Stunning Modern, Minimalist Tiny House

one of the things that's always really attracted me to a tiny house living is the idea that by downsizing our homes we really can increase the size and the quality of our lives and that is exactly what's happened here in Wellington where one woman's decision to move into a tiny house really has made space for some big life changes [Music] hi Kelly how are you I'm really good thanks nice to meet you it's lovely to meet you and I am so excited to see your beautiful home this really does just have such a striking exterior doesn't it yeah I love it I always wanted my tiny house to be a bit like a shrimping hat it's kind of uncomplicated and just with really minimal details and I think it looks amazing it certainly does and we'll talk more about the house soon but first your parking spot you really lucked out with this place didn't you I sure did yeah there are people close by but no one's looking in on me and I'm surrounded by green and yeah it just feels really nice and peaceful to be out here so that's a great spot and what was it that really drew you to the idea of building a tiny house on wheels yeah I guess I had been working for 20 years and the electricity industry and I was starting to get a bit bored with my job and I wanted to change and I owned a three-bedroom house at the time mortgage was a fairly steep just if I want a choice of what I wanted to do if I actually wanted to be able to choose something that was important to me then I needed way more flexibility in terms of how expensive it was to live in yeah are one of the things to be simpler not to have to spend as much time looking after everything so that kind of got me into really looking at it as an option and that's worked out really well because I've been able to retrain as a Candie teacher which is far from a lucrative career but this makes it possible and I'm sure that your tiny house here feels worlds away from the kinder gates so kindy is loud and exciting and funny and when I come here I recharge and this tiny house is completely off the grid isn't it yes oh I have a water connection to a water tank but um electricity I've got solar and gas so completely off grid for electricity that definitely makes it a lot easier when it comes to finding a parking spot doesn't it yeah it sure does I can plug in if I need to but one of the things I wanted to have was just the flexibility of being able to move if I needed to and so I've gone as off-grid as I can and so tell me about the design of the exterior of the home I guess when I was throwing to the architect that gave me four different sort of concept designs so we talked lots of different roof pictures and things like that and I'd originally gone and saying I liked the corrugated iron and probably black we also looked at sort of wooden rain screen but it ended up being too heavy so went back to the original idea there really is something that just completely catches your eye with the sort of very beautiful simple minimalist black exterior and the core agates a great choice as well because it's also very lightweight and super hard wearing as well as yeah so low maintenance is really important to me because I am far from being a handyman no kind so I sort of wanted just to be able to build it and they're not really heavy to do anything and what size is the tiny house it's a 7.2 by 2.4 pretty standard I think well the exterior of the home really is striking and I cannot wait to see what you've done on the inside can we take a look we can come on in all right thank you it really is the dictionary definition of minimalist in here isn't it it really is do you actually live in here I do I just want to be able to live in the space without any visual clutter and I love the plywood so it's nice just to be able to look at that and I guess I focused on having heaps of storage so everything has a place to go away and I get home I put stuff away and then I can adjust enjoy the simple space that is such a great way of doing things because you're right and here there is absolutely no classical whatsoever but what you do have is all of these windows just giving you such expensive views into the outdoors yeah it's been way more time than I'd like to have met just looking out the window so it's just nice to slow down and actually watch the world go by and then right here we have this super cozy looking sitting nook and again the window just giving you that wonderful connection to the outdoors yes so this is where I where it's been the bulk of my life so I love to read and got the great views all around it's a really comfortable squat just for relaxing and all around the snack I see you have built-in storage space yeah so clothes and shoes kind of around here and the storage up here is almost empty so I might have slightly overdone the storage but it's great to have a bit of additional space underneath the couch as well this space for work and just I have the sawdust for my toilet and spear duvets and different things in there and then over here we've got your kitchen and again you've gone for this really nice minimalist look with the stainless steel countertop and the plywood yeah I love to cook say the kitchens really important to me and I wanted a really long run of bench space just so that I had heaps of room and I didn't feel cramped or crowded I cooked to relax so it's nice just to have the space to really spread out and enjoy it and I wanted a proper oven I know quite a few tiny houses don't have one but there's heaps that I do that I want to use an oven for and I love my sink it's massive having a big sink in a tiny house kitchen really is almost essential isn't it yeah they need to have that space where you can just put things away and still properly wash your dishes yeah and everything that's something that I've said to other people who are thinking about building tiny houses as don't skimp on the think you need it I completely agree and one of the things that I also noticed as we sort of move into the kitchen space is that the pitch of the roof really allows this home to feel very open doesn't it as you sort of move into the house it all expands out in front of you yeah I really wanted that feeling of space so that other thing that I love here is that I've got a full width of the floor for a section of the house that it's not built out that there's nothing over here and I think that creates along with the roof pitch just a feeling of space and then is that your bathroom down the end there it is can we take a look sure this is lovely and again having that similar kind of joinery in here just pulls you in and ties everything beautifully together doesn't it yeah it's minimalist again and I didn't want it to be a complicated space so in the bathroom as well everything has a place that it goes away so that when other people are here is just a simple space that's easy to use and you've got a great sized shower in here yeah I was actually surprised at how big it was when I saw it for the first time and I see you using the bamboo loo composting toilet yeah it's been fantastic it's a really really simple system it's not hard to look after and anyone can use it and then it's quite lovely as well how you've got the basin and then a good sized mirror above it yeah and the mirror actually works out really well I often have the bathroom door open and it actually reflects back from the window at the other end so you have a sense that there's actually more green around you then you know that's not real but lovely and then over here as well you've created so much additional storage in your kitchen space and your stairs space yeah I think that's one of the advantages of having steers and I really wanted stairs is that you gain so much storage under the stairs so if this scene is food mostly so I've got a simple pull out pantry the space here is actually designed for a washing machine but I don't have a washing machine so I have the advantage of having lots of family in Wellington so I stay at my mum's once a week and do my washing while I'm at her place and I just wasn't convinced that I had enough power to run a washing machine off-grid to say it's a it's a simple solution to sort of dealing with that and then upstairs here we've got your sleeping loft communitary sure can alright after you the stairs they're actually incredibly comfortable to use aren't they they are I really didn't want to go for a letter I just think they had to use and yeah these stairs they're pretty easy even without a handrail I don't find it difficult coming up and down and it's really nice that you've got this mezzanine section beside the bed as well yeah I saw this idea online for a tiny house and I just thought so much better to have a place that you can stand mixed to the bed rather than always being on your hands and knees where you're trying to make the bed and the bed itself just looks so cozy you've got these two windows either side which are really nice for views and airflow and then that skylight that is pretty nice yeah that's great I didn't want a loft that felt closed in and so the skylight was a must for me and I've gone for one that doesn't open to kind of avoid leaks and things so don't think having a Whitby it would be a particularly good thing and then the small windows for air flow work really well and it's across my feet rather than my head which is nice so how long have you been living in the tiny house now I've been here for eight months when it's really interesting to kind of experience a space over different times of year it's quite different and winter than it is and summer and so I'm still really enjoying just finding out what it's like here we're the Sun treks and where the sunsets are yeah Wellington as you mentioned in the winter can actually get pretty chilly how do you deal with heating and insulation in the home yeah so the house is really well insulated and double glazed so again without having curtains it's actually warm enough in here and I have gas heating so the guest heater is mounted under the trailer and just Bentsen through event in control here by thermistor and how are you adapting to living in the tiny house I think it's Jeff's made life simpler that's great I can clean the tiny house in about 10 minutes so there's not a lot to look after everything has a place to go away it's a nice clean space to be in and I love them have you always been a minimalist no I haven't I did have a three-bedroom house just for me and it was pretty much filled with stuff but once I started thinking about this it was good I had quite a lot of time so I had a few years in my house where I just started to kind of recognize what I didn't need that's a really easy way I think of downsizing is a few habit I'm in space to do it what would you say that your favorite aspect of how slifer's I think my favorite thing is that you can live in a beautiful space but you can afford it because it's not so big if I lived in a larger house and I couldn't have something that was this nice and because this is smaller it's affordable when I can actually have what I want speaking to that affordability what was the cost of building this home it was about a hundred and fifty thousand the soul is reasonably expensive and I think compared to the average cost of a house in Wellington that's about a quarter of what it would cost to buy a house and then when you factor in the high quality of all of the finishings and here that cost really quickly makes sense doesn't it yeah it does and I I think the other part of it is the ongoing costs of living here which are incredibly low even in the middle of winter I probably spend ten or eleven dollars a week on gas and that's really other than some land lease cost that's all I pay for while I'm here everything else is essentially free so a big part of making the decision to move into the tiny house for you was about downsizing was about getting rid of some of those overheads so that you could do more of what you want in life and is that working for you it is a lot of being here is about flexibility and it's about having the option to make choices in the future so at the moment I work four days a week this is the potential in the future that I might only work two or three days a week because there is adorable and then I can put my time into other things that I want to do and I don't have any Wi-Fi and I have pretty limited phone reception so when I'm here it's just a space for being quiet by myself really for me this space means rest and relaxation it's just about being quiet and still and not having things crowding in on me and it's a beautiful space to be and I love that that's part of my life now Kelly I am so impressed with this home I think everywhere I look in here I see something really beautiful you have done such a great job with the design and I wish you all the best for your future thank you so much for sharing it with me thanks for coming this home is absolutely everything that a tiny house should be it's simple its mobile but most importantly the space is beautiful and incredibly well thought out here Kelly has absolutely everything that she needs and what I really love is she talks about this as being a place of rest and respite a place that she can come home to where all of the problems of the world outside can just melt away and she can be completely herself and that is exactly what a home should be [Music] you

Channel: Living Big In A Tiny House

Views: 2,358,625

Rating: 4.9385204 out of 5

Keywords: living big in a tiny house, tiny house, tiny home, tiny house on wheels, small house, small spaces, small space design, tiny house design, minimalist, minimalism, minimalist home, architecture, home design, tiny house tour, tiny house 2020, tiny house movement, simple living, alternative living, tiny house living, off the grid, solar power, home on wheels

Id: qxsmT8CnfLA

Length: 14min 28sec (868 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 19 2020