A Tiny House Built by Shaye and Tom from New Zealand

Today’s post features a tiny house based on one of Humble Homes’ own tiny house plans. Shaye and Tom are a Kiwi couple embarking on the adventure of building – not just one – but several houses. So far they’ve created a small, cosy cottage made from cob, and they’re currently in the middle of building their own tiny house on wheels. The final project mentioned on their website is a rather classy looking straw bale house.

Shaye and Tom are exploring alternative types of housing that can be built without any prior experience in construction (although a good dose of research and some workshops can be beneficial!). They want to create a lifestyle which doesn’t necessitate them having a 9-5 job to pay off a mortgage for a home that isn’t suited to their needs. It’s a case of less stuff, more life.

“When we first started building our tiny house I did not expect to fall in love quite this deeply. Yes, I thought I’d like our little building on wheels – but I wasn’t expecting to love it! At this point we haven’t yet finished our tiny house, which we have decided to call Lucy. She’s still in progress, but every day that we work on her she gets more and more awesome!”

Shaye and Tom spent some time deciding which type of tiny house suited their needs best by studying different floor plans. They determined the following spaces were crucial to creating the home they needed: a lounge, kitchen, bathroom and sleeping loft. The problem with most tiny houses is that the loft is only accessed by a set of ladders, which isn’t always ideal. So they opted for a house with a staircase that doubles as storage space in a similar way to our McG Loft designs.

All told their house is 7.2 meters long (23.6 feet) by 2.4 meters wide (7.8 feet). Once completed their house will feature an L-shaped couch, a staircase with storage/wardrobes, a full-size shower and composting toilet, a full-size kitchen sink and stove with plenty of storage cabinets, and last but not least, a spacious sleeping loft.

The south side of the house has only one small window for the bathroom, whereas the north wall features an abundance of glazing. The bathroom wall will be south facing so as to minimise heat loss, and the north wall will then be able to take advantage of the suns energy to heat the home. It also has the effect of making the space feel larger, and brighter.

If you’re considering building your own tiny house then check out our portfolio of tiny house plans – we’ve got 19 and growing!

For more tiny houses by Humble Homes check out Jay Trainer and Jennifer Chen’s tiny house in San Francisco, or Shawn Danleys McG Loft V2. See all tiny houses.