Small wonders
The tiny-house movement has taken off as a reaction to huge homes and mortgages. But what is life really like in a pint-sized pad?
W e are used to big houses and generous blocks in this country, but with property prices soaring and Hobart’s rental market in crisis, we need affordable, viable solutions to the ongoing issue of accommodation. Increasingly, the tiny-house movement is inspiring people seeking an alternative to the insecurity of renting and the hardships of being mortgaged. Gorgeous images of adorable little houses are popping up all over Instagram and Pinterest. But what is the truth behind this romantic idyll of living small? What are the practicalities of life in a glorified cubby, and how many of us would be prepared to scale our lives back enough to squeeze into a converted bus, or a home that fits on a caravan trailer? What does it really take to live within little more than 15sqm?
“You might think it would be restricting and frustrating,” says 23-year-old tiny-home architect and inhabitant Kylie Bell. “But when you wake up every day living in a space that feels really good, and you know you don’t have a huge amount of debt weighing you down, the positives outweigh the negatives.”
Bell should know. For the past two years she has been designing and building tiny homes for Wagonhaus Co, the construction company she co-owns with her younger sister Tamika in the North West. Still living in the prototype she built in 2016 during her final year of studying architecture at the University of Tasmania, Bell believes micro-homes offer better environmental, as well as socio-economic, alternatives to more traditional housing options.
“Over four or five years as a student, I lived in 15 different places, house-sitting and renting, so I decided to build a tiny home because I had no idea how I was going to find a house for myself,” says Bell, who spent three months assembling her first tiny house in her family’s shed with Tamika. “I fell in love with the idea of microarchitecture at university. It really made me question why we’re building these massive homes that just aren’t working, especially when younger people, like me, can’t afford to get into the housing market.”
As children, they lived in a big, dark, crumbling farmhouse that placed a huge strain on their family, particularly when their mother became ill. Trying to maintain a worn-out old house while raising the girls and their elder brother fell on the shoulders of their father.
“Our house was over 90 years old, and we’d fallen into the trap of adding to it, but it just didn’t function properly, and when mum got sick, we experienced severe hardship,” says Bell.
“I became really interested in why we live in the buildings we do, and I used to pore over house magazines. I was a fish out of water at university. Going into architecture, especially as a female from the North West, was a bit scary for me, and totally alien to anything in my family history. But I wanted to make things better for myself, and I think my perspective gave me a unique take on things.”
With rentals scarce and the cost of land rising, a little imagination and a good helping of resourcefulness can go a long way towards establishing a tiny-house lifestyle. Rowena Jackson and Corey Osborne, both in their early 30s, are sharing a converted bus on a rented block at Deep Bay, near Cygnet, and loving their freedom and independence from the real estate market.
“We’d been introduced to tiny houses through a friend, and we were pretty interested in building something of our own, as Corey is a carpenter by trade,” says Jackson, a student and parttime barista.
“But we weren’t in any position to buy our own land. Then the bus popped up on Gumtree, and we advertised in the local newspaper to see if there was anyone who had land that we could rent for the bus. We felt so lucky at the response we received. We had so many phone calls, and the sense of community was amazing.
“We’re also really spoilt with all the beautiful free camping spots here. I’d say the bus has given us the best of both worlds – a place of our own, and the means to keep travelling.”
So far, the couple’s biggest challenge has been collecting enough water and making sure their solar panels have enough sunlight, as they live completely off-grid. But coexisting with the elements is all part of the experience, and the benefits far outweigh the cons.
“The main thing was being able to have complete control over the layout and design,” says Jackson.
“After years of living in rentals, it was fun to have input into how it all looked. We don’t know how long we’ll live on the bus, but we’re hoping to drive it to the mainland later in the year and take it from there. For now it’s a great way to save money, and it’s nice to know that when we do buy land in the future, we’ll have a home.”
In Australia, where the average house now takes up 240sqm, portable, purpose-built homes are something of a revelation, but the global tiny-house movement has been gaining momentum for decades. British-born architect Sarah Susanka, author of The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Real
ly Live (1997), is credited with initiating the more recent interest in micro-living, but tiny-homes builder Chris Harris remembers reading about green architecture and small dwellings as a teenager in the 1970s. “I discovered tiny homes and alternative technology in the
Whole Earth Catalog and Shelter magazine, which were published by Lloyd Kahn in California,” says Harris, who splits his time between Tasmania and Western Australia. “Kahn was big on hexagonal buildings, and then years later, in 2012, he published his first tiny-houses book.”
In 1997, Harris modelled his first construction on a historic oast house near Margate and spent 10 years completing the project on his property at Allens Rivulet. Fondly known as the hops house, the little tower measures 5m x 6m, and sits behind a pair of huge old pine trees at the top of a driveway that once led to the original farmhouse, before it was destroyed in the fires of 1967. Now the hops house nestles next to an even smaller dwelling, as well as a printmaker’s studio and a big storage shed.
“After building the hops house, I was converted to small spaces,” says Harris. “The second one is opposite the hops house, and is 2.2m x 2.3m, so it’s not much bigger than a kitchen table with a ladder up to the bedroom. Originally we built both of them as accommodation for people who were helping us out with the property. I was thinking of pickers’ huts, which are fantastic, although now there are legal and environmental issues you have to get around. The really tiny building, which is uninhabited, doesn’t have a toilet, but the hops house does, and the tenant has built an outdoor bath.”