The Build – In Pictures

I actually started this blog purely because I believe in the Tiny House movement and what it represents for the people.

Before we started building this house, we had enough money in the bank to pay for a good portion of a real house within our city. But it just isn’t the life we want to live. House prices in New Zealand have been north of $600,000NZD for some time. Even with a decent deposit, we would still be looking at a mortgage of $3000 a month (including insurance). Which is a phenomenal amount of money just to exist in a space.

Not to mention, Gordon and I are both quite nomadic. We spent the previous 6 years living and working in China as English teachers. We also regularly travel to different countries for holidays. Being saddled with a $3000NZD a month mortgage would simply end that lifestyle.

Originally, we considered building a motorhome. I have built 2 motorhomes previously (1 high roof Ford Transit van, and 1 9 meter long bus). They were both perfectly livable long term. They had bathrooms, showers, kitchens, lounge areas and beds. But Gordon was adamant he wanted space for his gaming computer setup. I also came to the conclusion that I would probably go crazy not having a yard/shed/workshop area. So we settled on a happy little medium. A Tiny House.

That Tiny House had to be built as economical as possible to justify the building cost. We worked out at the time, we were paying $17,163 a year to rent a tiny 2 bedroom flat in the city. If we could build a Tiny House with a budget of $25,000NZD ($15,000USD), and calculate the rent cost of about $5,000nzd for land for the year. In 2 years the Tiny House would have made its investment back just from the rent saving. So we started costing it up and realised that as long as we made some sacrifices and built it ourselves, we could do it.

And done did it we did. (Anyone would think I’m not an English teacher)

Here are some photos of the Tiny House now’ish (we were in the process of building an awning):