After Losing Everything in an Earthquake, She Built This Amazing Tiny House!

starting again is never easy and here in Queensland Australia we're about to meet an inspiring woman who after losing everything in an earthquake managed to rebuild an incredible life for herself in a tiny house [Music] hi Vicky how are you good thanks Bryce welcome to the opposite of chaos it sure is the opposite of chaos here it's like a little Sanctuary that you've got tucked away it's amazing I'm feeling really lucky to be here so your home absolutely gorgeous but before we talk about the house this is an incredible property that you're parked up on it is I'm really lucky a wonderful family in the area owned the land and they have opened their doors for a few of us to come and rent a little spot and live alongside them in the community with them and how many people are living here on the property um there's about a dozen adults and some children as well so it's a really beautiful mix and it looks like there's all kinds of different structures here as well there are yes we have some tiny houses and some container homes and some cottages and a bus sort of something for everyone all the bases covered that's right and there's some farming going on here as well there is the owner has always pictured a permaculture farm and he does food growing courses for the public to join and opens the farm up for people to come and experience a little bit of paradise with him so he does all these training courses and things it's just beautiful that is so cool and I'm totally with him permaculture is the future of growing definitely and there's a yoga studio here too there is yes there's a beautiful sort of outdoor inspired yoga studio that's just magical to practice in and people in the area have memberships and just come and practice yoga there's also a treatment room as well so you can come and get a massage or acupuncture or whatever happens to be on off of with the practitioners at the time and as part of being here on the land you have to plug into what's going on in the farm as well no we don't have to at all but sometimes we'll all get together and do some clearing of a particular piece of land or we'll all get together for a party of some description but generally we all just live separate lives but all come together as a community in general great so you pay rent for the spot here yes Best of Both Worlds right best you get to plug into the community when you want but then have your own little private space here as well it's amazing and can you tell me how it was that you came to be living in a tiny house originally I had a normal size house in Christchurch New Zealand which was destroyed by the earthquakes oh no yeah rough time so I had to pay my mortgage and so I thought what am I going to do I need to do something fast so I moved to Australia stayed with some wonderful friends of mine in Sydney and got a job in Sydney and then basically just sort of put my life back together and six years later when the insurance company had rebuilt my house I had a new life in Australia and haven't gone back basically and so I'd wanted to live tiny after everything you own is destroyed in an earthquake you begin to question why you're putting so much money into things and space and all of a sudden all of that's gone so it really made me reassess what do I need what do we need and simple is just much more freeing I researched and had been researched for probably five to seven years anyway to try and find the right builder for me finally up here in Queensland found the most amazing Building Company and the most amazing people and we put it all together and I got here about two months before it was finished and spent my first night here on Christmas woke up Christmas morning for the first time you know all over the world we've met people who have lost their homes in earthquakes and floods and fires and one of the common stories that we hear from those people is that when you lose everything it forces you to really reevaluate your life and re-evaluate what's actually important for you I came to Australia with a bag of clothes and 300 like I didn't have anything else so it's kind of freeing you can literally pick up a bag and go anywhere you don't need all of the things and it really looks like that after everything you've been through with losing your home and having to move to Australia you've certainly landed on your feet here haven't you I have I feel really lucky I really feel like I'm doing what I meant to be doing now I'm following the path that I've wanted to do for a long time but just haven't made the first step so I'm feeling great and the home that you've designed is absolutely beautiful can you talk to me about what you've created here sure I originally thought I wanted a dark colored tiny house which is all the rage with the exterior Cedar and things but I realized I needed to go something lighter I needed to reflect the light as much as I could and I went with the June colorbond and it's matte as well so it's a little bit less shiny I just think it's stunning I'm really really pleased with that with the black windows it's great and it's just so idyllic as well with the lovely flowing white curtains sit amongst the rainforest and lovely undercover Shelter From the Sun I just wanted somewhere like magical that you could sit outside it's so pretty at night with the lights and the mosquito Nets are just so beautiful they're functional but they're also beautiful and it's Queensland you spend a lot of time outside and with the parking spot here you're just hooked into regular Power and Water yes I've been lucky enough to just plug straight in and we use bore water and we have some solar panels on the yoga studio so other than that but it is just power for me great nice and easy and what size is the tiny house it is 7.2 meters but I have a little bump out over the drawbar as well so the top part is eight meters and you've done some beautiful Landscaping and Gardening around the home yes I'm always trying to do something out there it's a little bit Wild and Woolly it's always under construction there's new things going on I've actually got literally hundreds of flower seeds and I'm going to germinate those and the whole back corner over there is going to be like wild flowers for the bees oh imagine it's just going to be crazy it's going to be beautiful well you really do have the most idyllic spot here the home looks beautiful from the outside and I cannot wait to see what you've done on the inside can we take a look wait absolutely can come on in thank you very much oh wow this is something really special you've created here thank you I love it all the Green in here just incredibly matches the rainforest setting that wonderful picture window as well just draws you deeply into the space it does I just wanted it to be really tranquil and calm with a lot of light and I'm really lucky that I happen to have such a beautiful Outlook out that beautiful window I especially love what you've done here with this wallpaper thank you yes I spent many many hours searching for the exact right print that I wanted on the wall and I actually imported it from the Netherlands so directly from the artist so yeah and it just so wonderfully matches the setting where you've parked your home as well it does it's just so relaxing and yeah just I love it and the color combination in here really works as well you've got the green you've got the timber you've got the copper what a beautiful match yeah I was really lucky I was just wandering around a secondhand shop and said me and I saw the copper lights and they were an aqua aqua blue and I didn't need copper lights but I just had to have them so I bought them and I took them home and they sat in a cupboard for about four years and then I decided to take the journey to Tiny and I was like well this is what it has to be around and that's where the copper came in for everything it was kind of like the starting point and this is your Lounge here it is nice sized couch thank you perfect for me I have guests over that are too tall to sleep on the couch they can sleep in the Loft and I take the couch good idea a nicely positioned to capture some gorgeous views there as well it is it's so nice just sitting there and staring outside of the sun oh absolutely and lots of knickknack storage built into the stairs as well absolutely I know everyone seemingly going tiny talks about storage space and needing more storage and stuff but for me I don't want all the stuff so it's just things that make me happy and bring me joy and Inspire that I want to display and so the storage hasn't really been a big deal for me at all I've got empty cupboards yeah I really like how you've done that as well because just because you're going tiny doesn't mean you have to be super minimalist and you can't have some things that make you happy and having all this lovely stuff on display it really does add to the space exactly and then your kitchen here is just so striking again that window just becomes such a feature it's so beautiful every time I look at it it just makes me happy yeah the height of that window and the openness of this room just makes it feel so spacious too it does I really wanted an open welcoming space and I wanted to be able to display all my beautiful things in a beautiful place and so I'm all about open shelving especially with it being a real real Timber and all the green color in the Cabinetry really makes you feel connected to that Vista outside it really does and I saw a photo and this something was painted this color and it had a pink flower on top of it and I thought that's the color of my kitchen the u-shape of the kitchen gives you a lot of prep space it really does I've never actually worked and lived in a kitchen that's so well appointed you know the pantry the fridge the oven the bench space the sink the dishwasher it's all within a step of each other and it just works so well beautiful Timber on the bench tops it's so lovely when it was being made I went up to the factory about two and a half hours up the road and and saw it in its raw State and took my color samples up there and saw it all as like raw Timber before they put it all together and it smelled amazing and it was just so beautiful Timber starts off beautiful and then it gets that coat of oil and just turns into absolute magic okay it really does and I like the way you've added the table here as well yeah I'm short so I don't really like sitting high at a bar stool and I was going to originally so this was basically to drop that down and have my laptop and everything sitting up on the higher bench so it's actually perfect for me to work on with my laptop and also to eat here till it's really comfortable nice addition lots of storage here in the kitchen more than I need I've actually got all my camping things uh in the kitchen which seems like a strange place to put them but you know where else you put a couple of tents hey if you've got an empty drawer why not exactly all the necessary appliances as well yes I never have ever needed more than two burners at a time so the jewel is perfect for me and it's a regular full-size oven it is gas but it does run a little bit on electric as well but yeah it's perfect for me excellent and then behind us we've got your bathroom yes come and have a look let's take a look foreign these beads are really cool yes they definitely add a bit of fun to the bathroom no they do they were another random op shop find in the second hand store down the road very cool and wow look at that shower yeah it's really pretty I didn't want just a standard shower and I always imagined like a really beautifully tiled shower but with the weight and the moving of the actual tiles I decided to go with something lightweight but still beautiful nice vanity here yes there was a few nights in Sydney with me standing in the corner of a room with a piece of paper trying to measure out exactly how high the Basin needed to be and how deep the shelves were so that I didn't hit my head when I was washing my face so it must have looked like a crazy person to the neighbors but it worked it's perfect it sure does and again the shelving just gives you that opportunity to put a bit more character into the space it does I just love the wood the more places I can put it the better lots of storage here as well yes I wanted to have all of my storage in the bathroom so it's out of the way and there's no clutter anywhere else so I've got a full wardrobe in here with the washing machine and then just full shelves in here great very nicely done and then your sleeping loft is upstairs yes shall we go up let's go take a look oh this is so cozy it is it's really great I love it again this feels very spacious as a sleeping Loft it does I think part of the reason for not wanting any storage up here was to keep it more open I'm only going to come up here to sleep I don't need to have a lot of storage up here and then with the Skylight it's just amazing I just watched the stars all night long and the lightning and it's somewhat inhibitive sometimes to actually getting a good night's sleep but I love being up here anyway it's worth it for the view then it's totally worth it you've got the windows up here as well that give you that nice cross Breeze I do they're brilliant and now I didn't have any blinds up here for a long time but I've recently got those and it has made such a difference it's really really cozy up here now and I feel it's much much darker but it's still really open to the rest of the house but it's it's great with the cross Breeze being able to have them both open there's a bit of a philosophy when it comes to bedrooms as well that it's quite nice to keep them uncluttered and very very simple because it actually helps to calm the mind and make it a more relaxing place to sleep exactly I love lying up here and doing like a breath work meditation it's like it's quite magical and I've had some of the best sleeps I've ever had up in this Loft I bet so how long have you been living in the tiny house now uh it's been about 10 months now now this is something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time is Tiny House life living up to your expectation it challenges there's been a lot of angst and a lot of stress uh trying to find the perfect spot and things like that but it's it's all part of the journey and it's so well worth it I couldn't be happier with where I am now what would you say that you have enjoyed most about now living in this tiny house every day I wake up and it's beautiful for a start even if the weather's bad it looks beautiful but I've wanted to live like this for a long time I really believe in living more lightly on the earth and with nature and in a peaceful setting and I find stress affects me much more harshly than it used to before the earthquakes I can't deal with stress like I used to and I just want to be calm and so I've always had the opposite of chaos as a catchphrase in my head since I was a kid and I don't know why and so this has always been the opposite of chaos for me so after living All Around the World in different places I've always lived in places that are okay they're nice enough but they've never been beautiful and they've never been luxurious and it's really amazing to have been able to create a space that works perfectly for me it's functional but it's also beautiful and there's little touches of luxury that I wouldn't be able to afford to have done in a regular size house and so some of these little things they just they make every day worth waking up to it's just beautiful I love it here and can we talk about the cost that was involved in bringing the stream to life sure it's a full custom build and so with all my little crazy touches on top of the actual build I've probably spent around 150 000 now it's a great result and I think part of going 20 is getting to have a few of those extravagant choices Vicky what you've created here really is so special it certainly is the opposite of chaos what you've created here is absolutely a sanctuary thank you so much for sharing it with me thank you for coming it's been a pleasure Pleasures all mine the home that Vicky has created here is enchanting she has a real Tropical Paradise here in this place and after being through so much losing our home in the earthquake it's inspiring to see that she's been able to rebuild a life that is just so beautiful foreign [Music]

Channel: Living Big In A Tiny House

Views: 3,482,531

Keywords: tiny house, tiny house tour, tiny home, tiny house australia

Id: G6QD4hk6gz0

Length: 16min 21sec (981 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 14 2022