Where are they now? - Sharkey's Crown

Last time we checked in on my Crown bus conversion, it was getting use as a home theater and guest quarters. The focus has curved a bit, but that's still a close description.

In late summer 2014, I actually moved into the bus for three months while I worked on the remodel of my "regular" house, which I had been living in for about a year after exiting the Housetruck. The living room, dining room and kitchen of the house had been sheetrocked after all of the necessary plumbing and electrical work, but I was struggling to get a plasterer up this direction to complete the texturing of the walls so I could paint. I wanted to match the thin-coat plaster technique that the rest of the house was finished in, but contractors are hard to come by in these parts, at least contractors who would actually show up and do the work. I had decided that no matter how bad the results, I was going to have to do it myself.

Since I live basically in one room, (the living room, dining room, and kitchen) I needed to move completely out of the house to avoid dust, dirt and paint vapors. The bus was my first choice, and a good one, as it turns out.

I spent a few days pressure washing the entire exterior, then putting a new coat of elastomeric sealant on the roof. A NSF-approved polythene pipe was run out from the house to the bus, and I installed a temporary countertop and sink using blue plastic milk crates as a base. After that, it was just a matter of moving my furniture and bedding in and it was a whole new living arrangement.

WiFi and telephone service from the house provided a connection to the outside world and the audio equipment from the home theater was the entertainment of choice (I dragged the TV out of the living space and stashed it away in the front of the bus, I don't watch the tube enough to have it taking up space in my space.)

Some draperies tacked up with push pins covered some of the foil insulation, while a couple sections of cheap cedar paneling made the bed loft a bit more home-like. Although it was all pretty marginal, I loved it! It was like a homecoming of sorts after not being in the Housetruck for almost a year. My houseplants loved it too, they got their own private greenhouse on the dashboard of the bus right in front of the big, curved windshields. Settling in wasn't at all difficult in spite of there being no refrigeration, I just had to plan meals carefully and carry everything I was going to need to prepare a meal from the fridge at the house.

The kitchen was a dream, compared to what I had been using in the house. My "helper" had torn all of the kitchen cabinets out of the house during a cleansing frenzy years previous. After moving into the house on short notice, I had been using a folding table for a countertop, and some flimsy metal shelving for cabinets to store food and dishes. The bus wasn't all that much more elegant, but there was lots more counter space!

I had forgotten how much I liked having a window right next to the head of my bed. It took a few days of part-time project concentration to sand, finish, and then install screening in the screen frames for the top three windows in the bus. When it was done, I could open them up for views and ventilation. More than once, I could hear the owls cooing in the trees surrounding the bus during the night, or wake to catch full rays of moon light spilling through the open window and across my bed.

As all things must end, I eventually had to vacate the bus and move into the now nicely painted house once more. As the summer ended and fall got a grip on the weather, I longed for a wood stove to provide ample heat. I was also beginning to notice that moisture was starting to condense around the windows and door openings, and beads of water would cling to any exposed, uninsulated metal in the bus structure. If I were to stay in the bus any longer, I'd need to complete the insulation, install an effective vapor barrier, and cut a hole in the roof for a stove pipe to exit.

It was another couple of months before I got "real" kitchen cabinets in the house, and another six months after that before I had actual countertops on those cabinets. After living with a temporary kitchen arrangement for so long, I came to the conclusion that it is possible to get used to anything.

These days, the bus is still a comfortable guest house for visitors. My main use is as a photography studio and shipping department for ebay sales. I have a light table set up, tripod, video monitor, computer and flat bed scanner, etc. All of the materials I need to ship sold items such as boxes, packing, tape, labels, postage scale, etc are in one place, and ready to use when a listing is completed.

I do still, however, think about those summer nights, and have thoughts about moving back into the bus for a few months again, if just to hear the owls...