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Schoolbus Storage Sheds Look Like Buildings
It’s not unusual to use an old schoolbus for storage but most people consider them an eyesore. Bill Swets in Ft. Collins, Colo., came up with a simple way to dress them up.
    He recently sent FARM SHOW photos of two schoolbus storage sheds he set up at the back entrance to his ranch. One side of each bus – the side that faces the blacktop road – is “dressed up” with hardboard siding, roofs, and some home-crafted decorations.
    A pair of big white metal gates guard the ranch entrance between the buses, and a big wooden ranch sign supported by a pair of poles rises above the gate.
    “It provides clean, dry storage for a lot of the junk I keep around my place, yet the old bus bodies are hidden,” says Swets. “The decorations break up the plainness of the siding and give it some class.”
    He started with a pair of 66-passenger buses. He removed all the seats as well as the running gear from each bus and cut 10 ft. off each body. He used a nail gun to attach studs to one side of each bus, and then covered the studs with hardboard siding. He put the same siding on the roof.
    A pair of chandeliers can be seen through rectangular holes that he cut into the side of the bus. Each chandelier sets inside half of a 55-gal. barrel, which he cut lengthwise and sealed with expanding foam. The family name is displayed on a large wrought iron unit that’s fastened onto the side of the bus between the chandeliers.
    Thanks to a talent for turning old junk machinery parts into visual treats, Swets has attracted a lot of attention to the ranch. The biggest attention-getter is his collection of 38 dinosaurs made from salvaged farm machinery, cars, trucks and whatever else he can find in his junk pile. The dinosaurs are full-size, ranging from 2 to 40 ft. in length, 7 to 14 ft. high and weigh from 500 to 1,200 lbs. Joints were built into the animals so they can be taken apart and moved. The “Swetsville Zoo” is open to visitors.
    Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Bill Swets, 4801 E. Harmony Rd., Ft. Collins, Colo. 80528.


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2012 - Volume #36, Issue #5