The woman building her dream tiny house
WHEN you picture your dream home, what does it look like? Maybe it has a sweeping staircase, a cinema room or even a swimming pool?
Whatever is on the must-have list for your ideal property, it probably comes with a heavy price tag.
But Fionnguala Sherry-Brennan from Cardiff has found a way around that. She’s squeezing everything she wants in a home into a tiny space. A 110sq ft space to be precise. And it’s only cost £10,000.
Fionnguala, a freelance editor, has decided to join the global tiny house movement that’s grown in popularity since the 1990s and has its roots in the States.
Tiny houses differ from caravans and mobile homes. While they are mobile, they’re built using traditional building materials and have most things you would find in a regular house.
And as house prices soar, housing stock diminishes, and the way we live changes, more people are swapping traditional homes for tiny houses.
“It’s exciting. It’s a world of opportunities,” said Fionnguala, who sold her twobed terraced house in Cardiff to fund her new home. “It’s a really dinky one, it’s 14ft by 8ft but has a mezzanine loft to add some extra square footage. It’s an open space, apart from the bathroom. There’s an L-shaped kitchen and living space and then the bedroom is upstairs in the loft.
“The idea is it will just be me living here. I have a partner who has a house in Cardiff, which is lucky because that’s where I’m living now. But the great thing with tiny houses is that if I decided I wanted to extend, I can take down a wall and do that.”
Fionnguala was inspired to go tiny after watching George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces, which showcases the extraordinary world of inspirational small builds.
She learnt how to build her own home herself and the flexibility of tiny houses – which are designed to be able to move – suits her freelance work. She’s currently building it in a warehouse in Porthcawl and, when finished, will tow her future home to a plot of land and move in.
She said: “After my initial enthusiasm I started off doing volunteer work with retired carpenters so I would go for two to three weeks at a time and help with whatever they were doing. I picked up some skills from there and then I did one week of a City & Guilds carpentry course.
“I had a rough budget to start with. I knew how much all the construction materials were going to cost and it works out at around £10,000. If you tell somebody they can build their dream house for ten grand, they wouldn’t believe you.
“I know that once I get to furnish the interior it’s going to go up but because it’s small, you can go a little bit more luxurious.”
Fionnguala started building in 2016 after getting hold of free plans from American tiny house enthusiast Jay Shafer.
“I modified the plans for my use. I have a piano for example, so right from the beginning, before I had even decided where the windows were going to go, I thought about where I would put the piano and built around it. It’s my house that I’ve designed and built. It’s a lovely feeling.
“I would definitely be downsizing but because I moved out of my house I’ve already downsized quite considerably and what I own now can all fit into a small van, which is great. And, because I know how big my wardrobe is and how many drawers I have, I have a one in, one out policy.”
While Fionnguala’s house will lack the square footage of a more traditional build, it won’t lack the facilities. Once complete in October, it will comprise an open-plan kitchen and living space with seating and a dining space, a two-pan hob and cooker, a large kitchen sink and a washing/drying machine.
The small bathroom will be big enough to house a sink, a shower and a composting toilet while the bedroom will be upstairs on the mezzanine, assessable by stairs. Solar panels will generate electricity, the small gas cooker will run off propane and a small water tank will be installed.
Fionnguala will buy a plot of land to house her tiny home but hopes that in the future, community sites will be available for people with tiny houses.
“There are some really clever designs,” she said. “Some are modular, so if you build a house and then your family grows, for example, you can stick them together, you can build up. A lot of them have the traditional loft as the bedroom, but for older people and people with mobility issues they can all be built on one level so there’s accessibility. They can basically be made for everyone. “
While tiny houses can be a problem solver for many people looking to embrace modern-living, unlike in the US, where trailer parks are fairly commonplace, the practicalities of finding an approved site and having permission from the local council can problematic.
In other parts of the UK, including Bristol, the tiny house movement has boomed. The Tiny House Community Bristol, of which Fionnguala is part of, hopes to develop its own tiny house community – which would include a one-acre community where people can live in their tiny homes.