Is This The Coolest DIY Tiny House EVER?!

diy building a tiny house may seem like a bite-sized project but in reality the learning curve can be tremendous and today we're about to meet a couple who took that challenge head-on and built themselves a spectacular tiny home [Music] hi zizki how are you hi bryce nice to meet you nice to meet you g'day ryan how you doing man good thank you good good it is a pleasure to meet you both and i am so excited to see this beautiful home that you've created here yeah it's been a long time coming yeah it was yeah 13 months from the trailer arriving to us moving in to the day and then over the last eight months of living in it we've just sort of chipped away and got the last little bits done wow well the house looks great had you ever done a project like this before no no i think probably the thing that we had done before this was a garden bed yeah like a raised planter box uh and that was our building experience so we have leant very heavily on like the tiny house community and some very close friends of ours that have building experience um and everyone's been very generous with their time and with their knowledge and so it was a great place to be able to tap into for ideas on how to get around particular problems and issues that came up during the build so yeah great and what was it that actually inspired you to build a tiny house well we'd both lived in tiny houses before so i'm ex-military and i spent many years on warships and living with very small amounts of space 15 people in roughly the same floor space as this right and zizki has also got a history of living in tiny houses as well yes i lived in an old pottery studio in the bottom of someone's garden which was awesome but yeah a smaller footprint than this and a really kind of unusable layout but really an awesome introduction to tiny living and then meeting ryan it was really helpful that we both yeah we're interested in that on our first date we actually got talking about tiny houses pretty quickly it's like one of those things that you kind of have to put out there early in the piece and be like so this is what i'm looking at doing and zizki said that oh she keeps all of her tiny house designs on pinterest and i was like okay she's vegan she's into tiny houses this is going pretty well and it kind of just went from there tiny houses and veganism is almost something you have to put on your tinder profile yeah new partners isn't it exactly right yeah yeah i just wish there's like a filter icon a little disclaimer a little house in a little plant yeah yeah yeah right exactly and so what size is the tiny house so the tiny house is nine meters long uh by 2.7 meters wide and about 4.1 metres tall in total height from the ground and then once you've got the cavity and the cladding and a little bit of an eve we're around about 3.1 in total width and i love what you've done with the gardens here as well you can see you've put a lot of effort into growing some food yeah we have we've been learning about that at the same time as learning about how to build and we were lucky enough when we first arrived here that there were some random bathtubs in the landscape and so we were able to use those to start putting veggies and things like that into it and growing a little bit of our own food and then we found out that the dogs also really enjoyed gardening oliver decided to pull up the potatoes a little bit earlier than they were ready so we got a handful of mash but we also learned then that we probably need to do our gardening in a separate space to where they want to do their type of gardening yeah and that is one of the coolest dog houses that i have ever seen this is the tiny tiny house so that's where the dogs live and it's got a little living roof which we actually would have loved to have on this house but a little bit hard to move so this was the next best thing and it's also really good insulation for them and it's got windows and it's big enough for us and the dogs to go and chill out in which is really nice and stained glass windows as well that's luxury those are from a demo yard and then the cladding on the outside of that is the offcuts of our house great yeah matching as well then yep and the style of the house is really interesting can you tell me a little bit about the design so we um designed on sketchup and the design is a real match between the two styles that zizki and myself sort of came into this with so i think if it was completely my style it would be very monochromatic and like a morgue like a mold like a mall sure in a nice way and if it was all the way design style towards siski's way it would probably be very very eclectic and covered in vines and your description of her taste is much kind yeah it is but mine was more efficient yeah so it's sort of a colliding of those two styles and it works really well great well i am very excited to see a house that is somewhere in the vicinity of an eclectic morgue yeah let's go take a look come on in great after you oh now i absolutely love what you've done in here your styles have blended together beautifully yeah we um joked i guess naming a tiny house is a bit of a rite of passage and we did joke about calling this the tiny compromise because it was anything but um but yeah we're pretty happy with where we've come to with it yeah this is one of those homes where you're just sort of hit by its character and then a sense of real welcoming oh thank you yeah it's been really lovely actually kind of crafting it and once we had the shell and we had the lining on we started thinking about all the little touches that we wanted in it so we made things like the cushions and the spice rack and of course adding plants was a really big part of making it feel like a home and we've got a really nice relationship with with all of our plants like yeah they all have names we name them all but they go through their different phases and it's really it's really lovely it's just the move towards living tiny has also been like a fundamental shift in what we find important and so we got rid of a whole lot of things when we moved into the tiny house but one of the aspects that we really i guess increased in volume was the number of plants that we have um now to care for yeah and i especially love the floors here as well especially with all these lovely epoxy features yeah so this is all seconds native timber and so it's been milled into tongue and groove floorboards but it was really rough cut when we got it and so we went and filled all of the little nail holes with black epoxy and then we've got the bigger knot holes we've got some sea glass and some clear epoxy yeah and then we spent hours and hours sanding it back and oiling it so it was a really a big project but we absolutely love it and then over here we have your lounge and i love the way that this is just so open to the house and then also just sort of extends into the outdoor space as well yes that was really important to us i think our deck is a little bit ridiculous in the sense that i think it's bigger than the footprint of our house but we do spend so much time outside and it's nice when you have people over you can hang out out there put up a marquee and you can also open up the whole wall here and also the window at the end to get that real airflow and it helps a small space feel bigger i think if you can kind of easily go in and out absolutely and storage in the couch as well yeah so this whole part lifts up and so we can put in things that we like to have down here a little more accessible than the storage loft but still tucked out of the way and then this part here pulls out into actually a really comfortable double bed so we can still have guests over yeah which is really nice excellent yeah and at the moment it acts as our puzzle storage area and then i love the map that you've got on the wall here as well that's such a great feature yeah that was a purchase that we didn't know quite what it was going to look like but it fits the space so well and we put that up on the very first night of moving in here as like a project that would feel like a real satisfying tick the box type job to be done and it fits so well and we're kind of a bit map oriented we love travel yeah and that kind of is a bit of a bit of what represents us very cool and i see you've got the projector up there as well yeah that was something that we really sort of uh debated even having in here it was a really good decision in the end we didn't want a tv that was going to be a permanent placed thing in our house and so when we have our blinds closed in the evening and we do decide that we want to watch something on netflix we can project it onto something that's already there anyway and all throughout this house i just love all of this character that you've put into it like that bookshelf there is just so cool thanks that's actually a branch from my parents place so they were doing some pruning and that was going to be firewood and we took it because it was so straight for the corner and then the shelves and from a sawmill just up the road actually in their macro carpet beautiful so we used offcuts from the sawmill around the place to make some shelves great and then over here we have your kitchen and wow this is beautifully done yeah and the kitchen was something that we thought about a lot as well when you have something that's going to essentially be three meters of nine meter length of your house it needs to be multi-purpose so one half of this cabinetry slides out and i've got my electric piano behind there what a great idea yeah and then also just having simple things like the chopping board that fits into the sink area giving you more space and a very small oven as well for just two people it's plenty enough yeah it does the job for us lots of storage has been built into this kitchen too especially there all around the fridge we really wanted to have things be able to be out of sight because of course in a small space when you have lots of things out it can be cluttered really quickly so having this being able to put everything out of sight is really really helpful and then is that a pop-up table you've got behind the chair there yeah so this is a little fold-out table and you can turn around this arm chair and i'm doing some study at the moment so it's really helpful to have a little dedicated study space where i'm totally out of the way of the usual sort of foot traffic areas and we chose to take a comfortable armchair rather than office chair because when the table's not in use you can turn the armchair around and it doesn't seem out of place what a good idea and i especially like the way that you've utilized the stained glass in here as well because it just adds so much vibrance and color yeah that was something that took a lot of convincing for me again it was in the in the realm of zizki's design style but i'm so pleased that i was sort of convinced that we should have that in there it helps it sort of bring all of the different colors in our house together so we sort of knew our color scheme before we started building and so we designed that in those colors and that was a really helpful way of having something bright that also feels like it fits and once we had the one and it was super easy to convince me to have another one and that's why we have a second stained glass window now in our bathroom door again one that we designed and that was made for us yeah it was a great project oh yeah and it just adds so much character to the space likewise i especially like what you've done with the feature wall there thank you yeah that's all the off cuts from our flooring and so we used those and painted parts of them and stained them different colours and put in some of the same colours that we've got around the house as well and created a feature wolves we've got one here and one in the bathroom very funky and then i'm guessing behind that beautiful stained glass door we have your bathroom it certainly is should we check it out let's check it out oh this is again just lovely it's almost like walking into a little forest in here yeah i literally dreamed of this sort of plant wall string setup and it really brought a lot of the plants into this space that weren't here before yeah what a great idea and that basin is just such a gorgeous feature too thank you we really wanted a stone basin and trying to find one that fit in the space was actually quite tricky a lot of them were quite shallow and so when we came across this one we just snapped it up and we're so happy with how it ties in with the tiles as well yeah and the four-person shower is a must it's a bit of an overkill this thing is huge yeah it's um it's bigger than the family-sized bathroom that was in the last flat that we lived in uh this bathroom so yeah we had the space available for a big shower and uh yeah it fits the purpose and i especially like that in this room you've also included direct access to the outside yes that was really important to us being able to have a back door that you can come through when you've got maybe wet feet or mud on you from the garden and come straight into the bathroom put things straight into the washing machine and have a shower instead of having to come through the main house yeah and it also means we don't have to open the main door every time we're coming in and out yeah we've got our kitty litter tray in here as well for ziggy our cat and we've also got our very own human litter tray that we can take straight in and out of the back door without having to take it through the house great so yeah so you've got the composting toilet there how's that working out it's actually great if a toilet can be great why not of course it could be great and definitely having a fan driven composting toilet makes all the difference in the world yes yes it just makes it possible to have in a small space without it at all negatively affecting the living area actually it's i'd say better than a conventional toilet yeah i'd say that as well it's better than a normal toilet yeah and then even more storage behind the door here as well yes we've got ryan's wardrobe and also a utility closet where we keep our washing and our vacuum cleaner great very tidy how all that's done and then i'm guessing upstairs we have your sleeping loft yeah that's right great can we take a look up there absolutely all right after you thank you oh this is great and this is actually a very easy loft to access yeah absolutely that was really important to us so being able to get into your room without needing to move things out of the way or rearrange anything was was really important for just day-to-day livability so we've got this drop-down landing which is a really popular feature in tiny houses so that was really cool for us to be able to see that and then build it into our space as well and definitely having the two windows means that it feels really light and it doesn't feel sort of closed and and we can get a good cross breeze growing through summer as well yeah and it's great to see you've got a wardrobe there behind you as well yes this is my super messy wardrobe and so i've got most of my clothes in here and over there as well and actually having the shelves there gives us a little bit of separation from downstairs which makes it feel like its own room but then having this part open again helps with that kind of eerie feeling yeah and we've found that we tend to put most of our items in the bedside drawer rather than on shelves so again from a decluttering point of view even though we've got these shelves we really only use them for glasses of water and maybe whatever book we happen to be reading at that time or as a cat perch for our cat she likes to sit there and watch us and from up here you get this great view of all of the plants as well it's like looking over the top of a forest canopy yes exactly like being in a little tree house absolutely and it's so peaceful to wake up two in the morning as well and see all the greenery and yeah we see some beautiful sunrises out this window and some really lovely sunsets out that window so it's just a really nice place to hang out so it's been eight months now since you've moved into this house right yeah that's right we um moved in 13 months after we started building and we've been living in it for eight months but it's only really been finished finished for maybe a few weeks yeah we had a to-do list of everything that we need to do on the house right and it was written on a scrap piece of plywood 2.4 meters tall and we'd filled this thing up and we decided to split that into two things that needed to be done to move in and things that needed to be done to be done yeah and we have now got everything that needs to be done still onto an a4 piece of paper on our fridge so well done yeah as soon as we moved in the pressure totally lifted from the shoulders and we've just managed to tinker away at the last few things and neither of you were strangers to small space living when you moved into this house but how are you adapting to life here in the tiny home it's actually amazing and i think since we've lived in it we've thought about oh we could have gone about a meter smaller so it actually feels a lot bigger than i think either of us expected which is really special we haven't really had any times where it's felt like we need more space and finding ways to work around needing different purposes in different zones of the house so for instance having the fold away desk and having furniture that we can move around for different activities is really really important because it makes it really multifunctional great and can we talk about the cost that was involved in building this home yeah we still haven't got the final numbers and we've got a cost of the entire build which includes buying the tools and the rental of the land while we built it and that is sitting at around about 140 000 and once you take off the tools and the cost of the land rent and storage and things like that so just the materials probably 115 to 120 000 we have managed to build this place for around about the same amount of money that we would have had to save for a deposit for a house if we were to go down that route for us to have done such a massive project that we had no technical ability to do beforehand and to start using our hands again when we're both in sort of very specialized positions within our day-to-day work where we're not doing anything with our hands has been hugely satisfying massive personal growth has come from doing this massive project we geek out about the house a lot so sometimes we'll just be sitting down having dinner and one of us will just be like oh we built this and the other would be like i know and then we go for a little walk around our house and we're like and we did this thing and it feels like that hasn't worn off you know the feeling of just being so excited and just in love with the house is not worn off at all if and when we add little things to our house like if we put up a new shelf or we put up a new plant somewhere we will literally take the time to go and visit that thing just to look at it and appreciate this new thing in our house it's wild it's a little bit strange that we do it but i think it's there because we know how much we've put into the build like yeah the satisfaction is immense just a huge amount of pride in what we've done well this really is such a beautiful home that you've created for yourselves here you can both be immensely proud of your achievement here thank you so much for sharing it with me thank you so much for your time and for coming to see it my pleasure ryan and zusky have done such a wonderful job on this build there is no question about it that diy building is not for everyone it is a tremendous learning curve and a huge amount of work but ultimately there is nothing like living in a home that you have crafted with your own hands and you can really see the love and pride that this couple now has in their home [Music] you

Channel: Living Big In A Tiny House

Views: 1,110,571

Rating: 4.9623418 out of 5

Keywords: living big in a tiny house, tiny house, tiny home, diy tiny house, do it yourself, tiny house building, tiny house living, tiny house design, architecture, home design, amazing tiny house, DIY building, living big

Id: idsJcat2VbU

Length: 20min 45sec (1245 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 10 2021