Lobke en Bram. Text: Coretta Jongeling. Photo: Guy Ackermans
House: a campervan near Wageningen
Residents: Lobke Zijlstra (MSc Nutrition and Health), her boyfriend Bram Peeters (who is studying in Leeuwarden) and their two cats.
UNIque because: it’s an old Italian school bus
Lobke: ‘We bought this old school bus last summer with the idea of turning it into a tiny house. It’s very expensive to rent a room and it feels a bit like you’re throwing money away – it will never be yours. And also, living in a tiny house is environmentally friendly: you use less gas and water. But we did want a tiny house on wheels so you can park it anywhere.
‘We thought we would finish the bus in one summer, but it took us a year of working on it every weekend. We did absolutely everything ourselves: when we bought the bus, the seats were still in it. We have even raised the roof by 25 centimetres. We cut it loose all the way round and welded an extra section in between. So now we can stand up inside. The bus was ready in October and we’ve been living and working in it since then on the days when we have to go to uni or an internship. On the other days we live with our parents, and we can do our laundry there too.
‘Behind this door there’s a bathroom with a toilet, which isn’t completely finished yet. But in emergencies, if it’s really cold for instance and you desperately need to pee, you can use it. It’s a dry toilet, in which you dispose of the urine separately and compost the rest. ‘It’s a tight fit with two people and two cats in a space of a few square metres, but it’s going well. I’m in the lab at the uni nearly every day to work on my thesis research. And it’s just a few minutes to the woods here, if you want to clear your head. But if we had another strict lockdown and we were both at home all day, it would be tough I think.’
If you too want your UNIque house in Resource, send an email to resource@wur.nl
