now.
At the moment it feels like I have a huge amount of things to do before we leave and a very small amount of time to do it in. But the reward is definetly worth it at the end so we will just put our heads down and get it sorted. For now I am enjoying all the little exciting things along the way, like turning our fridge on for the first time today and tucking Oliver up in his bed in the bus knowing that this time there’s no countdown until it goes away to be fixed. That this time it’s our home for as long as we choose to be on the road.
My Wandering Kiwi Family 