Sisters help single mum find tiny home solution
ANABELA REA
A tiny home in a rural setting in Kaukapakapa is the perfect living space for Rebecca Ransley and her preschooler son ... and the fact the home won a design award is just icing on the cake.
Ransley’s home took out the Most Creative category at the 2023 New Zealand Tiny House of the Year awards, after a collaboration between her (an interior designer-turned-entrepreneur) and Cocoon Tiny Homes, a custom tiny house production firm run by husband and wife duo Anton and Sarah Aalders.
Described by judge Lucy Lich as “strikingly beautiful” and “one of the most creative tiny houses I've ever seen”, the home showed that there was clearly a design synergy at hand.
While building the two-bedroom, 44m² house was a creative project for Ransley, 41, the main objective was to get her and son Hugo, 4, into a much-needed home.
Kicked out of their home by landlords during Covid, she made the decision to build tiny after breaking up with her partner.
“I ended up staying with my sister, who's got a really big family and quite a bit of land as well. So Hugo and I kind of moved in with them. It was really difficult and at the time, the rental market was just diabolical, we really couldn't find anywhere to live,” says Ransley.
“And so I just started entertaining the idea of building a tiny home and putting it on their land. I think what appealed a lot, was the fact that I could be close to my family. I was on my own after a fresh breakup, and, facing being a single mum, and just having my family that close to me was really appealing.”
Standout features include the 3.8m-high lounge space with full height curtains (which Ransley made herself with a sewing machine parked up at her tiny home’s kitchen bench), the inset mirrors in the kitchen to maximise light, the hand-painted stellar murals in Hugo’s bedroom, the pink accented bathroom, and the airy mezzanine office space.
Although she’d been a designer for some years, Ransley “hadn’t taken much notice of tiny homes”. Rather, it was more about working to her budget and drawing from her own creativity to create a home that would be both secure and suit their lifestyle.
“It was just about looking at myself and how I live and sort of arranging the spaces around that. And then sort of putting in my own aesthetic. The inspiration I guess just came from within.”
Ransley had some savings, and one of her sisters helped provide her with a loan to get to a budget of $240,000 for the build. Another sister, who she’s now paying land rent to, has let her park the tiny home on her site.
“I've just got the best family in the world,” says Ransley. “I know how difficult it is to get lending on tiny homes and I didn't have the savings to do it myself.”
She describes her collaboration process with the Aalders at Cocoon Tiny Homes as “awesome”.
“They're just good people. I really liked working with them,” she says.
“I had a strict budget and couldn't go over, so they reined me in when I went a bit crazy. And yeah, they just were really open to my ideas and trying to get it.”
The build was a positive experience for the Aalders too.
“She's a really clever lady with an incredible design head on her,” says Sarah Aalder. “We felt like it was an amazing collaboration with her.”
“She came to us knowing that we stood out in the market for being very bespoke, and offering custom home builds, as well as designs that we have already built and sold ourselves.”
“She basically said, ‘Can you guys help me, I've got all of my design ideas, I'd love for you to put it into real life’.
“A lot of detailed time and effort put into it. But again, because we're not a company that builds volume, we build, high-end quality, we love that. It’s part of our passion that we have so much time to spend with our clients. Really digging deep into how intricate things can be.”
“And so with a little bit of collaboration work, and, you know, a few tweaks here and there, my co-director and wonderful husband, Anton, who’s the main designer of all of our homes, sat down with Rebecca in great detail and went through everything. And the end result was her amazing home.”
Completed over the last summer in around 12 weeks, Ransley took possession and moved the tiny house to her sister’s Kaukapakapa property, north Auckland, in February. For her and Hugo, she’s delighted to be finally setting down roots and doing “normal homeowner things” like thinking about gardening.
Special features of the home include the floor-to-ceiling windows, extra storage in the top kitchen cupboards which is accessed through the stairs, LED strip lighting inset into the inlaid mirrors in the kitchen, a full size fridge, specialised waterproofing in the shower to make design choices possible, and many more.
Ransley's favourite spaces are likely the ones that stand out to you too.
“I think my favourite is mezzanine office, I spend a lot of time working and sitting up there and it's just warm,” says Ransley. “And it's got the views, and it's open. So I really like that.”
“I like my living area, the double height space really makes it. I really like my bathroom. The pink tones and the plants, it's just a really nice place to be.”
“I’m a designer, but I’ve never won an award, so it feels pretty special.”
For the Aalders, it’s the latest confirmation that their “crazy lockdown idea” of starting a tiny home building business was in fact, a great idea.
In contrast to many other tiny home builders, who have gone into liquidation over the past year, business is booming for the couple in the custom tiny home industry, with the firm having just opened up a second production warehouse in Katikati, on top of their original Silverdale premises.
Because of the win and popularity of this particular design, ‘Rebecca’s Custom Tiny Home’ will soon be released by Cocoon Tiny Homes as a purchasable plan which others can then use to build with.