This Professor’s Building a Home from Scratch Out of an Old Moving Truck

Graphic design professorSummer Winston‘s plan when first deciding to move to California from Texas was to build a tiny house. But after taking a zoning workshop, Summer discovered California didn’t feel very welcoming to alternative living solutions. “They have all of these rules and regulations if you’re building a tiny house on a trailer, like in terms of how you can live in it, where you can live in it…” they said. And though they stepped away from the idea for a while, Summer couldn’t stop researching because they were “absolutely obsessed with the idea of like just… cutting back and living in that kind of way.”

It was actually a rock climbing session that reignited their quest to live tiny… this time in a new direction. Summer met someone who was living in a van and after taking a tour of his home on wheels, knew they could do something similar. Summer looked into all types of different options (like retired heavy duty military vehicles that have very bad gas mileage) to converted vans. In the end, Summer decided to turn a box truck (in this case, an old Penske moving truck) into a home.

“I feel like a lot of the people that I know that live in vans, it’s a very, ‘I’m in this space to sleep, and all of my life happens outside of the van.’ I want to be able to comfortably be in the space when I just don’t want to leave the house, and I didn’t want it to feel like I was in a cave, or I was in a super claustrophobic space.”

As you can see from this “The New Homesmiths” episode, Summer’s not finished with the box truck home just yet. It’s a DIY construction journey thick with unknowns, but is also proving to be a great learning experience, too.

“I had no idea how to cut the top off of this thing, but as soon as my drill went through the metal, I was just in the zone and just doing the thing,” Summer describes of working on the box truck.

“And then I look at it and I’m like, ‘Aww, I did it. Cool.’ And, that’s how it is every step of the way. Every single step I’m, ‘Aww crap, okay. I don’t know how to do this.’ When I finished with all the metal studs and all the framing, because I built those walls in sections and then carried them over and installed them in the truck, I was like, ‘Whoa, okay I did it.'”

While there’s a ways to go before “Shadow” (the name of Summer’s box truck, thanks tothe new modern paint job) is finished, they already know just what an important roll the new box truck home will play in their life: freedom. “My goal is to move into the truck and save eighty percent of my pay because I want to buy land, hopefully in Petaluma… My goal is to buy old farmland; somewhere between 10 and 20 acres is what we’re aiming for. My best friend is gonna move out from Louisiana, and we’re gonna go in together and buy this huge chunk of land, and just… fill a farm. And build houses out of shipping containers, and other cool things. So, yeah that’s the goal. And that’s the end goal of Shadow. I know some people go into van life because they want to quit their jobs, and roam the planet. And, I do want to roam the planet. That’s definitely a part of my goals, but I really like my job.”

“I want to host workshops teaching my community how to sustainably grow their own food, and teaching them building skills and things of that nature,” continues Summer. “So yeah, that’s why I’ve decided to do this, to live in this way, to build this truck, so that it’s my stepping stone into this really big dream that I have. And one thing that I really love about myself is that I’m crazy good at executing my dreams, so there’s no doubt in my mind that I’m gonna pull it off. I’m a little too stubborn not to. But yeah, the truck is the gateway to making all of that possible.”

You can learn more about Summer on theirYouTube channel.

• Jewel Pearson’s Tiny House
• Ben and Meag’s Prison Bus
• Bruce’s Airplane Home

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.