Blue Outside, Crane inside

 Three HUGE changes to the bus.

The outside is BLUE!!!!    The inside is white.  The bathtub crane and hoist are installed.

Rolling Joy bus with new paint.
Bus top is bright white and the body is marine blue.
A black band caps the bottom edge.

She looks great! I love the color.

When you paint a school bus you have 2 choices - tractor paint or rust-prevention paint. Tractor paint lasts longer and was designed for metal. But the choices are very limited. It's colors like Caterpillar Yellow and John Deere green.

18 tractor paint colors

Luckily they make one blue paint - Ford Blue (aka New Ford/Holland Blue) which is now covering Rolling Joy. I love being in or near water. So riding around in a blue bus really suits me.

I want to preserve the school bus history of Rolling Joy so I left a tiny area on the front original. 

Front of the bus shows a rectangle of the original school bus yellow
color with the words "Blue Bird" in silver surrounded by blue paint.

I painted the inside of the bus a bright white but left the ceiling the original tawny metal. I will be adding decorations - particularly on the outside of the tub. Here's a first look at the new interior colors amid the mess of ongoing renovations.

View of the bus from the front looking to the back.
The wood is all painted white and gleams off the off-white metal ceiling.

The amazing Samantha the Welder took on the complicated project of modifying an existing crane. She had to find pipe that is not made in the U.S. and then create a taller crane. She added holes for locking the crane so it doesn't spin around. She replaced the hand-crank hoist with an electric one - and built a new base for the hoist and a new roller end to thread the cable. You can find her on Instagram.

The vertical column of the crane is bolted to the floor between the tub and kitchen counter.
The horizontal arm is topped by an electric hoist with a steel cable and closing clip.

 
Just have to get it all hooked up to the electrical system so we can test it. I can't wait to have my first bath in over a decade. It's getting closer.