Day 9981

It occurred to me that I haven't posted anything about the Bus itself. It's a 2001 International 3800 with a high-ceiling Thomas body, powered by a diesel T444E (a 7.3 Powerstroke) with about 72,000 miles. I picked it up from Aaron at Brentwood Bus & Chassis for $3500. In it's former life, it was a school bus for the town of Hopedale, Massachusetts. It has a number 8 on the bumper and side, but a large 2 on the roof. It came full of seats, which I removed with my trusty angle grinder way back around Day 9966. Not wanting to take them to the dump, I put the seats up on craigslist for free, and had claims on all of them within hours of posting the ad! The power of craigslist.



Picking up where we left off, I got the interior primed after work on Day 9980. That night I started installing wainscot in the kitchen area. To avoid mounting the panels directly to the sheetmetal, which has rows of panels screws, I cut extra floor material into strips, screwed those to the wall, then mounted the panels to that. It took a lot longer than I thought, but it was easier than trying to trim the panels around the panel screws. My sister helped bring in some of the Ikea and craigslist furniture.


I got to work bright and early on the 9981st, painting the "Billy" Ikea shelves, the sides of the cabinets, and the first coat of interior paint. I did a lot of painting today. The cabinets got installed to the wall with some small L-brackets, then screwed together. I repaired the broken door and added knobs.


Mom, unable to stand idly by while a project is going on, picks up a paint brush and helps with the first coat of Olde Silver.


Zeke lays prone in a defensive overwatch position.


The first coat of paint on, I started cutting some extra barn board to dress up the back of the bus. It's sitting on the rail that the seats were mounted into. I'm going to eat up a lot of sheetmetal screws to install them, but I like the campy look.


After that I started working on the chair-rail trim. The bus is looking more like a house and less like the steel and rubber torture chamber that I was chipping chewing gum out of only two weeks ago...




The goal for Day 9982, tomorrow, is to finish the interior paint, and get the barn board mounted in the back. I still need to assemble one of my Ikea pieces, and create the countertop for my cabinets.

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