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Tom Monto

Back to the land - small house in a box truck

Check out how a crew changed a box truck into a small house using recycled repurposed materials


at 55:00 you can see the finished product.


1:03:07 gives you map of the layout and a list of the furniture (or "turniture") components of the small home.


he bought the old truck for $8000 (U.S.)

and then paid only $800 for the conversion,

using mostly free waste materials (see below for details),

plus his own labour and lots of volunteer effort.


The roof of the truck obviously avoided having to build a shingle roof on a small plywood shack. but even a plywood roof does not not cost $8000 so it is trade-off.

(for information on building a small plywood shack, see other Montopedia blog.)


Building a small home on a trailer (and having car) give you equivalent flexibility to having home in a truck. (in some ways trailer is easier, in some ways the truck is easier - to get around or to park).


at 55:00 you see a small room inside the horizontal paneling. This is the bathroom, which itself functions as shower stall.


I am actually surprised they designed it that way.

I envisoned them combining the office and the living room

and that space covering the whole width of the truck at the back by the door.


but the bathroom sticking out in the middle to the left as you enter, and a storage space to the right, as you enter, narrows the already narrow space.


If they had the bathroom against part of the bed (the bed is built in the "grandma's attic" part of the old moving van, above the driving cab) it would hide the bedroom and then you could have a ladder set in place against the other part of the bed so you don't have to climb on the bench/chesterfield to go to bed.


Then kitchen and office and entry space would be part of the living room area.


People might think they want office and kitchen separate from living room for relaxation. They don't want to see the dirty dishes when they sit in the living room but with the house as they did it, the chesterfield/bench is right next to the kitchen area anyway.


Making the living room area to be about 2-metre-deep space covering whole width of the truck near the door allows one to relax while looking out the slding door/full length window or getting fresh air from the open door. and having food and computer desk and books nearby.


Also I would think they would have wanted to retain the truck's original back door --whether it was an overhead door or two hinged doors -- for security. Nice to be able to close it up and with a padlock, lock it down to park it somewhere.


Anyways shows what can be done just just with an old U-haul truck and waste materials.


Basically they collect and used

old door (for new entry door)

sliding door (for large windown to cover about half of the old door opening)

old windows (set into spaces cut out of the sides of the old truck


laminate flooring (left over from larger job)

- painted plywood or varathaned chipboard would have worked instead


sheets of plywood for walls and ceiling

old pink insulation

old 2X4s

pallet wood


and much other smaller and come-by-chance materials and items were used in the project as well.

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