What’s better than living in a repurposed airplane? Living in two, according to pilot Joe Axline.
The 62-year-old spent roughly a quarter of a million dollars to have the two aircraft, which are both no longer functional, repurposed into his dream home.
Built on a plot of land bought by the native Texan from a privately owned airport in 2011, the costly creation today costs him just $200 a month to live in and maintain.
The out-of-service fuselages not only provide a unique floor plan, there’s also plenty of storage to be found in the original overhead compartments.
The surprising spectacle can be found in Brookshire some 38 miles from Houston, where Axline has permanently set up camp.
Pictured, people visiting Joe Axline’s Texas home made of two disused planes. He had the structure built in 2012, and has lived there ever since
Both are no longer functional but have been fully refurbished – after the 62-year-old pilot (pictured) spent a quarter of a million to have them repurposed
‘I don’t care if it goes up in value or goes down – doesn’t matter to me,’ Axline told Business Insider this summer of the eye-catching installation.
‘I’ve lived in a 5,000-square-foot house, and the airplane is head and shoulders above that,’ he said.
The divorced dad went on to reveal how, for years, he shared the plane with his children, who have since grown up and moved out.
Flying solo, he told the website now, ‘it’s just me’ – and that the space provided by the planes’ fuselages is more than fit for a king.
‘Living in a house, you have a lot of space, but it’s all wasted space,’ he said, sharing impressive photos of his home’s interior.
The former recreational pilot today works in IT, while living in one of the planes full-time after renovating its 50-year-old fuselage
Axline said loves having his living room, dining table, kitchen, and office all within a few feet of each other – not to mention the freedom he had been so desperately seeking
‘My master bedroom is 10 feet by 18, which is not a bad size for a bedroom.
‘I’ve got two TVs in it, plenty of space to walk around,’ he went on, revealing how one of the planes serves as his home base, while the other is more of a work in progress renovations-wise.
‘My living room is good-sized, the dining room seats four, I can cook enough food for a whole bunch of people if they come over.
‘I also have a shower and a toilet, so I don’t have to get out of the airplane to go to the restroom,’ he said.
He added: ‘The only thing that I don’t have here that I would have in a house is windows that open’ – a problem he solves by opening the plane doors every now and then to let in the fresh air.
Today, the MD-80 is where Axline spends most of his time, but it needed a lot of work to get to where it is today, the IT worker said.
Some other original features of the plane’s interior stayed as well, Axline said, including the plane’s windows (pictured)
Of the home itself, he said: ‘It’s 600 square feet of fantastical.
‘I will live here until the day I die,’ he added.
Axline said the idea to move into a plane, which he has since called ‘Project Freedom’, came to him after his split from his now-ex-wife.
An IT worker who trained as a pilot during his teens and 20s, Axline said he used the $250,000 he had in savings to set the plan into action.
Taking inspiration from a ’70s TV show that featured a character traveling cross-country in a plane to solve crimes, he recalled: ‘I thought that was pretty awesome.’
Axline (pictured) purchased the plot of land from a privately owned airport called Sport Flyers, and has been riding high ever since
Pictured: The outdoor deck where Axline catches a breeze and a small garden
With his mind made up, all that was left to do was to start buying land, and eventually planes.
First, he snapped up the plot of land needed to house the disused fuselages – finding a site near where he had been living at the time.
Next, he purchased the planes, which proved costly and logistically difficult.
He found one of the planes on display in a disused Florida mall that closed the following year, in 2011.
The fuselage was up for auction, he recalled, before he scooped it up for an unspecified sum that spring.
Axline created walls to separate the bedroom (pictured) from the other areas of the plane
The outdoor deck at the back also serves as a parking garage
Then, he waited for it to be delivered to Texas – a trip he said took nearly a year.
‘In the meantime I bought another airplane’ that fall, he said – showing photos of the 60-foot front part of a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 from Arkansas that was transported by truck.
The size of the planes kept transportation costs from rocketing to $10,000, he said – revealing how he paid just $5,750, all-in.
Meanwhile, the first plane, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 Spirit Airlines fuselage, was still en route, and already had a fully restored cockpit that was a throwback to the 1970s.
His plot of land was exempt from homeowners association laws that would have prohibited the project, thanks to its prior status as a private airport.
Axline described the yearlong effort to build the home as ‘two steps forward, one step back,’ with it requiring 25 cubic yards of cement for just the MD-80, which arrived in December 2011
The other plane, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 Spirit Airlines fuselage, is used mostly for storage, but he plans to make it into a movie theater. It already has a fully restored cockpit
‘I can’t put a train or put an RV. I can’t put a mobile home,’ he explained in his interview this past July. ‘But there’s nothing about my airplane.’
With the green light to go forward, and the planes en route, he started building the steel foundations that would support them.
He described that effort as ‘two steps forward, one step back,’ with it requiring 25 cubic yards of cement for just the MD-80.
The plane arrived only a month later in December 2011.
In January 2012, the DC-9 arrived, and with the foundation set, it was installed next to the first plane.
Transporting the aircraft from Florida and Arkansas by truck cost him $5,750, all-in, he said. He called the process of getting both structures secure ‘nothing that is small or easy,’ but once it was finished, the real work was ready to get started
Found on a plot of land bought by the native Texan in 2011, the costly creation now runs him just $200 a month to maintain
The MD-80 was filled with defunct parts that still needed to be removed, requiring a great deal of work by Axline’s airplane-renovation contractor Tom Bennington.
As for the DC-9, it remains gutted and empty apart from the cockpit, and is used mostly for storage, but will eventually be turned into a private movie theater, Axline said.
With the help of his electrical engineer brother, the renovations took less than a year, he said. During that time, he stayed at an apartment nearby.
One of his major renovations involved removing the plane’s low-lying ceilings and overhead bins and building walls for his master bedroom and a shower.
The first class area soon became his living room, and Axline added sewage and water systems, electrical wiring, lighting, insulation, an outdoor deck and vinyl flooring.
The undertaking that ensued took less than a year, during which Axline stayed at apartment nearby
The disused fuselage provides a unique floor plan, complete with plenty of storage provided by the plane’s original overhead compartments
At the front, the plane still has its original door, which is also fully functional.
Some other features of the plane’s original interior stayed, including the plane’s shutters, windows and reinstalled overhead bins, the original sink and bathroom, and its warning lights.
After a dozen years of calling the plane his home, Axline told Business Insider he is living the dream – having paid off all the costs of buying the planes and making renovations.
He explained to CNN a few months earlier how he put ‘less than a quarter of a million dollars in the whole project’ and now has very few expenses thanks to owning the land where the structure sits.
He has also built his own water well and sewer system that put his monthly operating costs at around $200.
The outdoor deck has an oversized chess set and small garden, and offers an outside view
After a dozen years of calling the plane his home, Axline told Business Insider how he is now living his dream – after paying off all the costs that came with buying the planes and renovating
Axline also loves having his living room, dining table, kitchen, and office all within a few feet of each other, or just down the aisle.
As for the prospect of adding another plane in the future, he told CNN he had been interested in a Boeing 747 but had to abandon those hopes due to costs, recalling how ‘the airplane itself was about $300,000, but the shipping cost was $500,000’.
‘Half a million dollars to move it,’ he explained.
Nonetheless, he’s happy with what he has.
‘I have three or four people [visit] every single day,’ he told CNN of the visitors his home attracts. ‘I call them my turistas.’
‘They drive by and think, it’s so cool,’ he continued, as renovations to his other plane remain ongoing. ‘Most of the time I wave them all over. I’ll say, if you got some time, I’ll give you a tour.
‘And if I didn’t make the bed that day, who cares?’ he joked. ‘Let’s see how real people live.’
