TINY LIVING

Shaye completed her new tiny home in November 2019. The house is a "transportable", meaning it is attached to a trailer and can therefore be classed as a vehicle (depending on council regulations which vary between districts). She refined the design after years of living in a tiny house with a small child. The configuration is distinct in that there are two bedrooms (with doors or a baby gate) on the upstairs level connected by a walkway. This layout means Shaye doesn't have to climb a ladder to check on Hazel at night. The porch and off ice are not attached and are on a separate transportable. The off ice is a flexible space that could be an extra bedroom if Shaye were ever to have another child. “It's essential to think about how living situations can change in the future,” she says. Shaye and her team have built 25 tiny houses. Each is customized to meet individual needs. For instance, one owner might consider it essential to have a laundry space with a tub and sink, but for others, a bucket will suff ice. She's also learned that every household item needs allocated storage: vacuums, brooms, ironing boards and bins. In a previous tinyhouse design, she neglected to find a place for a washing basket which then had to be stored on a high shelf in the bathroom.

Shaye not only builds tiny houses but sells downloadable plans through her website, shayestinyhomes.com She hopes to expand the blog section of her website to share building knowledge and will one day turn the business into a social enterprise. (She is yet to devise a business model.) Shaye's first attempt at building a tiny home was with her former husband, Tom. The home, called Lucy, featured in the Living Big in a Tiny House YouTube series and has had 2.3 million views. Shaye's latest home is just down the road from Tom, who still lives in the original Lucy. shayestinyhomes.com

Recovery took five years and lots of patience, persistence and work on unconditional selflove. Sharing her experiences on her blog, yourbulimiarecovery.com, has also helped. In turn, Shaye’s candid video blogs have helped many and have received tens of thousands of views and hundreds of comments.

Shaye didn’t step back on the diving board for 13 years until she wanted to show Hazel some tricks and went to the pool to try some somersaults. She was a bit rusty but was surprised at the strength of her now-healthy body.

Former British coach, and then New Zealand coach, Steve Gladding, happened to catch her mucking around in the pool. He recognized Shaye, and they joked about her returning to the sport. When he spotted her at the pool a second time, he asked if she was seriously considering coming back.

Within a year, the then-30-year-old mum was competing at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast against athletes in their teens and twenties. “Making the team was quite unexpected, but the memory of how to do the tricks was stored in my brain somewhere.” Shaye specializes in the one- and three-metre springboard events, but also sometimes competes in the synchronized diving.

She made the final at the Commonwealth Games and has won medals at the Oceania Championships and other international events. “I realized I love diving. Feeling strong is empowering.”

At the time of writing, there is still a lot of uncertainty around whether the Olympics will happen next year and whether international travel for events will be allowed. The Commonwealth Games in 2022 might be a more realistic goal, she says, and training might be on the backburner for a while.

“I’m just playing it by ear, that’s all anyone can do at the moment. I feel so proud when I do represent New Zealand because there’s no other country in the world for which I’d want to compete. When we fled Zimbabwe, New Zealand was the country that took us when many other countries wouldn’t. We arrived in paradise, and I’m so grateful.”

She kept up acrobatics training in her backyard, flipping on the grass and doing handstands with Hazie since the public pool in which Shaye usually practises was shut during lockdown. In the meantime, she is keeping up her fitness as best she can while refocusing much of her attention on establishing a tiny house and permaculture village. It’s just a concept for now, but it’s all part of her goal to lead the lightest life possible.

“There’s so much at stake now. We’re at a point of history where our leaders need to make crucial decisions. If we get it wrong, it’s my daughter’s generation who will bear the brunt of it. But I’m always the optimist, and I believe there are things we can change. The planet wants to be healthy, and nature wants to thrive and regenerate.”

NZ

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