Quirky bus conversion makes photographer's life on the road a dream
After a chilly winter toughing it out on a shoot in New Zealand’s South Island, landscape photographer Paul Mercer had had enough.
He needed something more than his uninsulated van with a bed in the back could give him… He needed a home for the road. He settled on a 1991 Nissan Civilian, a small bus that runs on diesel but only requires a standard driver’s licence to drive.
“When I got it, it did have a full interior already, but it had been in a long time. It was quite dated in there. There was no kitchen or anything like that,” says Mercer.
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“I ripped it all out and started again. And I think I’ve done that, or parts of it anyway, two or three times since then, because I wasn’t happy with the job I’d done.”
Although he says the interior is “polarising”, he’s happy with it now and says most people seem to like it.
“I didn’t really have a look in mind, as such, it was more that I started playing around and used the materials that I had available,” he says. “I just found what I could for cheap prices, second hand or things that people were throwing away, and as much as I could, I repurposed them. It just evolved naturally rather than deciding at the start what I wanted.”
Mercer, who says he’s “quite handy” and perhaps a bit of a perfectionist, added them all himself in a “long, multi-year process of doing a bit at a time”. He worked mostly with salvaged, recycled and upcycled materials.
“I was literally learning as I go. When I first started I had no idea what I was doing at all. I’ve never done anything like that before, but I’ve always been reasonably good at woodwork and I’ve built things like tables and other bits and pieces before. Nothing professionally, it’s just been a bit of a hobby.”
Mercer wanted to do something a little bit different to other buses and motorhomes he’d seen. The result is a cosy, functional home on wheels, with polished wood accents and faux brick interiors painted white.
Fully self-contained, the bus is also “completely off grid” and has “everything necessary to be away from civilisation for as long as you would like”.
That includes a wood burner, insulation, double glazing, solar panels, a large bank of batteries for power storage, a composting toilet, and the ultimate in on-road comfort, “a 37-inch TV for those long winter nights”.
“It’s built to be completely off grid. It’s got over 500 watts of solar panels, nice big batteries, so that even in the middle of winter if you get three or four rainy days where the solar panels aren’t charging, there’s enough battery storage so you can carry on as normal,” he says. “You more-or-less never have to plug in to 240volt power.”
The decor is sustainable too, with all the wood in the bus, and even the screws and hinges, taken from other projects.
“I’ve finally got it to a stage where I’m happy with it. It’s all finished, its comfortable, everything works well and looks tidy.”
Mercer says figuring out what its cost him is a “really hard one”, because he can’t factor in the time he spent on the work, but he thinks the interior cost $7,000 – $8,000 and the bus cost $53,000.
Although he’s loved spending time in his van, Mercer says he’s putting it up for sale because his father has Parkinson’s disease and he has become his carer. There’s no room for the bus where he’s living, so he has to let it go.
“I don’t want to let it go, really, especially after all the work I’ve put in. When I go away and use it, I just love being in it. It just makes everything so easy,” Mercer says.
“I suppose because I’ve built it myself and spent so much time in it you develop a bond with things, even though it’s an inanimate object, because it’s been so good. It’s always taken me everywhere I’ve wanted to go with no problems. I’m going to really miss it, unfortunately.”
This story originally appeared on stuff.co.nz
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