A MAN has revealed how he and his two sisters turned a double-decker bus into a luxury home – which he is now renting out on Airbnb.
The McCarthy siblings – Anna, 28, Thomas, 26, and Rachel, 24, – undertook the quirky renovation project after buying the bus for $2,500 in September 2020.
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The trio, who are all farmers from Cork, Ireland, say they were inspired by a friend who completed a similar project with a single-story bus but they were delighted to have twice as much space.
“When we bought the bus, we left it untouched for a couple of months and by December we were well stuck in,” Thomas told Jam Press.
“We gutted the whole bus as a start and planned out our site, then we moved her onto the site where the real fun began.
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“We started with insulating and putting down new floorings and planning what rooms go where.
“Stud walls went up and we wanted to keep all windows so we had a lot of sealing to do on the exterior windows.
“Plumbing and electrical soon came into it and then before we knew it we were planning our kitchen units and picking out tiles and wooden floorings.
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“We kept the interior very colorful and playful throughout and we got the outside graffitied and choose a farm theme.”
For the outside area, Anna’s partner Aiden created a tiled patio and they installed a bar made of pallets. Finishing with a hot tub, before they covered the area using sails from a boat.
Thomas added: “We love improvising and trying to use second-hand materials as much as possible and come up with quirky ideas.”
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While the team was renovating the bus, they also had another project on their hands – a renovation of their father’s 170-year-old farmhouse after he passed away.
Thomas said: “You can imagine, we had productive days and days where we wanted to kill each other but we wouldn’t have changed a thing.”
Originally, they planned to spend $20,000 but went over budget and had to dip into their savings.
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In the end, the renovation took six months and cost around $30,000 for the bus, site preparation, electrics, and work inside.
Thomas said: “We got a lot of sponsorship from companies in return for exposure on our social media so that helped reduce cost!
“Upstairs probably costs us about $7,000. The biggest cost was the kitchen the outside area and electricity.
“Plumbing was about $1,000.
“It’s a big investment but it will pay off so we’re delighted!
“We also had loads of help from family and friends and did a lot of the work ourselves which helped massively to reduce cost.”
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The bus has a spacious master bedroom complete with a double bed on the top deck and a room with four single beds, two of which can be pulled out. This room also has a full panoramic view of the farm and courtyard.
On the first deck are a living room with a U-shaped seating area for socializing, a kitchen, and a toilet.
The bus has been completed with a state-of-the-art ventilation system that circulates fresh air around the entire bus.
Thomas said: “I think we were in a state of shock that it was finished, we couldn’t believe how amazing it turned out. It was better than we ever expected.”
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At the end of June 2021, they set their listing on Airbnb live, costing $200 per couple, with the bus holding six guests at any one time.
Thomas said that the bus had been “completely booked up since!”
When it comes to advise for hesitant renovators, Thomas added: “Just do it, be patient and definitely look into inspirational pages on Instagram or Pinterest.
“There are fantastic informative pages out there now that will show you step by step what you can do.”
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