This Luxury Tiny House Crushed the Cost of Living Crisis

Living a simple life grounded in nature is something that I feel that so many of us crave nowadays. And today we're about to meet an incredible couple who had that dream and made it real. Hello Ash, it's great to meet you. Nice to meet you. G'day Jacob, great to meet you mate. You too mate. Guys, what an absolutely magical place this is. This is incredible. Thank you, yeah we love it. These views, they just stretch on for miles and what a lovely parking spot this is. Yeah, we're so lucky. We moved onto this as a flat pad and we've kind of done the landscaping and put the lawn in and stuff and it just feels like home now, doesn't it? Yeah, it's a very tranquil little spot. It sure is. And you've done a really great job with the landscaping too. I love this undercover area that you've created. It's such a great extension to the home. Yeah, it really adds value especially when you're inside and it's having that extra space that you can comfortably walk out into and host friends and family over for dinner. It's yeah, absolute game changer. Yeah, and you cannot go wrong with a fire pit like that either. Yeah, it's been handy in winter. I bet. We spend a lot of time out here. It's really nice. You've even got the outdoor tub too and now that is a tub with a view. Yeah, you can look up at the stars at night and listen to the birds in the afternoon. It's a beautiful spot to wind down for the day, yeah. It was a bit of a non-negotiable. When we were coming to move into a tiny home on a bit of land, I said okay, I want to have an outdoor bathtub. So yeah, it's nice to have it. And especially when you have such a lovely private parking spot as well. Yeah, it's very private up here. And the house. This is absolutely beautiful. I love the style of what you've created here. Yeah, thank you. A lot of thought and Pinterest boards went into it. So I can see that. Yeah, we're really happy with how it turned out. And I guess we also just constantly trying to make it new again, you know, like adding new artwork and curtains and things like that. Yeah, we're just always elevating the space to how we want it to be, which is fun. Yeah, one Bunnings trip at a time. So many Bunnings trips. And what was it that really made you both want to live in a tiny house? I think the trigger was probably the cost. Cost of living. Yeah, living in share houses and wanting to sort of take that first step into having something of our own in our own space. And yeah, I think the cost was a massive driver for us. But as we've sort of settled in, there's been all these other benefits that have popped up that we didn't think about originally. But now they're probably the core values of why we'd continue living in a tiny home. Living off grid has its challenges now and then, but it's something that I wouldn't go back to being on the grid now. It's sort of a beautiful way to live sustainably and with nature and sort of go with the flows of rain and sun and the seasons and everything like that. It's been an awesome little journey. And nice opening the mailbox and not having that bill sitting there too. Absolutely. What would you say some of those unexpected benefits were? The simplicity. Obviously did a bit of a cull on lots of clutter in our lives moving in here, which at the time sort of felt like a bit of a jump, but less clutter in your life is less clutter in your mind in a way. It's a lot easier to go away for the weekend and not have to worry about all the landscaping or the cleaning or anything that we need to do. Obviously, it's chipping away at little DIYs and stuff, but the core maintenance of the property has been next to none. Just get to focus on the fun stuff now. Yeah, exactly. And what size is the tiny house? The tiny house is nine and a half meters long by three meters wide. Fantastic. I think it's 4.3 meters tall. So it's the maximum height you can do to have it on the road. Gotcha. Great size. And can you tell me about the style of your home? We wanted there to be lots of natural light. That was sort of on the back end. Lots of windows. And we also wanted lots of spaces that could open. So having a big door that we could open and having a kitchen window that we can also open and serve food out to when we have family and friends out the front. That was something that was important to us as well, to have lots of light and for the space to feel like it flows naturally from the inside to the outside of the space as well. Especially here in northern New South Wales, where so much of your living can be done year-round outdoors. I mean, it's a beautiful hot day today and it's the middle of winter right now. It really makes so much sense to capitalise on that indoor-outdoor flow, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And of course, the expansive use in this parking spot. How did you find this parking spot? Well, we actually got it through one of our friends that was renting a house off a farmer in the area. And we were chatting to him and told him that we're looking for somewhere to park the tiny home and he put us in contact. And yeah, we sort of just went from there. We tried flyers as well when we're first looking. Yeah, we did. We did these little flyers and kind of handed them out around the areas that we thought we might like to live. That's a great way of doing it. Yeah, it was actually really fun to make it as well. Like doing our little bio of, hi, we're Ash and Jacob and, you know, we have a dog as well. And kind of just, I guess, explaining what we're looking for. And it made us think about what our house was going to be at that point as well, because we were only a part way through the build in that. Yeah, when we started the journey of trying to look for land and where we could park it. So yeah, it really made us think of, okay, what sort of water tanks are we going to have? What's going to be our electricity set up? Can we be completely off grid? Do we need to connect to anything? So yeah, that was a fun process as well, wasn't it? Yeah, it was fun. And you are here with your dog as well. And he is not a small dog for a small house, is he? He's not. He's a big dog in a tiny house. Yeah, we had the dog before the tiny home. So he just came along the journey. Yeah, he's part of the family, but he makes it so much fun as well. And, you know, even though we have a big dog in a tiny house, he spends 90% of the time outside anyway. So yeah. Yeah. Well, already, I just think this is the most charming home that you've created for yourselves. And I cannot wait to see what you've done on the inside. Can we check it out? Yeah, let's go have a look. Let's go. Hey, this is absolutely fantastic. I love the way that you've styled this home. It's just such a welcoming space to walk into. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, when we were designing how we wanted the home to feel, we wanted to have a bit of a mid-century modern vibe to it, but to keep it really earthy as well so that it matched kind of the nature. Yeah, so we wanted to have lots of greens and browns and dark oranges to kind of match the earth kind of colours that we wanted. And yeah, I think it feels really nice in here. Yeah, it really does. And you have executed that beautifully. I mean, looking out the windows, you're right. You get all of these wonderful natural tones coming in that are kind of mirrored in the timber and the soft furnishings. And then, of course, all of these beautiful plants that you've brought into the home as well. Yeah, plants is definitely an important thing, I think, to have in the house. It just makes it feel like home. And every week at the markets, we buy fresh flowers for the house. It's kind of like a nice little thing that we do for ourselves. And yeah, it brings life into the house for sure. Yeah, lovely, open and spacious design to this home as well. Yeah, I think there's a big jump when you go from the standard sort of two and a half metre wide to the three metre. It really makes the space feel a lot bigger and more open. There's no question about it. It makes a huge difference to the feeling of the interior. It doesn't sound like it's that much, but in reality, it does make a huge impact. Yeah, it does. And wow, this kitchen is an absolute dream. Look at this thing. Yeah, we definitely didn't compromise on the kitchen space either. We wanted it to be a full-size kitchen with ample storage and all the facilities that we'd have in a normal house as well. Yeah, it's so nice and a happy place in there. It's like we get a beautiful sunset out through the back of the kitchen window as well. So we can be making dinner and watching the sunset and having music on and cooking is just such a big part of our lives. We love food, we love cooking. So yeah, being in the kitchen is where we have a lot of fun and downtime and relax. Yeah. One of the things that I really like about what you've done here is the way that the kitchen return and the couch kind of come in together and it kind of joins these two spaces together really beautifully. Yeah, it definitely does do that. And I think that might've potentially been a bit of a fluke in the design. But this kitchen bench was a bit of a last minute alteration as well to have it bubble out. The designer that we're working with at the time recommended that we did something like this and it's been a game changer. It makes it feel so much more integrated with the living room and also adds to a bit more of the mid-century style that we're going for as well. Beautiful timber pops in here with all of this lovely cabinetry as well. And it does look like you've got no shortage of storage. We're really happy with it. We wanted to have that really dark, warm timber to have the feeling of nature and earthy tones but it has a modern feel to it as well. Yeah, it definitely does. Those earthy tones coming in again with the tile work. Yeah, the tiling is pretty special in here. It was something that we spent a bit of time thinking about and looking at Pinterest boards and everything else getting inspiration but we're really happy with the way all the colors pop and tie in with the house and nature as well. Yeah, for sure. And great spot for the couch. Again, being able to sit here, soak in those beautiful views of the outdoors. Yeah, absolutely. It's a well-used couch when we use it for eating, hosting, sleeping. Yeah. It's just hard keeping the dog off it sometimes. I can imagine that. And one really cool thing that you've done in this home is the addition of the office and you've got this wonderful partition that also doubles as the stair banister and both of you work from home so that office space is really important here, isn't it? Yeah, it's the engine room. Yeah, yeah. It really makes that degree of separation between work and living which is sometimes hard to do in a tiny home when you're working and living in the same space. Yeah. And can you tell me about what you do for work? Because you both have quite unique and interesting jobs, don't you? Yeah, so I run my own business. I have a social media marketing agency so I work part-time in an office and part-time from home and all of my team works remotely as well so it's mostly on the computer most of the days but it's such a beautiful privilege to be able to work here and be amongst nature and we're really lucky. I'm a project manager. I work in the natural disaster field so I sort of come in ebbs and flows with that whole weather system so it's always nice to just have somewhere stable and consistent to live and have that safe space to come home to. Yeah, you would have been busy lately then. Unfortunately it is, mate, especially living around here. It's, I guess, one of the key ties to what keeps us in this area a little bit. Yeah, there's no shortage of rain or weather events in the northern rivers. Yeah, well both super interesting jobs and what an office to work from as well. We have some future plans that when we have kids eventually that might turn into a kid's room or a playroom and we're thinking we potentially move the office out into its own little tiny home. Yeah, great to have that future-proofing potential there and I see you've got a bit more storage behind the curtain there as well. Yes, that's my wardrobe. Right, it's an overflow wardrobe. It's the overflow, yeah. We've also got some storage upstairs in the bedroom but having a full height cupboard has made such a big difference to the space and what we can fit in here, which is awesome. Yeah, absolutely. And above that, it looks like you've got a bit of a music loft or something going on up there. Yeah, we haven't really figured out exactly what that space is yet. The main reason we had it was just so we didn't have a massively tall ceiling in the bathroom. We wanted it to still feel nice and intimate in there but we've started chipping away at it. It's a bit of a retreat at the moment. It's a work in progress up there. We don't really, yeah, like Jacob said, when we originally designed the tiny home, we just had the one loft for where we would sleep and our building designer said, well, that's just a wasted space if we don't put something there. So we ended up with a second loft and yeah, it's a work in progress. We'll just, yeah, we just chip away at it and if anything, we just use it for extra storage or we've got a spare mattress up there so if we have guests and they wanna sleep up there then they can do that as well. Perfect. It does not look like you had to downsize your guitar collection. Definitely didn't downsize that. I love my music and it's a passion of mine so had to make some space for all the guitars and amps and stuff. Yeah, absolutely you did. And then above you over this side is your sleeping loft. Beautifully done. The way that you've got the cabinetry sort of wrapping around the bed, it just looks like such a nice cozy space that you've created up there. That was one of the things that sort of popped up that we didn't really anticipate for but living or sleeping in a space that's got a shallow roof height, it feels so cozy and I don't know if it's a bit of a den mentality or something but I sleep so soundly I guess it's similar to when you're camping in a tent or something, it just feels close and cozy. It's this feeling of safety when you don't have a vast amount of space around you when you sleep. We've actually found that that's really nice. I think the idea of a sleeping loft is something that does kind of freak a lot of people out when it comes to tiny house design and especially being a bigger guy myself, I was a little bit concerned about what it would be like but I think you're so right about that. There is something in human psychology, maybe at a very deep primal level that when you sort of tuck yourself into a cozy little space, you do feel really safe and relaxed and there's something about a sleeping loft that just makes you sleep well. I don't know what it is. Yeah, we love it. I guess the only thing that we wanted to think about or to do is that we could set up when we're in bed. Having the full height walkway up to the bedroom makes a big difference as well. I think if you're climbing up a ladder and straight into a small space, that might be where you can start to feel a little bit clustered but being able to sort of step out of bed and stand up and then walk down the stairs, I think is a bit of a game changer. Yeah. And of course, the skylight as well is another great addition in the sleeping loft. Yeah, it's beautiful, especially on a full moon. It comes blaring through the skylight. It creates such a wild amount of light at night time which feels a bit primal in a sense as well. Yeah, it's really nice and it also makes the space feel bigger when you're up there too. Yeah, and it's a great way of cooling the home down in the summer as well. You've got to have somewhere for all of that hot air to escape. Yeah, well, it does actually get pretty warm up there. A lot of the hot air obviously rises in summer if we crack a window down here and open that up, it just starts sucking all the hot air out. Yeah, it's really nice. And I see again in the stairs here, lots of storage. Yeah, so the treads on the stairs flick up and there's some true storage under there and then sort of more long-term storage under the stairs as well. I think it's one of the keys with moving into a tiny home and when you're in that design concept stage is to try and maximise the storage as much as you can. Yeah, every little nook and cranny needs to be used for something. And you had this built for a company but you did get quite stuck into the build yourself, didn't you? Yeah, we stepped into a fair bit with the design phase and the conceptual stage. We had a really good friend of ours who started up a company building them so we sort of reached out to them. They're a local builder and we leveraged all of our friends that are tradies and had heaps of help. So it was kind of special knowing that the house was built by friends and family. It's great when you've got tradie friends to help out as well. That makes all the difference in the world, doesn't it? It does. I was hoping I wasn't going to burn out all of my favours but I think I've still got a few friends left over. That favour bank's a bit full, is it? Yeah, it is, yeah. Yeah, I'm in debt. And behind us at the end of the home is your bathroom. Can we have a peek in there? Absolutely, let's have a look. Yeah, let's do it. Oh, this is really nice. Again, such beautiful use of these really earthy colours in here that make the space just feel really grounded. Yeah, it goes to the outside, the clay dirt soils and all those sort of terracotta textures and colours sort of influence us a fair bit in here. And the grout option was something that we definitely don't regret either. It really ties in the different changeover and tile colours. Yeah, we wanted to have a bit of fun with the bathroom because, I mean, you know, bathrooms can just be white tiles and a boring space but, yeah, we definitely wanted to get creative with it and have a bit of fun and do something a bit different. Yeah, the tile work in here is absolutely exquisite. The grout is such an unusual choice but it really does work well, doesn't it? Yeah, we love it. It's super fun. We wanted to have matching grout to the tiles for majority of the space and then we thought in the shower we'll do something a bit quirky and do the contrasting grout to, yeah, tie it all in and, yeah, we just love it. Great size shower as well and I really like the design of the shower too especially with that window placement up top. Yeah, the two ledges are great. We can, you know, obviously heaps of storage for cosmetics and stuff like that but then we can also have plants that are just constantly getting light and water so it works out really well. Yeah, the plants really thrive in here. It gets a beautiful amount of morning light and then in the afternoon the sunlight especially in summer the sunlight comes straight through that back window so having a shower and having a cold shower in summer in the afternoon is so nice. Yeah. Very nice indeed and great size vanity too. Yeah, I think storage in the bathroom was something that we really thought about. We had this recessed back into the wall so this is quite a deep cupboard for a normal bathroom. This all opens up and, yeah, we're really happy with the amount of storage. We don't feel like we're lacking space at all in here. Yeah, great. The composting toilet there as well and you've even got a bidet tap for the composting toilet. Yeah, the composting toilet's been great. It's definitely something that we didn't anticipate would be such a smooth transition from a normal toilet but it's definitely something that I wouldn't go back on. The bidet was something, I guess, we didn't really know exactly how you clean them or anything like that so we just put an allowance in there just in case we needed it. We don't really use it a whole lot but... It's mainly just for cleaning and it was something that, yeah, our plumber recommended to us. It was like to have a water source near the toilet so that you can clean it easily. Yeah. That is a great addition. Very clever idea that. And what do we have behind here? This is our laundry. Yeah, right. So we have our washing machine and our linen in there. Laundry basket. Laundry basket and that sort of stuff. Yeah. Cool, nice and easy. Great to have that included as well. Yeah, and I think it's nice that it's, you know, behind a cupboard. I didn't want to have the laundry out on display so it works really well in there. Yeah, I totally agree. It's not something that you want to be looking at all the time. Yeah, definitely. And I never thought that I could have an entire laundry just in one cupboard. It's crazy. It's like works so well. Perfect. Yeah. And so how long have you been living in the home now? We've been here for nearly a year now. We moved in in September last year and it's August now. So yeah, we're coming up to a year. Yeah, it's gone fast, but it's been an awesome journey and I'm looking forward to being here for a while, I think. Yeah. What's life like in this tiny house? It's peaceful. Yeah. Tranquil. It's simple. All of the things that I sort of crave for when I grew up in the city and stuff like that. Yeah, we both live pretty busy lives with our work and our careers and social lives and all of that sort of thing. So having a space that feels calm and simple, it's really nice. Yeah. Before this, you were living in a share house and now you get to have the space all for yourselves. That must be so special. Yeah. The first few nights felt a little bit quiet coming from the hustle and bustle of a share house, but I look back on those times with a lot of joy, but this is where we belong, I think. Yeah, and the puppy seems to absolutely love it here as well. Yeah, he has no shortage of sticks to find in the bush. He loves it. It's so nice. Yeah, it's so nice to see. Well, it's our first home together, so that's something that's really special and being able to own our first home together but know that we also created this together is something, yeah, really beautiful. The start of a new chapter. I think something as well that surprised me moving into this space is that it doesn't actually feel any different for us. I think that the way that we've designed the home, it feels big, it feels spacious. You know, we have friends that live in city apartments that's smaller than our house and we get the benefit of enjoying all of the beautiful nature around us as well. So in terms of adapting to live in a tiny home, yeah, there is some compromises and maybe there is some, you know, getting rid of materialistic items, but you gain so much more. Gotta have a big shed. And a big part of what motivated you to build a tiny house was cost efficiency. Can we talk a little bit about the cost that was involved in building your home? Yeah, so we obviously had it built by a tiny home builder, so there was, you know, a bit more cost expected than if you're going to do it yourself, but leveraging some friends and stuff like that, we built the house for around 150 grand. Great. The landscaping and stuff, we did all of that ourselves. We built the deck on a really cheap basis and got the patio roof off Facebook Marketplace and stuff like that. So once we sort of settled in, we tried to do things as cheaply as we could and I think we came a long way doing it that way. The water tank was secondhand and stuff like that, so trying to recycle as much as we could. Yeah, secondhand shed. Everything's pretty much secondhand or off Marketplace except for the inside furniture, which we had to buy new because we had to have exact measurements and in our previous homes, everything that we've owned has been secondhand, op shops or Marketplace. So even buying new furniture for the space was something new for us. But yeah, we try and do things as affordably and sustainably as we can as well. A lot of it is an investment as well. So with the solar, obviously that's a, you pay that 10 years of power up front for the batteries. So that's a big investment at the start, but it pays itself off over that period and the toilet doesn't use a lot of water and a few things like that. You definitely sometimes have to spend a little bit more at the start, but you start to feel it as the years progress that the overheads are going lower and lower and it's a really great way to live. Yeah, it's that upfront cost, but then after that, life gets really cheap. Yeah, definitely. Well worth it. And now you're so beautifully settled into your home, what's next for you both? A veggie patch. Nice. We want to get a nice, decent veggie patch. We want to maybe get some chickens and start trying to live a little bit more off the land where we can. And we love going down to the local markets on a Tuesday and having that experience, but it'd be nice to do a little bit from here as well. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. This really is just such a magical home you've created. I love the style of this place. It really is one of those places that you walk inside and it just feels good to be in here. Thank you so much for sharing it with me. Thank you very much. Ash and Jacob built this home in the search of simplicity and a more natural life. And here, that is exactly what they've found. This is such a beautiful home that encapsulates everything that they need and so much that just brings them joy and beauty. And sitting here now, looking out into these expansive views and on this beautiful property, I really think they have created a dream set up for themselves.