As you get closer to your retirement age, you start to think about what you’ll be doing with all that extra free time you have on your hands. You’ll probably imagine yourself boarding a plane at least once a year to go on those trips you never thought you’d get the chance to go on. But did you ever imagine living inside a plane itself? Well, one man must have. His name is Bruce Campbell, and he’s used his money and his innovative engineering skills to buy and repurpose a retired Boeing 727 aircraft fuselage so that he could turn it into a sustainable home out in the woods outside of Portland, Oregon.Campbell spends 6 months out of the year in Japan, and the other 6 months, he spends aboard a Boeing 727 aircraft fuselage, which he reconditioned so that it would serve as an interesting home away from home.
The 10 acres he’s been using cost him $23,000 back when Campbell was in his 20s. The plane itself cost him $220,000. And even now, he’s hoping to buy another Boeing 747 fuselage to refurbish in the same way as he did the original plane.
There’s a lot of work that he still has to do on the interior to make the plane livable, so he’s always looking for items that he can repurpose to fit his needs. But there’s still a lot of work for him to do before he gets to that goal.
He is currently working on adding a working lavatory, but as you can see, there’s already a sink in place in case he needs to wash his hands or any dirty dishes. He even brought in a washing machine to take care of his laundry.
He’s got a phone, a printer and other electronic gadgets all over the place, but he still needs a couple of other things to restore the plane’s original interior, hence why he’s so invested in finding another fuselage to get parts from.
When he gets home, all he has to do is climb up the steps and he’s home, and once he’s gotten all the plumbing sorted out, he’ll be able to read while he sits down on the toilet. In the meantime, he’s taking advantage of life in the wilderness.
It would have been a waste of resources had the fuselage been shredded. Fortunately, he managed to give the old plane new life, and now, it’s giving him a chance to kick off his slippers and put his feet up on the couch while he works on his laptop and comes up with ways to improve the plane.
Campbell wants to add some of the original seating and lights. In the meantime, he’s incredibly grateful that his home is virtually immaculate and doesn’t require a lot of cleaning because it’s essentially a sealed pressure canister.
In the event of a powerful storm or an earthquake, airplanes are the safest place to seek shelter in. But on quiet nights, this Boeing 727 shines like a beacon with all the lights Campbell had installed, and it looks like such a peaceful place to live with all the trees surrounding it and the starry night sky above.
