Mortgage-Free at 30 in Their Self-Built Off-Grid Tiny House

Taking the step into owning your own home is in its own right a tremendous accomplishment, but I can't help but feel that that accomplishment is even more worthy if you built the home yourself. And this next couple that we're about to visit have done exactly that, building themselves a spectacular off-the-grid tiny home on wheels. Hi Lexi, how are you? Good, hi Bryce, lovely to meet you. It's lovely to meet you. G'day Jed, how are you mate? Good mate, how are you? Very well thank you, I'm so excited to be here. This home is just beautiful. Thank you, welcome to our humble abode. It is such a pleasure to be here, and you two should be extra proud of this home because you built this yourselves. Yeah we did. What was that like? There was blood, there was sweat, there was some tears, more blood, more sweat, but um... So completely normal. Yeah, yeah, the normal experience of doing it DIY, yeah, but very fulfilling, yeah. Had you had any experience before starting this project? We converted a van six or seven years ago, but that was a basic project, and this was a big upgrade. Jed did a five-week TAFE course, basic sort of building course before we started, and that was helpful, but that was about it. Funny thing is I got access to CAD, so I could do all my drawings through TAFE. Great. So I reflected on year 12 Jed, and I did you know CAD then, so I was able to draw up all the drawings for the house, so that was a win. And the second win was actually meeting Paul, who was a lecturer there, that then allowed us to stay on his property and build the house initially. So a different property from this. Well what a strike of luck that was, eh? Yeah, very, very, very lucky. Yeah, and what about the property that you're on now? Because this is absolutely gorgeous. Yeah, it's beautiful. I don't think we'll ever be lucky enough to own a beautiful property like this, but it's um... You never know. Maybe, you never know. Friends of ours now, but we met them through my mum, friends of mum. They've got just under 200 acres, and they use it mostly as a bit of a hobby farm. 200 acres is big for a hobby farm, isn't it? Yeah, it is. They've done a lot of re-vegetation work. You can't see it from here, but yeah, big job, and there's an olive grove that they harvest, and yeah, it's a beautiful property. It sure is, and what an outlook for your tiny home. I know, it's stunning. Yeah, we feel very lucky to be here. Absolutely, and tell me what it was that inspired you to build a tiny house? It really starts with having like a very long-term dream of one day living in something like this. So, you know, your videos were a part of that. Huge part of that. I think I started watching them when you first started putting them up on YouTube. Oh, wow. And that's where I learned about the tiny house movement. We love camping, and I love caravan holidays, and that sort of thing, and it really kind of fitted into my wanting to live sustainably, and also in a small space that I really cozy, and I enjoy it, and then I dragged Jed into it when we met. Oh, I love that. And then I never thought it would be a reality, though. I think it was something that I enjoyed watching, and Jed's part was you came along and said, well, if you love them so much, why don't we do it? Let's build one. Life's short. You've got to try these things. You are so right about that, and well done on convincing Lexi, Jed. That's very impressive. Thank you. Nice, and now here you are. You've made it happen. Yeah. That must feel incredible. Yeah, it does. It's a great feeling, yeah. Yeah, and you moved into this just before your 30th birthday, didn't you? Yeah. Just before Christmas? Just before Christmas. Yeah, I'm almost a Christmas baby. It was kind of like go, go, go, like getting the house done. I gave myself a year initially, and then it pushed out to a year and a half, and that year and a half was then like, oh, you know, you just need to put a deadline on something, and anyway, it was a nice celebration to like put a closure on it. It's like, here's a house, so friends and family can be there, and yeah, it was kind of a nice transition from being 29 to 30, so yeah. A nice way of sort of celebrating that milestone, going into your 30s, owning your own home. Yeah, that's right, and what size is the tiny house? So, it's two and a half meters wide, eight meters long, and 4.3 high, so very standard within tiny house sizes. I think we can drive it on the road without needing to be oversized vehicles protecting it, that sort of thing, so yeah. Great size, and can you tell me about the design of the home? Yeah, we, you know, watching a lot of your videos and other videos out there, it's like there's a lot of choices. There's a lot of decisions that need to be made. Inspiration to watching those videos. I think people who have watched a lot of tiny house videos can probably see this tiny house and see like inspiration that we've plucked from other people on your channel and other big tiny houses on YouTube, yeah. Fantastic, and I see you've gone with the pale eucalyptus colour steel as well. That is such a classic option for Australia, isn't it? Yeah, it is. We just wanted it to blend in. We knew we'd be around gum trees and somewhere in the nature, outdoors, and we just wanted it to blend in. We've done white on the roof as well. I think we see lots of black tiny houses, and they do look so striking, but we wanted to make sure that we were reflecting as much sunlight as possible and blending in as much as possible. Great idea. Change the colour scheme, yeah. Yeah, well, especially here where it gets really, really hot in the summer as well. It's not like New Zealand where we're a much more mild climate. Here you really get the heat, so you want to keep as much of that off the house as possible. Yeah, very much so, and like now this deck is kind of a new addition to it in the last couple of weeks, and we've been able to tell like in terms of heat difference inside the house, even with an AC, it's like chalk and cheese to be honest. Yeah, that's something that I think a lot of people need to be aware of if they're in a really hot environment. Like really thinking about keeping the house cool is, especially if you're not under a tree, that's something that people should be aware of, I suppose, and like it's a nice outdoor space, but it's also quite practical for inside. Yeah, insulating the house really well and shading the windows are two really key elements there. You've absolutely nailed it, and this is a lovely deck area as well, and what a space to be able to really enjoy the outdoors. Yeah, very much so. I see you've got the rings up here as well. I like that. Oh, you can use them, Bryce. Let's see you do 10. Give it a go later, eh? We can have a match-off if you want. Let's do it. Let's see your stuff. Make it happen. All right. You are off the grid in this tiny house as well. Yeah, for the most part. We do have gas for our hot water and for cooking. We weren't sure if we would have enough solar array to cover our cooking needs. In hindsight, and especially moving in in summer, we probably would have been okay, but otherwise, yeah, we've got six solar panels, two batteries that we keep in a shipping container, and the solar panels are mounted on that shipping container. Our grey water is through a reed bed filtration system. Great. I think we're still refining, but it's working for the moment. A rainwater tank that moving in in the height of summer probably made it a little bit challenging, so we did get that filled up when we first moved in, and we're really hoping for some rain soon, so we can keep topping that up. Yeah. And then a composting toilet, so we don't have a flushing toilet, the Clibus Multrum, which we did a lot of research into. Which Lexi, we built the house around the toilet, Bryce. I understand that. That makes sense to me. I got a bit too invested into composting toilets, and now it's my passion as part of the house, but yeah, we love it. But with that being said, on the property, there's a very good quality bore. It just runs the length of the fence line, so the gardens that we want to establish will just run everything off the bore water, but everything inside the house is going to be from the tank. Yeah. Another thing to mention, I suppose, is we've got an outdoor shower. Oh, nice. Yeah, we do. It's very... Oh, that's the most ghetto thing, actually. Yeah, thinking about it. Outdoor shower's a bit of luxury, isn't it? It's not ghetto. Yeah. It's great for beach days. We really noticed before we installed it, we'd often go to the beach and come back, and there'd just be sand all through the house, and it's such a small space that you trek everything in and everything out, so it's great for washing off if you've been mucky in the garden or something like that. For sure. Yeah, definitely. And it's fun. It's great to have a shower with a view like this. Yeah, absolutely. We can be naked out here, not one person can see us, so it's great. Yeah, just the cows. Well, I just think you've done the most incredible job on this house already. The exterior looks great, and I cannot wait to see what you've done inside. Can we check it out? For sure, let's go. Absolutely. Let's go. This is absolutely beautiful. I love the way that you've used colour in this home. Thanks, yeah. We really wanted it to be a colourful home. We like colour. Jen's got a colourful beanie on. Yeah, it makes me happy. It gives good energy, and yeah, we like it. Yeah. It's one of those homes that you just walk into, and it feels really uplifting. Thanks, yeah. That's lovely to hear. That's exactly the feeling that we wanted the house to have when people walk in. Yeah. One of the things that I love that you've done in here is all of the orange in the cabinetry, and the way that you've used the rattan as well. That just looks so good. Yeah, I'm really pleased. I think we're both really pleased with how it turned out. We actually got the inspiration for the rattan from one of your videos and someone that was featured. It's a great way to save weight, and also we like how it looks. It looks really effective. And this is just such a comfortable looking space as well. What a couch. That couch was not the easiest to find. It's a sofa bed, and it also has storage, and it needed to fit in the space. We're intending to put a fireplace in here. We haven't installed it yet, but we knew that the couch, when it folded out as a sofa bed, needed to fit with the fire. So we had about every box that you needed to check, and we managed to find, I think, maybe the one couch that checked every box. The colour's called clay brown, so it just rang a bell. I was like, we have to have clay brown. It's like another personality living there. That's the best description for a couch ever. I love it. And what a space just to soak in all of the views. And to that end, I really love the way that you've used these big feature windows here just to soak it all in. Part of the reason I actually think the space doesn't feel so small is because the outside is in. So we tried to optimise as many windows as we could. I think just with my line of work, I'm always outside, so it's quite nice just seeing the seasons change and just see how every day is a little bit different. Yeah, for sure. What do you do? I work in outdoor education. So I'm like a camp instructor. I take mostly high school students, like hiking, paddling, climbing, surfing, that sort of stuff. Yeah, awesome. So you're out there working as well. Yeah, that's right, exactly. But Lexi, you work from home, don't you? Yeah, I work from home a few days a week, and then a couple of days from the office in the city, which is really nice. You get time with people, and you also get time here where it's really relaxing. And as you said, we've got the lovely windows. You can sit and work at your desk, and there's nothing better than when you're staring at a computer screen for a few hours to be able to look up and enjoy everything around us. Yeah. Absolutely. And so this is your home office when you're home as well? Yeah, it is. I just pop my laptop there. I've got a portable screen that you plug in, and it's actually quite comfortable. It works really well. Absolutely. And I'm guessing this also doubles as a dining table for you both as well. Dining table. And when we need it, it moves the chairs out and also extends our bench space if we're cooking something that needs a little bit of extra room. Great. And great sized kitchen as well. Loads of prep area, loads of storage. What a good design. Yeah, we really wanted to build as much storage in as we could. We both love cooking. It's probably our favourite thing to do in the evening together when we have the chance to spend time together. I have found it a bit of an adjustment, I must say, from coming from a much larger kitchen. It's, I think, a fair bit of prep area for a tiny house comparatively, but it is smaller than the kitchen that we came from, but we're working with it. And the mermaid tiles there really pop against the R&J. They are such a nice feature in the kitchen. I'm glad you say that. That was a creative fix, I think, in the building process. They stick on tiles. They're not real. And I was a little bit nervous about the finish and how they would look, but we're actually really happy with them. Perfect. And all the necessary appliances in here as well? Yeah, we've got a full size oven, which is fantastic, two burner gas hob, and then a pretty decent size fridge, almost a full size fridge, which is great for the two of us. Yeah, everything you need. Brilliant. No dishwasher though? No dishwasher. I've been a slow convert doing the manual thing. There's something weirdly satisfying about cleaning your dishes, even though she probably does the dishes more than I do. Well, that's why it's satisfying. Perhaps, perhaps. But yeah, it's very easy without a dishwasher, I must say. I do feel there's a lot of people that consider doing the dishes manually to be almost like an act of meditation. There's a lot of people that get an immense amount of satisfaction from washing dishes. Yeah, I heard someone talk about that recently, especially when they've got some kind of relationship with their cutlery or they really like that stuff. It's like you're nurturing them. I haven't got to that point yet. Yeah, I'm not there either. I like the sentiment. I can build to that. Something to aspire to. Great. And gorgeous flooring as well. What timber is this? This is spotted gum. One of the requirements for us was having a nice floor, and we thought, well, let's get a nice hardwood floor. So it is weighty, but it does look very pretty. Yeah, totally worth the wait. And what about the ceiling? What do we have up there? Yeah, we've got Victorian ash up top. It's a thinner clad. I'm really happy with the end result. And we've got the collar tie up there, cypress pine, the bench tops are carry. So we've gone very timber heavy, I suppose. We like timber. It's a natural look. And it just becomes such a beautiful feature in the home too. Yeah, absolutely. Totally. And it looks like you've wasted no space when it comes to the storage here. Yeah, we've even utilised the kickboards underneath just to fit those extra little pots and pans that we couldn't fit in the drawers otherwise. But yeah, there's even some that are still partially empty. So we've got plenty of storage. Great. And what's the hatch on the floor there? It was initially designed for battery storage, but we've got all our batteries outside of the house due to weight. Great. So we thought, ah, may as well utilise it for storage. So it's a wine cellar at the moment. No way! It's not full quite yet, we're working up to that. Yes, yeah. What a great idea. And hey, we're in South Australia right now. It's almost essential to have a wine cellar in your home. Yeah, it's great. And we're in wine country here. We're surrounded by vineyards, so it's a perfect spot to have a cellar. Yeah. As a Kiwi, it pains me to admit this, but South Australian Reds cannot be beaten. They can't be. We're biased, but they can't be. They can't. They can't. Brilliant. And what do we have beyond the kitchen there? Beyond the kitchen, we've got two full-sized wardrobes. So one for each of us. We've got plenty of space for each of our stuff. We've had to downsize a little, but the transition's been actually quite easy to fit all our stuff in. It's great for me. It was one of the things when we were building the house, I had way too many clothes and way too many shoes, and I knew I would need to downsize. But it's wonderful knowing that I do have my own dedicated wardrobe we don't have to share. I feel quite fortunate that we managed to squeeze it into the build. A very nice addition. And beyond that, we've got your bathroom. Can we have a look in there? Sure, come on through. Thank you very much. Again, another very nice room here. No bathroom door. That is a bold design choice. It is a very bold design choice. Not intentional. Not intentional. We are actually going to put a curtain up. Or a sliding door. We were debating sliding door or a curtain. I think we've landed on curtain. It does make for very intimate living, I will say. And it's been a few months and we've sort of forgotten that we don't have a door. But when we have people over and you have to say, oh we'll just step outside while you use the toilet, then it reminds you that we need to get onto this toilet rather than later. Lovely shower in here too. The shower's great. It's good pressure. It's everything we need. And we've even got a window in the shower. Which we probably wouldn't do again if we had our time over. Why is that? I think just for waterproofing it throws a lot of challenges. And a lot of the research we did before we started building said, don't put a window in the shower. And we thought, no, all caution to the wind with the toilet. And it has definitely led to a few challenges. But it's great for ventilation and tiny houses, as you know, have a higher relative humidity. So we were so conscious of trying to keep as much airflow in the bathroom as possible. Yeah, fair enough. And here is the composting toilet that you built the house around. Yeah, that's right. It's one of the Clivus Maltrum LPs. We love it. It's working really well for us. We've changed the chamber one time to onto our second chamber. And that's kind of ironed out some of the initial kinks that we had the first time around learning about how to use it properly. But it's working really well. And probably my favourite thing in this bathroom has to be this basin. This is gorgeous. Yeah, we love the basin. We found it in an antique store. And I don't think we realised how much work it would be because it had older style 1920s faucet holes. We had to get special drill bits to drill them out and install the tapware. And it took several weeks and many, many like tense moments trying not to crack it. But it's in place and we love it. I think it's a great feature in the bathroom. Totally worth all the hard work. I think it looks absolutely stunning. And you've got a lovely size vanity here for it too. Yeah, we really wanted to maximise space in the bathroom. I was conscious of not having a pokey bathroom where you felt like you didn't have enough room to move around. So I think it's comparatively a fairly large bathroom for a tiny house. But yeah, we like it. I really like the floors in here as well. What is this? We had a lot of thoughts going through what we actually do with the floor. But we ended up going with lino. At the end of the day, it's waterproof. It was hard to find a print that we liked. But we went with terrazzo. Yeah, it works well and it's light. Yeah. That's the hardest thing. Yeah, it is the biggest challenge with tiny house design is the weight. And it looks like you've built quite a bit of storage into the back wall there as well. Yeah, that was another piece of inspiration that we took from one of the videos on your channel. So the stairs are behind here and then we've just built in doors that utilise the stair cavities, which is really handy. We haven't actually used all of the space up yet. So it's great. Fantastic. No laundry here yet. No, we actually have a laundry up the hill in one of the sheds on the property. Oh, cool. That way we're tapped into the rainwater that's up there and we don't have to use our own. Yeah, it's really convenient. Yeah, great idea. And it is a nice design feature having the stairs right at the back of the home like this too. Part of having two wardrobes actually was putting the stairs in the back. We've also got a utility cupboard behind this cupboard on the exterior that has all our switchboard and internet coming in, power coming in. So we tried to utilise the stairs as much as we could, obviously with this storage, but also externally and just the first two stairs that we've got on our landing. And I think there's something that I really like about this design as well, because it makes your bedroom even more private. Yeah, it does. That wasn't something I considered until we moved in, and then we realised that that is the effect that you get. And I think it works with the flow of your lifestyle as well. You sort of end your day in the kitchen or in the lounge, you come in the bathroom to brush your teeth, have a shower, and then you head on up to bed. So it actually works really well as a flow as well. Yeah. And can we have a look in your bedroom upstairs? Yeah, absolutely. Alrighty. This is a really nice space up here. And immediately, you know, one thing that I noticed, and I think this is the first time I've ever seen anyone do this. I love the way that you've rounded the carpet over the edge. It makes coming into the loft so much softer. Yeah, we were really conscious of that when we were building. We knew we would be kneeling up into the loft and I didn't want that awful sharp edge of timber cutting into your knees. So that was something we really thought about when we were building it. What a good idea that is. And it's actually very spacious up here too. Yeah, a lot of people have actually said that. I think it certainly helps just all white and having the three windows around and the opening behind us. It does feel quite spacious up here. And we tried really hard to figure out our head height versus the bathroom height. So I think we've actually achieved that pretty well. What size bed do you have here? Queen size bed. And we went with a latex mattress because it meant that the height of the mattress wasn't so much, which helped with our head height when we're sitting in bed. Yeah, they're so comfortable as well. Yeah, they are. Yeah. And I love the pinecone light features. Those are so nice. Yeah, they're fun, aren't they? We found them online and just had to have them. She said we, but it was I found them online for a very exorbitant price. Worth it. Yeah, definitely worth it. Nice bit of storage either side of the bed as well. Yeah, it works really well. This is, I think, probably my favourite room in the house. I love sitting up here and reading a book or just relaxing. It's got a really nice calming vibe. We love the colour downstairs, but you come up here and it's a little bit more serene and peaceful. Yeah. And lovely views from up here as well. Totally. Falling asleep up here, you can just look at the stars outside, which is pretty cool. Having the sliding windows has been great, but when it starts raining, I think one thing that will come into effect is the awning window. So it still keeps it weatherproof. Yeah. Yeah, it works really well. Fantastic. So you've been living in this home now for four months. How's the space working out for you? The space is awesome. There's so much satisfaction in being able to look at every nook and cranny in the house and be like, yep, we did that. And we did it with everything we could. It's really rewarding to be in the space and really kind of looking forward to just feeling more at home. Yeah, more settled. More settled. We're still finishing little bits and pieces, like we just got the deck in. There's a list that you maybe saw downstairs of jobs that we need to finish. So I'm looking forward to knocking them off and then feeling like we can really just relax and enjoy the space and feel like it's finished. But yeah, it's been lovely. It's such a nice space to be in. It feels really cosy. I have to pinch myself sometimes and remind myself that we did build this house and it's become so normal so quickly for us that sometimes you've just got to remind yourself that actually, yeah, we built this and this was a huge achievement. And yeah, now we're just enjoying the everyday. I love that. And I think as DIYers as well, I don't know if your house is ever going to be finished. I think it's one of those things that there will always be a new project or a new idea you have. But the cool thing is that having gone through this experience and now having gleaned these skills for yourself, you can make whatever you dream actually happen. That's the biggest thing to get out of this. It's like that sense of empowerment that you can do it. And that's speaking from two people that are not at all very good with their hands, let's say. But now we feel pretty confident to pick up tools. Yeah. And like there is always a way of being able to solve a problem. It's really special. I think having a picture in your mind of what you want and then being able to create that Jed was just fantastic. I think I had a lot of demands and I had a really clear vision of how I wanted the house to be. And you just delivered. And it's really satisfying to sit in a space and go, this feels like us. This feels like me. Yeah, it's like us embodied in a house, which is really special. Nothing has changed too much from the design. It's like it is kind of more or less exactly how we saw it to be. Yeah, this is pretty amazing. We made it work. Yeah. And how's the budget looking? We went a little bit over what we thought we would initially spend, but I guess that's no surprise. It was $135,000 all up for the house and for our off-grid system as well. Other than potentially the addition of a bathroom door, is there anything that you would change about the design of your home? I don't think there's really actually that much we would change. No. We really thought about it. We watched so many videos. We stayed in Airbnbs. It wasn't something that we just dived into. We were quite thoughtful about how we would set out the space, and I think it works really well for us. I mean, there's maybe small things that we would change with the finishings, but that just comes down to the skill set that we had putting it in. But overall, I'm really pleased with the space and it works really well for us. Fantastic. And so with the addition of the fireplace, you're very, very near to the completion of this home. What does the future hold for you now? Once it starts raining a bit, we're going to pick up the gardens, follow some of those permaculture principles, and just start looking after the little plot of land that we have, and then maybe expand from there. So yeah, gardens is a big one. We've got some holidays planned. We do. Finally, we can go away. Nice, yeah. We see this as like a guinea pig sort of experiment in a way. We have always thought that maybe we wanted to be self-sufficient and live off the grid, but we didn't have the land or the resources to necessarily do that. So yeah, putting in some gardens to see if we like the self-sufficient lifestyle, see how good our green thumbs are. Yeah, moving towards that is the next step. What a great plan. This really is just such a beautiful home that you've created for yourselves. This is a place that you should both be immensely proud of creating. Your hands built this and that's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing it with me. Thanks for coming. Thanks for us. Pleasure. Welcome anytime. What Lexi and Jed have done here is something very special. With their own hands, they built a home. And that all stems from the choice to do something which is hard, to challenge yourself, to think outside of the box and to do something because you know you're building something special for your future. And that is all just so beautifully embodied in this home. This is a wonderful space that they've created for themselves. It's artistic, it's light, it's fun, it's practical. And every single inch of this house just radiates home. This is a place that they should be immensely proud of.