Personal Experience: How a Girl Completely Renovated a Tiny House on Wheels

The heroine of this story is a graphic designer named Annie from Germany. In October 2018, the girl was traveling through the USA and dreamed of buying a tiny house on wheels.

At the same time, Annie's friend accidentally found an advertisement for the sale of an old Mercedes Benz bus, which was already 40 years old at that time. The girl asked her friend to buy the van, even though she hadn't seen any photos of it yet. They finally met in January of that year. Annie affectionately named the bus Elsa and began working. The girl tells about her challenging but interesting experience on Instagram.

When I first saw Elsa, I started screaming and crying with joy. It was hard to believe that I had actually bought this old van.

The most amazing part is that the girl managed to do most of the work herself, even though she had no prior experience. Her father helped with the most difficult stages.

She decided to get rid of all the old furniture right away: even cleaning the vehicle's body from all unnecessary things took about two days. Then Annie stripped off the old coating from the walls and floor, and this is where real difficulties began. The entire body was rusted, and in many places holes had already appeared.

There was a lot of rust under the wooden floor, so it had to be removed. Instead of heavy plywood, Annie chose a lightweight and waterproof wooden flooring with polyurethane insulation. Such a floor will definitely withstand all the furniture. By the way, it was planned to make it manually from wood.

She also completely replaced the walls and floor. Even a mansard window of an unusual shape was made in the ceiling. In the driver's cabin, Annie decorated the ceiling using thick fabric and aerosol glue. The main thing is to let it dry so that no unevenness appears.

All the furniture was made from wood. A full-size dining table, a bench with internal storage space, and a loft bed were created. Currently, Annie is working on a wardrobe, in the lower part of which she has hidden all her electronics.

By the way, the dining table was made from the flooring that was purchased for the floor. Annie decided she could save literally on everything — and it worked!

I had never worked with wood before, but I secretly always dreamed of doing it.

Under the bed, Annie managed to fit her entire wardrobe. The boxes have holes so that clothes don't mold due to high humidity.

I don't have that many things: just six large boxes — all I need.

Photo source: Instagram profile @elsa.the.bus