This Family Downsized Their Home To Upsize Their Life

one of the things that i've always loved about simple small space living is the way that it can help connect us to the things in life that are truly important and that's exactly what this next couple discovered when they decided to downsize into an incredible family tiny house on wheels [Music] hi deb how are you i'm good how are you great thank you very much lovely to meet you you too good day peter how are you man great price thank you nice to meet you it's great to meet you and i am so very excited to see your incredible house yeah man we're pretty blister right we sure it's a bit of a slice of paradise yes definitely it sure is so what was it first of all that actually inspired you to build a tiny house basically sort of get out of the rat race of trying to have the bigger the better and all the toys down in auckland and minimise what we had and sort of spend more time focusing on us as a family and getting out and doing stuff yeah we really wanted our money to go towards travel and experiences so yeah we're pretty blessed to be able to do that and you actually sold a house in auckland to realize all of this didn't you yeah yeah we did and you know we lived in south auckland and some people say it's a rough area but for us it was still great as our first house but we just decided we were sick of it and you know and then go back for maintenance and everything else and then the traffic and tell you what up here's a bit of a change of pace that's for sure for sure definitely and you really have found such an incredible parking spot for the tiny house as well can you tell me a little bit about this location and how you found it yes so this property is actually my parents and so we wanted to be on here to sort of help my mum and dad out because my mum felt terminally ill with cancer so for us it was just great to be able to be close and unfortunately we couldn't get the house on here before mum passed but we're going to be here to support dad and which is a real really important for us yeah it is and it was something that we could afford but at the same time we really like the idea every day yeah and it's so close to kerry kerry like we love where we live we can walk into town we can walk our daughter to a daycare but then we have the illusion of being in the country as well which is important yeah and how amazing that you're actually able to be here and share the property with your father being close and being able to help him out that must be so special for you oh it totally is you know i mean as a son being able to provide a little bit for dad and at the same time be able to be there for support you know during emotional times i mean too often our kiwi blokes you know he's sort of trying to act hard and tough and sort of show no emotion yeah but to be able to be here for when it does hit the fan it was really important it's really important yeah and you live here together with your daughter who's four right yeah yeah mackenzie yeah she's four and a half now yep fantastic and how does she find the tiny house she loves it she really loves living here and we have awesome neighbours so she's like interacting with them and she's got a beautiful space to run around she's on her all the time tiny living means she's outside all the time and that's what we wanted we didn't want to raise her on a device or anything like that that's really important for us so she's out and about all the time so yeah she loves it and what size is the tiny house so she's mine meters by three meters so she's basically almost right on regulation and the extra sort of 600 ml compared to a 2.4 yeah it just makes all the difference just absolutely so much more space in the kitchen and just the lounge and yeah you know it's really awesome and then you've got this incredible extension here with this deck yeah yeah it was quite good dad and i built the deck and built the roof and everything and it's just doubled the space and even during the winter time it gave us all this actually usable space where we could sit out here put a dining table outside which are built for us you know so we can have friends and family over and it's just so many more options yeah i'm trying to cram it into the house yeah and i love the way that you've created real indoor outdoor flow in this home with the big bifold doors and the bi-fold window that connects the deck to the kitchen it really does feel like this deck area is a part of the home doesn't it yeah it totally does you know and people talk about a deck brings the end or outdoor flow and phyllis it just does it just makes it feel part of it it doesn't just it's not an extension it just is it and can you talk to me about the materials that we used in the home's construction yes we have uh just cedar and then we have colour steel and so the horizontal and vertical lines we just love and just worked really well and it's beautiful the dark metal with the cedar it definitely is a classic look but classic for good reason right yeah yep definitely well the house looks so cool from the outside and i am really excited to see what you've done inside can we take a look yeah sure great after you oh this is really beautiful and especially walking into this part of the home it feels incredibly spacious doesn't it yeah it does for us the three meter is the winning choice every day of the week you know it just gives us the extra space and it just feels so homey and just large and just for a tiny house you sort of don't often get that feeling and it's beautiful and a really comfortable looking couch area in this home and i love the way that you're entirely surrounded by glass and connection to the outdoors in this room yeah we were really blessed because we thought we were going to have to get a custom-made couch and we found this couch and it has like storage underneath and we messaged our builder and we're like what's the measurement of the house it was gonna be so tight but it looks like it's completely made for the space literally we have 10 mil yeah wow so we're pretty pretty tight but yeah she's perfect yeah absolutely it definitely does look like it was custom made for the space so what a great find and then i see the rope hanging there and pride of place on the wall that's got to have a story so yeah so the rope is just the piece that we were given by close friends when we lived in canada and it was just the working men's rope that he used on the ranch rustling up wild horses and cattle and we've got it mounted on a nice silver fork that's been bent and twisted up in the shape of a longhorn bull and it's just a real nice feature piece that we're able to have in our house that has a story and we get asked about it all the time and your daughter's artwork up here in pride of place as well yeah we get a lot of artwork from her um some of it discreetly goes in the bin we have to put it up in front of the place and then behind us here we have your kitchen and this just looks incredible so spacious for the size of this house isn't it it pretty much takes up a third of this whole space down here yeah it does it was really important for us to have a really big kitchen and we do a lot of the places we go to we can say our kitchen is the same size or even bigger than other places and it's really cool because we do spend a lot of time in the kitchen it's so great that you've got all of this prep area yep it was really important like i am not the cook and the family but just having that bench and then this bench for appliances and the little area here that we eat together like because prior to that we didn't have the deck built so we still have family meals every evening we sit together there's only three of us but it's important that we have family members and then great sized appliances really nice fridge cooker and i love the sink that you've used in here as well yeah the builder really came to the party with that you know we said we wanted this particular sink and it was well out of the price range but when she approached the supplier the supplier managed to hook us up with an awesome bargain and then it fit within the budget which was great yeah very cool and you've even got a dishwasher here as well that's a definite tiny house luxury it is we have the space for it and yeah it was kind of a non-negotiable we had to have a dishwasher of some kind because i've been saying majority of the cooking and online dishes i kind of wanted the easy way out where's your automatic home chef then oh they'll be there probably [Laughter] too you do have one all right and there is just so much storage in this kitchen yeah there's more storage than we actually we literally have a couple of covers we've just shoved a couple of random things and because we don't know what else to put on them and then the pantry set up in the corner there looks really unique yeah it is it's all drawers so we have four drawers and all of our pantry items are in there and it was really important because if you had a cupboard everything gets stuck at the back and you always forget that you've got items there so we have the four drawers and then we have the cupboard here and that's where we hide our microwave and then further pantry goods which is awesome brilliant what a great design and i love the pocket door there that timber really just creates such a feature yeah our builder they try to supply us just a normal cavity slider door and unfortunately the supplier stuffed something up and they weren't able to supply us for like at least a month and anyway our cabinet makers decided that they could make something for us that would be way better and they didn't they hit it out of the park they sure did and the beach in the door really just connects it to the whole rest of the house doesn't it yeah it does it just flows naturally again just your eye just glances off everything and just picks up on those little accents everywhere which is great and i'm guessing that door leads us into the bathroom definitely can we take a look please yeah sure thank you very much now this is a very spacious bathroom for a tiny home isn't it it is yeah again we sort of wanted to deck the areas that you use a lot out and try and have the biggest things that we can while not making things feel small so like our showers are one meter by one meter shower so again for a tinier one meter by one meter shower's massive and have our washing machine and all the other amenities that you have in a normal bathroom and they're not feeling cramped or tight or anything there's just gold so you've actually got the washing machine and all of your laundry and everything packed away behind there yeah we do yeah we got full storage living cupboard and it just works perfectly because everything fits in nicely yep definitely having a washing machine and a child was um non-negotiable very very important you're right and you've even got the flushing toilet in here yeah we do we're really blessed dad um had the sewage and everything hooked up and it was easier toilet training our daughter with the flushable option rather than compostable so yeah really nice vanity unit that you've got there as well just very neatly tucked into the corner yeah it's really subtle it fits in the space really well and it has enough storage like quite deep drawers which is you know great for the makeup and little extras so yeah fits perfectly it certainly does and then i see here behind me you've even got a full-length mirror built into the door that's such a great addition yeah that was really important and because we can't really stand in our loft area it makes getting ready for work really easy and can we check out the lofts upstairs now yeah definitely cool thank you very much again i love all of the storage that's been built into the stairs here yeah we have ample room like with big storage cupboard here storage all the stairs have storage it just makes it so easy and then these stairs actually lead into jewel lofts don't they because we've got your loft and then your daughter's loft as well yeah so it's a little bit different there's a door separating the two but yeah it works for us great let's check it out cool oh now this is such a great design it's so unusual what you've done up here but you can really see the way that you've got your loft up here as well as your daughter's loft connected to it this really works doesn't it yeah it does it does for us as a family you know our daughter security is important and so we know that she doesn't have to try and climb up and downstairs without us being around and it's such a great design as well because there's certainly more than enough space for both you and your daughter up here but you've also created a really good sense of privacy for yourselves in this space as well yeah it was really important we didn't want her having free reign to walk in whenever she wants to and also her room is the furthest room from our living area and that was really important we can just close the door keep her in her room and it's soundproofed as well so minimal distraction for her and is that a wardrobe that you've got behind you as well yeah we have three sections on either side is some shelves and then in the middle is some hanging option for us very clever and can we check out mckenzie's room yeah definitely yeah let's go thanks such a cute little door yeah not quite made for you hey bro it certainly isn't but this room is really sweet your daughter must absolutely love it in here yeah she doesn't see a little oasis where she can come and play and she gets to dance and dress up and play around and she just loves it yeah it's so important for kids to have their own space even in a tiny house right it totally is being able to put your own mark on it or as i say be able to close the door and have their own private time and space when they want it as well yeah yeah and how would you say she's adapted to living in the tiny house she loves it she just thinks that it's normal and doesn't realize that our home is tiny so when we go to birthday parties for her friends they live in castles and yeah it's it's great though but she never thinks we need a bigger home or anything and she still clears the ceiling quite well so yeah works really well for her and so how long have you been living in the home now um just over a year great and how are you adapting to tiny house life oh it's great i think it's just our normal and we don't struggle with the size or anything at all it's just becoming uncomfortably normal it's just lovely and it must be really great for you now to be so close to your dad and be able to be here in that support role as well yeah it totally is you know we're only just a stone throw away it's made a world of difference for him and and also for us just knowing that if he needs us or whatever he may need we're there and can we talk about the budget that was involved in building this home so this fully finished apart from the deck and the roof we were able to build it for 140. great that really is a brilliant result especially considering the size of this home and all of the really quality fixtures that you have in here yeah it's everything we could always ask for and nothing that we don't want yeah and you've gone from having a sizable mortgage on your previous larger home to now being mortgage-free in a tiny house how does that feel it's very freeing especially with covert that hit and then peter has branch closed things down and we were in a bit of a bind and it was so nice to actually think okay well it's not that stressful i mean i could easily at this stage i was working one day a week teaching and my one day a week could service just the rent that we paid dad and more so we're really really blessed tiny house living has taught me that less is more totally surely just less space but more family time yep less cleaning up to do more family time yep less costless overheads you can do more for each other for other people it gives you so much more freedom that you don't feel stuck to a household or mortgage for 25 years you don't have this noose around your neck it brings such security as well riding out the storms and things like that you know you're able to do that with a lot less gray hairs or hair still in your head you can actually work out what's good for our family and what's best for our family price had tiny living we lived a life of excess so we had three bedrooms one really was a junk room and it was pretty embarrassing actually when we moved out of our home how much stuff we had accumulated and it's not like that anymore and and that's something especially now that we're parents we didn't want to model that to our daughter and a lot of our free time was spent obviously in auckland going to the mall and up here in northland we don't have that luxury so we're out in there you know visiting the beach we're going on walks and spending time as a family and that's really important to us and so what do you think the future holds for you both now well we have our beautiful caravan called wanda and she's going to take us all over the south island for a few months and then hopefully by the end of next year we hope to have a piece of land and put our tining on our piece of land and build a bigger home not too big and then whatever we can gather from tests because we've caught our tiny tests whatever we can gather from chess will pay our mortgage towards our bigger home so tiny is never leaving we just love tiny living but hopefully god willing we'll have a bigger family and then we can kind of move into a bigger home but yeah tess will always be with us that sounds like such a wonderful plan and this truly is a really beautiful home you have done such a great job with creating the space for your family thank you so much for sharing it with me thanks ross thank you my pleasure deborah and peter really have created such an incredible space for themselves here this is a beautiful home it's a family home it's a place that connects peter with his dad and it allows deborah and peter to be close with their daughter which is just so special beyond all of that this is also a debt-free home that's allowed this family to already weather a pretty big storm and that really is something incredibly special [Music] you

Channel: Living Big In A Tiny House

Views: 2,114,846

Rating: 4.9539104 out of 5

Keywords: living big in a tiny house, tiny house, tiny home, tiny house on wheels, tiny house movement, small house, small home, small space design, family tiny house, family home, tiny house living, tiny house new zealand, debt free living, mortgage free home, downsizing, architecture, home design, tiny house tour, tiny home tour, bryce langston, living big

Id: Hgicrdp-S9A

Length: 18min 5sec (1085 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021