Recently acquired a Spartanette to restore (with a few modernizations here and there) for full-time living. I thought I would start a thread to log our journey.
For 2 years my boyfriend and I saved money so we could purchase a tiny home in the form of a motor coach bus. We downsized our belongings, moved out of our rental house for the past eight years, and moved in with a friend.
Last August we pulled the trigger on a 1983 MCI bus to turn into our tiny home. We loving called her Old Rusty. After driving her home from Dayton, OH we discovered that Old Rusty lived up to her name, the entire frame of the old girl was completely rusted out. We were forced to turn around and sell her. We learned a lot from that experience.
My step-mom suggested we start looking into AS. I joined this forum and started learning as much as I could. I was still super skittish about actually purchasing anything because of the financial hit we had taken with the bus.
Randomly, my boyfriend ended up finding a nice woman on the AS forums looking to give her Spartanette away for free. It sounded too good to be true. But, we took a leap of faith and he flew out to CO to check it out. We used our AAA RV tow to have it taken to a mechanic near by who specialized in restoring vintage trailers. (what are the odds that their would be one so close?!) We had to wait a few weeks to hear back from the mechanic, he had to wait for the snow to melt to check out the wheels, axles, and frame. He finally called us back and gave us the good news that the only thing our Spartanette needed to be road ready was new tires. We gave him the green light and then worked on hiring a driver to tow it across the country to us back in NC.
The trailer finally arrived and I noticed that the driver had jack knifed his truck into the trailer not once, but twice. I called him out on it and he gave us $200 for replacement of the panel and rivets. It's minor damage, but I was mad he didn't mention it.
We spent 2 days cleaning 30 years of packrat poop out of the trailer and have now started taking down the interior panels so we can rewire and re-insulate.
All I have to say is, why didn't I go this route first?! I'm in love!
Here is a link to our photo album that I will be updating as we go along.
http://ift.tt/1zUuwtI
And here is a hastily made video tour I made for my family just as we started removing some of the paneling
http://ift.tt/1NGb1OS
For 2 years my boyfriend and I saved money so we could purchase a tiny home in the form of a motor coach bus. We downsized our belongings, moved out of our rental house for the past eight years, and moved in with a friend.
Last August we pulled the trigger on a 1983 MCI bus to turn into our tiny home. We loving called her Old Rusty. After driving her home from Dayton, OH we discovered that Old Rusty lived up to her name, the entire frame of the old girl was completely rusted out. We were forced to turn around and sell her. We learned a lot from that experience.
My step-mom suggested we start looking into AS. I joined this forum and started learning as much as I could. I was still super skittish about actually purchasing anything because of the financial hit we had taken with the bus.
Randomly, my boyfriend ended up finding a nice woman on the AS forums looking to give her Spartanette away for free. It sounded too good to be true. But, we took a leap of faith and he flew out to CO to check it out. We used our AAA RV tow to have it taken to a mechanic near by who specialized in restoring vintage trailers. (what are the odds that their would be one so close?!) We had to wait a few weeks to hear back from the mechanic, he had to wait for the snow to melt to check out the wheels, axles, and frame. He finally called us back and gave us the good news that the only thing our Spartanette needed to be road ready was new tires. We gave him the green light and then worked on hiring a driver to tow it across the country to us back in NC.
The trailer finally arrived and I noticed that the driver had jack knifed his truck into the trailer not once, but twice. I called him out on it and he gave us $200 for replacement of the panel and rivets. It's minor damage, but I was mad he didn't mention it.
We spent 2 days cleaning 30 years of packrat poop out of the trailer and have now started taking down the interior panels so we can rewire and re-insulate.
All I have to say is, why didn't I go this route first?! I'm in love!
Here is a link to our photo album that I will be updating as we go along.
http://ift.tt/1zUuwtI
And here is a hastily made video tour I made for my family just as we started removing some of the paneling
http://ift.tt/1NGb1OS
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