We gave interior designers Joy Moyler, Darren Jett, and Noz Nozawa a photo of the same abandoned school bus—then asked each of them to transform the space, however they pleased with no restrictions. Three artists, one canvas, each bringing something different to the space. Which bus conversion has you considering the van life?
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Portfolio Pictures by:
Lauren Andersen https://www.sencreativeco.com/
Seth Caplan https://seth-caplan.com/
Verasson Creative https://www.verasson.com/
Christian Harder https://www.christianharderphoto.com/
Ori Harpaz https://oriharpaz.com/\
Christopher Stark https://www.christopherstark.com/
Director: Hiatt Woods
Director of Photography: Kevin Dynia
Editor: Ron Douglas
Producer: Joel David Ahumada
Line Producer: Joe Buscemi
Associate Producer: Josh Crowe
Production Manager: Melissa Heber
Production Coordinator: Fernando Davilla
Camera Operator: Jake Robbins
Audio Engineer: Michael Guggino
Production Assistant: Shahid Barraza; Pichteeda Taing
Post Production Supervisor: Andrew Montague
Post Production Coordinator: Holly Frew
Supervising Editor: Christina Mankellow
Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
Renders by Duke Renders
We Serve Busy Interior Designers With 100% Accurate Photo-Realistic 3D Renderings Of Their Creative Designs. We make you and your clients proud, confident and empowered at every step of the design process. Visit http://www.dukerenders.com/start
Portfolio Pictures by:
Lauren Andersen https://www.sencreativeco.com/
Seth Caplan https://seth-caplan.com/
Verasson Creative https://www.verasson.com/
Christian Harder https://www.christianharderphoto.com/
Ori Harpaz https://oriharpaz.com/\
Christopher Stark https://www.christopherstark.com/
Director: Hiatt Woods
Director of Photography: Kevin Dynia
Editor: Ron Douglas
Producer: Joel David Ahumada
Line Producer: Joe Buscemi
Associate Producer: Josh Crowe
Production Manager: Melissa Heber
Production Coordinator: Fernando Davilla
Camera Operator: Jake Robbins
Audio Engineer: Michael Guggino
Production Assistant: Shahid Barraza; Pichteeda Taing
Post Production Supervisor: Andrew Montague
Post Production Coordinator: Holly Frew
Supervising Editor: Christina Mankellow
Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 These three interior designers have been given a photograph of an empty school bus.
00:05 They have free reign to design it in any way they please.
00:09 My name is Joy and my design style is classic, relaxed, and comfortable.
00:14 I'm Darren Jett and my design approach is crazy, sexy, cool.
00:19 Hi, I'm Naz and my design style is colorful, textural, and sometimes a little folksy.
00:24 No clients, no budget, just blank space.
00:29 My first impressions of this very empty school bus housing is I can't wait.
00:35 I'm obsessed with schoolies. I think they're amazing.
00:37 I've actually designed a school bus RV conversion in the past.
00:40 I've never designed for a bus before.
00:42 My challenge is really to convert this thing into some sort of living experience
00:48 worthy of being on the road that's, you know, conducive to living.
00:52 It's long, it's narrow. You have wheels back here that we have to work within.
00:57 I've never had a space that was as big of a challenge, but if I'm having a bus,
01:02 I want to make it something that is crazy, original, never been done before.
01:07 Let's go for it.
01:09 I really want to create a beautiful, luxurious sort of home away from home with wheels
01:16 so that you aren't embarrassed when you pull into Canyon Beach in Malibu.
01:20 How I'm approaching this space is I want to be inside of a music video.
01:25 I'm imagining like a rock star. It's like Beyonce in a bus on the Renaissance tour.
01:30 My overall vision is this is going to be a school bus for people who are crafty,
01:35 love decorative things, but also are like deeply practical.
01:38 I want to do like a cuckoo clock inspired school bus. That's what I want to do.
01:42 Starting with the floor, we really want the floor to go from the front of the bus
01:51 all the way to the back and be the same.
01:53 We're going to do a beautiful sort of aqua color.
01:56 Think like 1990s Prada, Jill Sander, sort of minty, slightly grayish,
02:03 but very, very, very pale.
02:05 And it's going to be something that's pretty indestructible.
02:08 We're going to do a simple epoxy finish on the floor.
02:11 It has a little bit of a sheen to it, so it makes the space feel bigger and also easy to clean.
02:16 On the floor, I want to do like a naughty elder.
02:19 In a home, I love a refined wood where there's not a ton of knots.
02:22 Here on the school bus, one, it saves funds. Two, it's just non-precious.
02:26 It helps you hide stains because you're going to be in and out with like gravel and dirt
02:29 all over your shoes or your slippers, whatever.
02:31 I really like to create different areas, and the flooring helps to designate lines between functions.
02:38 The bedroom space is a modular carpet tile that could be easily replaced if it's soiled or anything like that.
02:47 But in this living space, you'll see the flooring is just a patterned rug.
02:51 [music]
02:54 The walls are going to be the same color as the floor, and we're going to do a sort of plastic resin on the walls.
03:01 We would carry the same color from the walls up onto the ceiling as well.
03:04 In a bus, this is something that is going to be very, very lightweight.
03:07 You see it often in trains. You see it often in aircraft.
03:11 And what I would like to do is create little pillows on the wall.
03:14 But what they would do is actually hold storage.
03:16 You know, if you press a button, it could open up and you have a cabinet.
03:19 We really want to think about the bus as having storage everywhere, but we also want it to be rather discreet.
03:25 I really want to think about this as being a sort of jet-set environment
03:30 by having the windows sort of shaped almost like the inside of a plane.
03:34 I think that could be very cool.
03:35 And the windows could even have that same sort of screen integrated into it,
03:39 where you pull it down if you want some privacy.
03:41 And if you want to know where you are, you pull it up and you can see outside.
03:45 But what I want to do is to have one area of window that's always open, and that would be a skylight.
03:51 I really wanted the palette to be very, very calm.
03:54 There's texture to the walls, and maybe we're doing like a raffia sort of feeling,
03:59 so it's feeling like nature.
04:01 But the focal points are really just to enjoy that panoramic view and all of what's going on around you.
04:07 The ceiling of this bus was really incredibly important to me.
04:11 And one of the things I really, really wanted to consider null and void is this solid ceiling.
04:17 So introducing a panoramic ceiling really gives us the opportunity to enjoy the sunsets, the sunrises,
04:23 and really opening that space up.
04:25 But it's a very thick glass, plexi material that will support some weight to it.
04:30 So we could put a ladder so you can walk up to the roof of the bus with a couple of little beach chairs,
04:35 hang out there and create your own little patio.
04:38 Even though it's not a plane, it actually has to be super light.
04:41 The heavier your school bus, the more likely you are to just guzzle gas on the way around the country.
04:47 So I actually want everything to be light wood, like pine and Douglas fir.
04:54 The reason I want to do wood everywhere on the ceiling and on the walls is because I can put paneling there
04:59 and hide insulation inside.
05:01 If you're in a metal tube driving around the country, you're going to get freezing-ass cold at night
05:05 or you're going to be sweltering hot.
05:06 So insulation is key, and also you want to be able to dumb down some of the noise outside.
05:10 I very deliberately did not do anything with the windows themselves,
05:14 so we need to be able to cover them up because you need privacy on a school bus.
05:18 So I'm going to do roller shades.
05:20 So I'm going to use this very amazing Pindler fabric.
05:23 It is indoor/outdoor using Sunbrella yarn, so it's actually like fade-resistant, a solution-dyed acrylic.
05:29 Again, I'm not going to change the windows here, but you can cut metal, especially in the ceiling.
05:34 So I actually want to do skylights all the way down the bus, and they're going to be dome bubble skylights.
05:40 That curvature allows airflow to pass over them when you're going, you know, 65 whole miles per hour.
05:46 Don't break the speed limit.
05:47 They're going to be UV-coated so they don't bleach everything inside the school bus.
05:51 We're going to put little shades so you can close those off and have darkness when you need that.
05:55 We have to address the layout of the bus.
06:00 Let's put the bathroom in the back.
06:02 You know, we're going to hide the toilet back there.
06:04 We're going to hide the sink back there.
06:06 And we can also hide the shower back there.
06:09 But we can do something kind of cool where the shower is sort of a peekaboo moment to the rest of the space.
06:15 About the last quarter of that rounded wall, that'll actually be a glass that's sort of tinted.
06:20 You know, you can sort of see, but you can't fully see.
06:22 And that's where you would have the shower just beyond that.
06:25 Even though you're not going to see it from the front of the bus,
06:28 we're going to have the bathroom and a small kitchenette at the very rear of the bus.
06:32 Moving forward, we're going to have a sleeping area.
06:35 My approach to concealing the wheel wells is to have storage units directly on top of them.
06:43 So from a distance, they just look like three-quarter high storage units.
06:47 But within the little sleeping alcove, we've got a day bed that's covered in a sumptuous velvet.
06:53 The main challenges of a school bus conversion are principally that wheels at the back are huge.
06:58 And you need to basically accommodate a design that reconciles that the wheels have to be here.
07:03 So what I want to do in order to make sure that these wheels are accounted for,
07:06 I'm going to give you a giant king-size bed.
07:10 So luxurious, right?
07:12 It's going to be raised up so that you can actually use the area under the bed as storage.
07:17 I'm very specifically going to hang on to the emergency rear exit.
07:20 This is super valuable as access to storage underneath.
07:24 And also while I'm at it, I mean, there's all this room at the back of the bus.
07:27 I'm going to put bookcases above the rear door over the bed with a railing for all of your books and magazines.
07:35 Then coming forward from there, the bed is really raised up, so I'm going to put stairs.
07:39 So stairs are going to kind of cascade down off of that king-size bed.
07:42 The stairs are also storage.
07:44 Have you seen those beautiful little stairs you pull the drawers out?
07:47 I love it.
07:48 I'm envisioning sort of a lot of people in the space at one time.
07:52 What I like is the idea of the bed area and the sort of seating area as being integrated together.
07:59 What I also like in a space like this is to always have a focal point.
08:02 So in this case, we're actually going to have the bed be the center point.
08:06 And if we're designing a bus for a pop star diva, let's have the bed be round.
08:12 Why not?
08:13 We have these will-wells in the back, and what we're going to do is actually have the bed on top of one.
08:19 So the circular bed is going to live on top of the right-hand will-well,
08:23 and the steps that go from the main area of the bus into the bathroom are covering the one on the left.
08:30 I started thinking about references from Betty and Francois Coutreau, their apartment in Paris,
08:36 and they have this sort of serpentine sofa where it's one color on the seat and one color on the front and back,
08:43 and that would be the sort of seating group in front of that bed.
08:46 I really wanted the living space to be the focal point of the bus.
08:50 I like using furniture that's off the floor, that doesn't feel heavy, particularly in very narrow spaces like this,
08:58 so they don't feel as though everything has to be totally static.
09:03 And these beautiful CB2 side chairs, which are wood-framed with a beautiful washable velvet.
09:11 So for anyone who might be concerned about the use of these lightweight chairs,
09:14 what I do then is I hook the back of the chair to the hook on the wall,
09:19 and that eliminates any movement throughout the bus.
09:22 The coffee table that you see here is actually an antique design that was inspired by splendid antiques,
09:29 and it's meant to elevate from coffee table height to dining height.
09:34 We need to consider all sorts of flexible elements when you are in a space that really can't be expanded very much,
09:43 so the coffee table is the perfect opportunity to customize furniture.
09:48 Also, the three-seat sofa that you see here is from CB2,
09:53 but that as well is something that can be customized so it flips up to provide more circulation space.
09:59 Right in front of this wheel well, that's where the bathroom's going to go.
10:03 So I'm going to have the bathroom door open from inside the bus hallway, that way you have more privacy.
10:09 I'm going to make it a minimal-sized thing, but it's going to be one giant wet room.
10:14 I'm just imagining maybe, like me, you still have to work, but you can be a remote worker, a digital nomad as they call them.
10:20 So I need you to have a desk, so I'm going to put a fold-down desk here so it's not always in the way.
10:25 In between the seating area and the driver would be the kitchen and storage area.
10:29 So that's where you would have your stove top next to your sink, you would have lots of storage for your pantry items,
10:35 and below that you would have storage for all of your cooking and kitchen equipment.
10:39 On the opposite side, right by the door, you're really creating a sort of entry area, kitchen, seating group, and then a really cool bed moment in the back.
10:46 Then we're going to have storage, a little shallow additional drawer area or cabinet area for you to be able to house more things.
10:53 I just love the intimacy of a real built-in dining area.
10:57 So we'll have a round table just in front of this right-hand wheel well, and then two built-in banquettes.
11:02 And then I want to use this stunning, spectacular Pierre Frey 100% wool flannel.
11:08 We're wanting to keep all the material in the bus as close to each other as possible.
11:11 What I'd like to do for the kitchen is actually think about how do we reflect that material into the space.
11:16 We also want something that's very durable and can take a beating.
11:19 So what I want to do is actually clad the cabinetry in the kitchen area in a stainless steel,
11:23 but I want to do something that is actually super reflective, almost like a mirror polish, which would look something sort of like this.
11:30 And then I would carry that back into the rest of the space by the seating.
11:35 So we're really thinking about materiality here, more or less in the same color family.
11:40 Keeps everything very simple, keeps everything very tonal, and just really makes the eye expand.
11:46 We're going to have the kitchen on the side, and I'm envisioning that in a very wild eggplant, aubergine stained wood.
11:54 So one of the things that I like to do, and I'm just borrowing from traditional cabinetry design, is cutouts.
12:00 Heart cutouts, little diamond floral shapes that are sort of clover, four-point things.
12:04 I'm just going to cut all of this out of a lot of the cabinet things to ventilate them.
12:08 So in the kitchen, we're going to have all of the essentials.
12:10 We'll have a perfectly big enough sink, and we're going to have like an 18-inch dishwasher,
12:14 because you can hook up enough water in your tank underneath the bus to be able to run a dishwasher once in a while.
12:20 And then we'll have like the little cooktop oven.
12:22 Let's utilize the sort of space above the windows at the kitchen area for a little shelf that has a rail all the way across
12:28 for things like soy sauce and ketchup and mustard, you know, like your regular condiments.
12:33 And then everything else is storage and trash.
12:35 Like I actually think it's important for you to make room inside of a Skoolie for trash.
12:40 So the one that is against the bathroom, let's have that one be the trash bin.
12:44 And the other really important thing is the hardware.
12:46 One of the things that bugs me all the time is school buses where I see the conversion and like everything rattles around and is crazy.
12:53 So instead of using like regular cabinet hinges, everything has to lock.
12:56 So this is kind of how I would do it.
12:58 So this hardware is from Rejuvenation.
13:01 I think it's very important for you to have a lounging area inside the Skoolie.
13:05 So the couch, we're going to have like this Pierre Frey fabric, which is one of my personal favorites.
13:10 It's actually called Country, which almost feels too good to be true.
13:13 And then we're going to do in this like wild green leather, I'm going to do a bolster right at the back because sometimes you just want to nap.
13:19 Right. And then underneath the couch, I want to put built in coffee tables.
13:24 So if you haven't seen this thing, there is actually a motorized or mechanical lift up KitchenAid stand mixer hardware thing that you can put inside of a cabinet.
13:36 So I actually am going to utilize that mechanism and that engineering for underneath the sofa.
13:42 So you can actually pull out one of these pieces or two of them if you wanted to serve as a coffee table that's just built into the couch.
13:51 Again, everything has to be built in because anything that wiggles around or it's loose is just going to go sloshing itself around your bus and damage all of your hard work.
13:58 So then across from the couch, I'm going to hide a roll up TV.
14:01 There are these literal TV up and down motors.
14:04 I actually personally have one and I'm going to hide the TV inside of this cabinet.
14:09 And then in front of it, you have shallow room for additional storage.
14:11 Now for the lighting, I really love sconces in a Skoolie.
14:19 Personally, I want there to be plenty of light because a lot of times when you're going around in the winter, it's actually dark in the bus by like 4 p.m. right?
14:27 So ONG Studio makes some of the most charming, beautiful, perfect match between like folks, cabiny, traditional and very modern contemporary wooden and glass light fixtures.
14:37 So I want those sconces everywhere and they'll mostly be the single bulb except over the kitchen where we'll do a double sconce.
14:44 We have a three seat sofa flanked by two side tables with lighting and we have sconces on these three quarter high storage units.
14:53 We have a continuous beam of light running from the back of the bus to the front and that would connect the skylight all the way to the front.
15:01 It could be bright, you know, but it could also be turned down very, very dim.
15:05 And I think it could really actually be something that's very calming in a space that is otherwise pretty energetic.
15:11 And then on top of that, you would also have storage for clothing.
15:14 Everyone's going to have odds and ends. So why not have a little decorative lamp on top?
15:18 Of course, the lamp would be fully affixed to the surface so it wouldn't move in case you had a little bump in the road.
15:25 [Music]
15:28 By the seating, you would have the bed covered in the fur.
15:31 You would have the base of the seating also covered in the fur and then underneath that would be velvet in the same color.
15:38 So we're really thinking about materiality here.
15:41 It makes it feel like you're inside of a music video.
15:43 It makes it feel like you're inside of this tunnel that's traveling through time.
15:46 How cool is that?
15:48 I'm feeling really good about all of the material choices that I've made for my Skoolie,
15:52 but I still want there to be an additional decorative folksy element that just like really brings this whole Skoolie bus to life.
15:59 So I want to just hand paint, stencil, folk art all over the place.
16:04 I could see it going all the way around all of the skylights and really framing each beautiful round skylight.
16:09 I want to do it on the side of the TV cabinet.
16:12 At the rear wall, we'll find an art piece because it's nice, you know, to have a focal point instead of just a blank wall.
16:19 And the art need not be expensive. It just has to be a piece that you absolutely love.
16:24 The secondary purpose of the art wall is to create a barrier that hides the bathroom and the kitchenette space.
16:32 I really didn't want you to have to look into the drudgeries when you're looking down that corridor.
16:37 So it creates a nice line of demarcation between the utilitarian spaces and the living spaces.
16:44 Stemming from the original view, which was this heaviness, this dark, dank bus meant to roll to the final garage of its lifetime,
16:57 breathing new energy and life into it, is a bus that I would definitely want to roll into town on because it's got newness to it.
17:05 It's got some edge to it. It's got some light to it. And live life. Hit the road, mama.
17:12 I think that any musician would love this bus, whether it's a pop diva or an R&B superstar, or if it's a 1990s TLC, crazy, sexy, cool, whatever it might be.
17:24 They would love this bus. I'm thinking about how can this space transport someone from an everyday world into their own environment.
17:34 And I would love to spend a night here for sure.
17:37 Overall, I feel absolutely personally in love with and very invested in this Skoolie.
17:43 It is everything that I wanted personally and practically.
17:46 The opportunity to design little spaces, especially little spaces that move around, to make it deeply functional,
17:52 storage first, very much mindful of the actual things that you need to bring with you on the road, but still beautiful.
17:59 Wow! Sweet baby Jesus! What we got going here?
18:09 Look at yours! Oh, sleep nest.
18:11 Oh my, this is giving like the best of NSYNC.
18:14 Yeah, or like TLC maybe.
18:16 Yes, a definitely Missy, Miss Demita, Elliot.
18:19 Yes, yes.
18:20 I think more of like a Nando Vigo style, so everything's kind of like all the same finish more or less.
18:26 Yeah, right.
18:27 Make it feel bigger and sort of less cacophonous.
18:29 I love it. And you, my dear?
18:31 Mine is a Cuckoo Skoolie. It's inspired by cuckoo clocks.
18:34 She's cute though.
18:35 Thanks. I went very practical. So I've actually designed a school bus for exactly this purpose.
18:40 I've done a Skoolie before, so I went very practical.
18:42 My whole thing centers very much about storage and versatility of use.
18:46 And then after that, I just was like, I really am in a folk art season.
18:49 Oh, I love.
18:50 Keep it serene.
18:51 Is that an art piece back there?
18:52 Oh, you've got to have some art, you know, good quality art.
18:55 You've got to make it your home that you can enjoy.
18:58 Like it's, you know, just because you're on the road doesn't mean you have to reduce your quality of living.
19:04 Thank you.
19:05 That is very, very true.
19:06 Keep the living alive.
19:07 (laughing)
19:09 (bells chiming)