Stunning Modern, Minimalist Tiny House

One of the things that has always attracted me to living in a

tiny

house

is the idea that by downsizing our

house

s we can actually increase the size and quality of our lives and that is exactly what happened here in Wellington where the decision to woman moving into a small house has really made room for big life changes. Hi Kelly, how are you? I'm doing great, thank you, nice to meet you, nice to meet you and I'm so excited to see your beautiful home. outside, right? Yes I love it. I always wanted my little house to be a bit like a shrimp hat.

It is something simple and with minimal details. I think it looks amazing. It certainly is. We will talk more about him. Home soon, but first your parking spot, you really got lucky with this spot, didn't you? Sure, there are people nearby but no one is looking at me and I'm surrounded by green and yeah, it feels really nice and calm. Being here, it's a great place and what was it that really attracted you to the idea of ​​building a

tiny

house on wheels? Yeah, I guess I had been working for 20 years in the electrical industry and I was starting to get a little bored. with my job and I wanted to change and I owned a three bedroom house at the time the mortgage was quite high just if I want to choose what I wanted to do if I really wanted to be able to choose something that was important to So I needed a lot more flexibility in terms of how expensive it was to live there.

Yeah, one of the easiest things is not having to spend so much time taking care of everything, so that led me to really see it as an option and it worked out really well because I was able to retrain as a Candie teacher, which is far from a lucrative career, but this makes it possible and I'm sure your little house here feels like a world away from the kindergarten gates, very friendly. It's loud and exciting and fun and when I come here I charge up and this little house is completely off the grid, isn't it? Yeah, I have a water connection to a water tank, but, uh, I have electricity, I have solar and gas, completely disconnected. mains power which definitely makes it a lot easier to find a place to park, doesn't it?

Yes, sure I can plug it in if I need to, but one of the things I wanted to have was just the flexibility to be able to move around if I needed to, so I disconnected from the grid as much as possible and then told me about the design of the exterior of the house, I guess when I was presenting to the architect he gave me four different types of conceptual designs. so we talked about a lot of different images of roofs and things like that and originally I said I liked corrugated iron and probably black.

We also looked at some sort of wooden rain screen, but it ended up being too heavy, so we went back to the original. I have the idea that there really is something that completely catches your attention with that kind of

minimalist

, simple and very beautiful black exterior, and the agate core is also a great option because it is also very light and super strong and, yes, it is very It is important that low maintenance is very important. Me because I'm far from being a handyman of any kind, so I wanted to be able to build it and they're not too heavy to do anything with, and how big is the small house?

It's pretty standard 7.2 by 2.4, fine I think. The exterior of the house is truly amazing and I can't wait to see what you've done inside. Can we take a look? We can enter. Thank you. It really is the dictionary definition of

minimalist

here, isn't it? It really is, do you really live here? Yeah, I just want to be able to live in the space without any visual clutter and I love plywood so it's nice to be able to look at that and I guess I just focused on having lots of it. so that everything has a place to go and I come home, I put things away and then I can adapt, enjoy the simple space, which is a great way to do things because you are right and there is absolutely nothing classic here, but it What you do have are all these windows that give you such expensive views of the outside, yes it's been a lot more time than I would have liked to have known just looking out the window so it's nice to slow down and watch the world go by.

Then here we have this super cozy sitting nook and again the window gives you that wonderful connection to the outdoors. Yes, this is where I've spent most of my life, so I love reading and getting great views. around it's a really comfortable squat just to relax and around the snack. I see you have built-in storage, yes, so the clothes and shoes are over here and the storage up here is almost empty, so I may have gone a little overboard with the storage, but it's great to have a little extra space under the couch as well as this space to work and I just have the sawdust for my toilet and duvets and different things in there and then here we have your kitchen and again you have I chose this really nice minimalist look with the stainless steel countertop and the wood plywood.

Yes, I love to cook. I say kitchens are really important to me and I wanted a really long bench space just to have a lot of space and not. I feel cramped or crowded I cooked to relax so it's nice to have space to really relax and enjoy it and I wanted a suitable oven. I know a lot of small houses don't have one, but there are a lot of things I do and want. use an oven and I love my sink, it's huge having a big sink in a small house kitchen really is almost essential isn't it?

Yes, they need to have that space where you can store things and still properly wash the dishes. Yes. And all of that is something I have told other people who are thinking about building small houses, don't be shy about thinking that you need it. I completely agree and it's one of the things I also noticed when we moved into the kitchen. The space is the pitch of the roof really allows this house to feel very open, doesn't it when you move into the house? Everything expands in front of you. Yeah, I really wanted that feeling of space, so that other thing that What I love here is that I have the full width of the floor for a section of the house that is not built, that there is nothing here and I think that creates, along with the slope of the ceiling, a sense of space and then it's that your bathroom at the end there it is, we can take a look at it, I'm sure this is lovely and again having that similar type of joinery here just draws you in and brings everything together beautifully, does it?

It is not like this? Yes, it's minimalist again and I didn't want it. be a complicated space so in the bathroom also everything has a place that disappears so when there are other people in here it's just a simple space that's easy to use and you have an oversized shower here yeah actually it was. I was surprised how big it was when I first saw it and saw you using the bamboo composting toilet. Yes, it's been fantastic. It's a really simple system, it's not difficult to take care of and anyone can use it. Plus, it's quite pretty.

Also, you have the sink and then a good size mirror above it, yes, and the mirror actually works very well. I often have the bathroom door open and it's actually reflected in the window at the other end, so you get a feeling. that there is actually more green around you, so you know that's not real but it is lovely and then here you have also created a lot of extra storage space in your kitchen space and in the stairs space, yes, I think that It's one of the advantages of having steers and me. The stairs I'm really looking for is that you get a lot of storage space under the stairs, so if this scene is mainly food, then I have 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 a lot of family in Wellington, so I stay at my mother's house once a week and do the laundry while I'm at her house and I just wasn't convinced I had enough energy to run a washing machine. grid to say it's a simple solution to deal with it and then upstairs, here we have your sleeping loft community, sure it can be fine after you, stairs are actually incredibly comfortable to use, aren't they?

I didn't really want to go for a letter, I just think they had to use them and yes, these stairs are pretty easy even without handrails. I don't find it difficult to get on and off and it's really nice that you have this. mezzanine section next to the bed too yeah I saw this idea online for a tiny house and thought it would be so much nicer to have a place where you can stand next to the bed instead of always being on your knees while you try to make it the bed and the bed itself look so cozy, you have these two windows on either side that are really nice for the views and airflow and then that skylight which is quite nice, yeah that's cool.

I didn't want a loft that felt closed off. So the skylight was a must for me and I chose one that doesn't open to prevent leaks and things like that so I don't think having a Whitby would be a particularly good thing and then the small windows to The air flow works very well and goes through my feet instead of my head, which is nice. So how long have you been living in the little house? I've been here for eight months and it's really interesting to experience a space at different times. of the year is quite different and winter is quite different to summer, so I'm still really enjoying finding out what it's like here, we're the sun walks and where the sunsets are.

Yes, Wellington, as you mentioned, in winter it can get pretty. It's cold, how do you handle heating and insulation in the house? Yes the house is very well insulated and double glazed so without curtains it is quite warm in here and I have gas heating so the guest heater is mounted under the trailer and only Bentsen through the event is controlled here for thermistor and how are you adjusting to living in the small house? I think Jeff made life simpler, that's great. I can clean the small house in about 10 minutes, so there's not much to take care of, everything has a place. to go, it's a nice clean space to be in and I love them, have you always been a minimalist?

No no. I had a three bedroom house to myself and it was pretty full of stuff, but once I started thinking about it it was good, I had plenty of time, so I spent a few years in my house where I started to recognize what I didn't need, that It's a really easy way. I think downsizing is a habit I have. I have room to do it, what would you say? Your favorite most elegant look. I think what I like most is that you can live in a beautiful space but you can afford it because it's not as big if I lived in a bigger house and I couldn't have something that was as nice and because it's smaller it's affordable when I can actually have what I want talking about that affordability what was the cost to build this house was around a hundred and fifty thousand 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 take into account the high quality of all the finishes, that cost quickly makes sense, it doesn't make sense.

Yes, it is, and I think the other part is the current costs of living here, which are incredibly low even in the dead of winter. I probably spend ten or eleven dollars a week on gas and that's really on top of the cost of leasing the land. everything 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 downsizing, getting rid of some of those overhead expenses so you could do more of what you want in life and that is that working for yourself is a lot of being here, it's about flexibility and it's about having the option to make decisions in the future, so right now I work four days a week, this is the potential in the future that I may only work two or three days a week because it's lovely and then I can spend my time on other things that I want to do and I don't have Wi-Fi and I have pretty limited phone reception so when I'm here , it's just a space to be quiet alone, really to me this space means rest and relaxation, it's just about being calm and still and not having things crowding on me and it's a beautiful space to be in and I love that it's a part of my life now Kelly I am very impressed with this house.

I think everywhere I look I see something really beautiful. You've done a great job with the design and I wish you all the best for your future. Thank you so much for sharing with Thank you for coming, this house has absolutely everything a tiny house should be, it's simple, it's mobile, but most importantly the space is beautiful and incredibly well thought out. Kelly has absolutely everything she needs and what I really love is that she talks about it as being a place of rest and respite, a place where she can come home, where all the problems of the outside world can disappear and she can be. completely herself and that's exactly what a home should befor you.