Mason Basten has followed the popular tiny house movement for years. Recently, he joined the ranks of those owning a tiny home built to their own specifications.
In 2006, he bought a 1984 Toyota Motorhome. After “some serious renovations”, he and his wife went on a tour of the East Coast in the camper.
You can hardly recognize the former Toyota Motorhome.
With the addition of four children in the years that followed, the camper proved too small for the larger family.
So Mason bought another trailer for just $50, gutted it, and added individual bunk cots with custom portholes. For the kids, he added in dry erase boards and two secret storage compartments!
A wood burning stove keeps the interior warm and toasty.
Once he finished with the trailer for the kids, Mason set to work on renovating the Toyota Motorhome that pulls it. He spent a couple of months re-doing the interior and adding huge windows to the outdoors. Here’s what he had to say about the specifics,
Quick run down of the vehicle, all of it’s structural elements as well as the skin and roof are aluminum, all structural elements are welded, overall weight of finished vehicle, unknown, however we guess-timate that we are 1500 lbs lighter than the initial factory unit.
All windows with the exception of the door and the dome window are double paned, thermal insulated. The large windows on the rear are tempered with a hurricane rating. It is insulated, with two layers of foam, one open cell and one closed cell with combined thickness of 2″ r value unknown.
Like in another Toyota Motorhome camper, Mason added a wood burning stove with plenty of fire insulation and steel heat reflectors.
Large windows let in lots of light.
Mason and his wife love to ski in West Virginia’s Canaan Valley, and plan to use their newly redesigned camper and trailer as a mobile ski chalet! With those large windows and cozy fire place, who needs a pricey hotel rental?
Photos via TinyHouseTalk
