Lyndzi Hargrave (38) lives in a double-decker bus home that also doubles as a library. She bought the bus back in August 2023 from eBay and in January this year, she moved into the vehicle with plans to tour around festivals so that people can access the library set up in her home-bus.
The library bus and off-grid home combo was a project that took most of 2024 and cost more than £50,000, covering the cost of the bus itself and the transformation, including adding solar panels. The bus has now passed its MOT which means Lyndzi can now begin her travels around the country offering a free library and book-swap service.
“I wanted to be a bus driver when I was younger. Then I wanted to own a bus cafe. It’s always been in the back of my mind, this idea of living in a bus,” she explains.
Inside the bus, featuring a library with sliding purple book ladder (Images BBC)
Lyndzi’s favourite part about the bus is “having my own space, because I’ve always shared. I’ve always had a housemate.
“The favourite part is definitely feeling like this is my space that I can decorate how I want and all the rest of it.
“I’ve rescued furniture from free sites and from Facebook Marketplace and upcycled it all myself.
“I didn’t want it looking all posh and brand new because that’s not the vibe I was going for.
“I live in a library now, so that’s surely got to be the best thing ever.”
Lyndzi and her library bus home will be hitting the road for the first festival on 21st June, and is looking for a semi-permanent base that she can return to between tours
“I want to bring literacy to areas that no longer have libraries and also go to festivals and provide a bit of a community space for some people to connect.
“That’s the point of the library and the books, to give people a reason to come along and then they can connect with people in the local community and with me and all the work that I do.”
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