If you want to accomplish something, it's better to do it yourself. It's a phrase you always hear in gangster movies, but recent years have shown its applicability to real life as the population declines and the crowd of digital nomads grows. .
Photo: YouTube/Alternative House
Alternative housing solutions have proven their appeal and staying power thanks to a combination of elements that promise to solve multiple problems at once. It's affordable and reduces your monthly costs. They prefer a greener, more intentional lifestyle. You're guaranteed access to a whole community of like-minded peers, and more importantly, it's mostly mobile.
But alternative housing solutions such as tiny houses, van and bus conversions, RVs, and floating homes also offer the confidence boost that only DIY (do-it-yourself) projects can bring. The most attractive and therefore famous projects are his DIY type projects, preferably completed by people without professional experience and working on a budget.
Underdog stories never lose their charm, and with all the right materials, a DIY mobile home is the perfect underdog story. This is one such story, but it still doesn't have a picture-perfect happy ending.
Photo: YouTube/Alternative House
Roman and Ioana are a couple traveling in the Reni, a Volkswagen LT 35 van conversion with a matching garage that we featured a while ago. They are literally digital nomads, so they make a living creating content on the road, offering tours and interviews with other vanlifers. On one of their recent trips, they met Johan, who lives in a DIY house truck with his girlfriend.
Today, tiny homes, vans, and buses are very popular among downsizers, but house trucks are even rarer. Although they have a larger footprint than a van, that footprint is more demanding and requires more effort and creativity to turn it into a functional space. They also get more attention, which can be good if you want to monetize your online content, but bad news if you're traveling in areas where tiny living isn't legal.
Therefore, completing a house truck project as a (mainly) DIY job should be proportionately rewarding. Johan's English in the video tour below may not be the best, but his pride transcends the language barrier and certainly confirms that a job well done is one he did himself. Masu.
Photo: YouTube/Alternative House
This house truck is a 1968 Scania truck that is still original. Johann restored and repainted the cabin and restored the chassis before starting to build his house on it. The project took him over a year and is still not finished, even though he and his girlfriend have moved in. For example, the bathroom is not yet finished, so that room is currently being used as a storage room.
Unlike most vanlifers, Johan sought help from a designer/architect for the layout to reduce mistakes and maximize space. The result is a perfectly cozy home with every comfort, with space for two adults and two cats, equally suitable for entertaining and travel.
A pair of French doors at the rear provide direct access to the living room. There is a small sofa facing the wood stove, but the existing spatial constraints are removed by the promise of opening the door to the view of your choice. Or, as Johan says, there's nothing better than enjoying a cup of tea or coffee with a view like this.
Photo: YouTube/Alternative House
The kitchen is centrally located and features most full-size appliances, including a four-burner gas stove, refrigerator with freezer, large sink, and plenty of space. During the winter, Johan uses gas for cooking, but in the summer he relies on an electric hotplate. There are four solar cells on the roof of the house truck, and if you can charge them, you can cook using electricity for free.
Next is an unfinished bathroom and a small dining corner on the other side. Johan says it can accommodate up to four people at a time for larger dinner parties, but it's clearly designed for two people. On the plus side, it can double as a home office.
The bedroom is located in a cabover and is as small as you would expect. But it still fits a queen-sized mattress, has a skylight and plenty of storage space around it, and a large wardrobe underneath. This is one of the benefits of choosing a house truck over other types of conversions, as opposed to motor coaches. That means more storage space.
Photo: YouTube/Alternative House
Johan said his mobile home also comes with a 320-liter (84.5-gallon) diesel tank and a 320-liter (84.5-gallon) water tank, and has a wood-burning stove and 10-cm (3.9-inch) thick walls. Equipped with Wood fiber and wool insulation are perfect for all-season use. He also has a special cat door with a chip reader that only allows his two cats inside.
He plans to add a folding rear deck to expand the available space, install a washing machine in the kitchen, install a lock on the door and finish the bathroom with a composting toilet. Once all this is done, this Scania house truck leaves the campsite and hits the road to continue its journey.