IMAGINE living in a house that’s about 7m long by 2½m wide.
You can’t stand up straight in the bedroom and storage is at a minimum.
Some Victorians are designing their own tiny houses and are all part of the appropriately-named Tiny House Movement.
Darren Hughes, of Caroline Springs, is a big believer in sustainable living and is designing a tiny house for himself, his partner and his two children to visit on weekends.
Mr Hughes is the founder of the Tiny House Australia Facebook page, which has close to 15,200 followers.
And it’s only in its early stages in Melbourne, with the US movement already having sparked tiny house villages for the homeless, and US companies running conferences, including one in Portland, Oregon, in April.
The movement first sprung to attention when small houses was used to accommodate Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans in 2005.
Jay Shafer, the US designer who has lived in a tiny house for about 18 years, defines tiny houses as being about 9.3 square metres, a stark contrast from Australian house sizes.
Australian houses are the largest in the world with an average of 243 square metres, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Commsec.
And a major factor that determines a house’s greenhouse gas emissions is its size and location — with average Australian houses emitting 18 tonnes per household a year according to the Environment Protection Authority.
Mr Hughes says he knows of at least 15 tiny houses that are either being lived in or built in Australia, but estimates there could be as many as 50, if not more.
He estimates his would cost $30,000 to $40,000 to build, a drop in the ocean compared to Melbourne’s median home price hitting just over $615,000. He is designing his own tiny house for an Australian climate. American companies already sell plans for the American climate online.
“Tiny houses are pretty popular in the US and it’s only now people in Australia are thinking about it,” Mr Hughes said.
There will be three loft bedrooms in his tiny house.
“There is not as much space in a tiny house and it requires people to live a minimal lifestyle,” he said.
“You have to look at using every inch.”
He planned on collecting rainwater from the roof and storing it in a water tank, and his toilets would need to be emptied once a year because they were commercial composting toilets.
His tiny house would be based in country Victoria but could be moved around easily.
“Once I’ve built it, I will ask if I can rent a spot from someone, in their backyard or where there is room,” he said.
Mr Hughes believed when it came to building permits from councils it was still a “grey area” both in Australia and overseas.
“In Australia, most councils simply do not know how to classify them and they try to put them in the same box as normal houses and try to apply old, archaic building codes and size restrictions on them,” he said.
“It’s just a load on a trailer — it gets around all the building permit issues, the timing issues, the costs.”
He said people still had to be sensible and build their tiny house properly.
“I understand the need for building codes to keep people safe...but councils simply do not yet know what a tiny house is and it is a very strange concept for them.”
Mr Hughes said often people did not want the stress and hassle of trying to convince their local councils to let them live in a tiny house.
Because of this, people build their tiny houses, make private arrangements with people they know and park their tiny houses out of sight on appropriate parcels of land or backyards.
“At the end of the day.. if local councils did find out that they were there and did start to ask questions or cause problems, tiny house dwellers could simply hook up their tiny houses to a truck and move them somewhere else,” he said.
Mr Hughes said his tiny house operated similarily to a caravan.
“You can plug it into a power cycle or the other option is to build it completely off grid — all solar power and probably have a portable power generator.”
Templestowe’s Fred Schultz said that because he was building his 10sq m home on a trailer, for himself, his wife Shannon and daughter, Olina, to live in, he did not need a planning permit.
Manningham Council paid Mr Schultz a visit to confirm he was complying to their building practices and to see if he needed a planning permit application.
“Because the house is on wheels, the council did not say it was illegal,” Mr Schultz said.
Mr Schultz has designed his tiny house specifically for the Australian climate, spending close to two years on the design phase.
He has started his own business Fred’s Tiny Houses, offering to build other people’s tiny houses or provide design plans, workshops or consultations, which is a new market in Australia but already widely offered in the US.
Hume Council sustainability city director Kelvin Walsh said the council’s planning scheme had some exemptions for planning approval of tiny houses but it depended on where the houses were built, the zoning and whether it was the only dwelling or a second dwelling on the site.
Mr Walsh said people should get advice from the council.
“Anyone proposing to build one of these tiny houses should seek advice from the Statutory Planning Department in the form of a property information request. Separate to a planning approval, these dwellings would need building approval.
“Council advocates for the provision of a range of housing types to meet the diverse needs of the Hume community,” Mr Walsh said.
Andrew “Belly” Bell and his fiance Ali Crawford have been shedding “stuff” in preparation for their “tiny” life.
“One of the things I get asked a lot is, ‘why don’t you just buy a caravan’.”
“For me a caravan is like a frozen packaged meal you buy at the supermarket. The tiny house is a meal you make at home with your own vegetables that you’ve grown that you love, it’s something unique each time,” Mr Bell said.
The 33-year-old has spent a year living in a tent near Bendigo in a trial of simplifying and said the experience had brought him closer to nature. They are now getting ready for what they are calling their “tiny”.
“I guess Ali and I came across it online first, via social media,” Mr Bell said.
“It was a big step to see how I went living off the grid, and removed from communal living or in a share house. It just makes sense to us.”
“I knew I wasn’t going to be that regular homeowner, that just wasn’t in my bones.”
Now the couple are planning to build a tiny house this year and said one of the most appealing aspects was that as a tiny homeowner, there was no mortgage.
“We’re of a generation where home ownership is quite difficult,” he said.
“The fact that for a relatively small amount of money we can build a home and move where we want, when we want. We’re willing to give up a few things and some creature comforts but that’s a trade-off for what we get.”
“I think people are seeing a different way to combat the rocketing mortgages and house prices. We have so much land in Australia that we can use.”
St Kilda architect Wesley Spencer, who is the director of Rara Architecture, said with the rise of the cost of living, people were looking for alternatives.
“For years I have worked for clients who constantly believe bigger is better. Homes are getting too big, isolating the people who live in them, even from themselves,” he said.
Mr Spencer said tiny houses gave the opportunity for “giving up the rat race and inviting opportunities to see the country we live in”.
But with the rise of the movement overseas, Mr Spencer said there were loopholes to jump through in Australia.
“If it’s a movable building, it means it can be placed on a site with different building conditions — such as a bushfire zone. The building needs to be fitted to endure the worst case zoning requirements, which might be a little difficult to cater for,” he said.
“Also there are strict rules on where you can or can’t park your house. I’d suggest checking council websites.”
He said he could see tiny houses being popular in Victoria but regulations needed to be relaxed.
“The tiny house has a lot to teach us, it’s about realising that space does not equate to comfort, but the less there is equates to bonding with your loved ones.”
Ms Crawford, 30, of Brunswick East said the couple had put up flyers, looking for properties around Woodend where they would build and park their tiny house.
Eight people responded, one where the farm and paddock needed a bit of clearing to be used for agistment for horses.
“It would be 25 dollars per horse per week, so 50 dollars per week for us,” she said.
“We’re the same price as a horse. That’s totally reasonable for us.”
Ms Crawford hoped the tiny house would take only eight months to build, “depending on how we’ll get everything”.
A tiny house is often built on a trailer: the width must be 2.4m wide to fit on a road and 4.3m high to come within boundaries for bridges and lights, but could be 7m long.
“We’ll have it on a trailer that can be moved, we need to make sure the weight distribution is right, we wouldn’t be moving all the time, but it means we can move it.”
The trailer must be registered and comply with VicRoads roadworthy certifications.
The plans for their tiny house include a compostable toilet using rainwater run-off and a solar powered pump to pump the water behind the kitchen, as well as a shower.
Mr Bell expects the tiny house will cost them about $20,000 and they wanted to give themselves the time to explore different designs and materials and do it in a community to share it with other people.
“It’s very much in line with our values, in terms of living with less, doing more, the fact you have a small house that means you can do more with the community around you, as with where you put your house,” he said.
“The fact it cuts back to basics to us, that’s really important. Shelter, water, heat, food, the fact that we can design and build our own is really cool.
“But the movement itself is about sharing and learning from one another and sharing different ideas and different tools,” he said.
The couple have already gone to “tiny house” meet-up groups in Melbourne, where enthusiasts are sharing tips and tricks to make their dream home a reality.
They spoke at The Transitions Film Festival at the beginning of March, alongside the film Microtopiawhich considers sustainable living and with Melbourne filmmaker Jeremy Beasley of Small is Beautiful: A Tiny House Documentary.
But what happens if the couple want children?
Ms Crawford said the tiny house they were looking at building was a larger size and could be fine for one child, but as their kids grew and needed space, they’d consider building another tiny house.
“It’s a bit out of the box, which a lot of people are scared of, but it’s a whole movement and I think particularly young Australians are looking at doing things in a different way and don’t necessarily want to go down the path that a lot of other Australians tend to go down.”
She said while there weren’t many people living in tiny houses in Australia yet, there were lots of people wanting to or in the planning stages.
CHRIS Malikoff, 52, only decided a tiny house was right for him in the past few years.
“I got divorced about five or six years ago,” he said.
“Not being married, I don’t need the big home. I don’t want to be tied to this monstrosity for the next 12 years. That was a very quick decision.”
Mr Malikoff lives in Lake Macquarie in NSW in a house, while he fits out his tiny house.
“The basic build is done … I still need to build stairwells and cupboard space,” he said.
“It will be nine months before I am ready to live in it … until I gradually migrate to living that lifestyle,” he said.
“It’s a fairly heavy jump, you need to downsize everything. I can’t do that yet, I have to cut it down and have a plan.”
Mr Malikoff said the reason he decided to live in a tiny house was to save money and resources, but said he recognised other tiny home dwellers lived in them to be environmentally friendly.
“I think it’s admirable, I don’t want to waste anything but that’s not my motivation, my motivation is to save cash and not the earth,” he said.
His tiny house was a prototype build, which cost about $28,000 without labouring costs.
“I got all of the inclusions, kitchen included, everything is ready to go, fridge and toilet and gas heating,” he said.
“To me I don’t feel claustrophobic, there is a lot of room in it, there are two lofts, you sleep upstairs,” he said.
“If you are someone who is used to a big place and get claustrophobic when you go into a caravan, think about it very carefully because a lot of people can’t do it,” he said.
“I’ve spent a few nights in it. For those cool nights I have slept in it, it’s very peaceful. The thick wooden walls, the rain on the roof, it’s just beautiful.”
Rob Scott’s studio trucks
ROB Scott sits in the armchair of a “studio truck” he built a few years back. There are large windows on one side, a peaked roof and a double bed inside. The trained architect and farmer said his creation was part of the burgeoning Tiny House Movement.
“I think there is an unconscious thing about the tiny house movement. It’s something people can do. It’s on wheels so it’s not a fixed structure and I think that’s one of the big things, it really attracts the do-it-yourself people,” he said.
Mr Scott, 51, is one of those “do-it-yourself” people.
He lives at Hollyburton farm, with his wife Colita, 43, and three children, Arthur, 13, Hayley, 17 and Madeline, 20.
Mr Scott has lived on the 178ha acre property near Woodend for about 21 years, originally housing an ostrich farm before selling them in 1997 after the outbreak of a deadly disease, He now sells cattle, lamb, pork and eggs.
“I didn’t know much about farming when we came. I asked questions, trial and error,” he said.
The family lives fairly self-sufficiently, harvesting rain water, 50 per cent of what they eat comes from the farm, they have a compostable toilet, with their waste going to the garden and the kids are homeschooled, were home-birthed, not vaccinated, but regular WOOFERS (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) allowed a cultural exchange between the kids and those working on the farm.
“It’s been hard with the drought. Everyone would be in a tough situation at the moment,” he said.
Since the drought took hold, Rob has found a new passion, building tiny houses on the back of trucks.
He’s built six so far, and they surround his brick home like a tiny truck village.
“I always built cubbies as a kid and in the drought I got more into building, because the farm wasn’t doing that good.”
“I realised I had an old truck and it would be cheaper to build a house on an old truck.”
Mr Scott would spend between $2000-$5000 on a truck and spends about three — six months building, with overall output about $15,000.
The tiny weatherboard house, built with scraps and bits bought from eBay, is used as cubby houses for the kids, or extra rooms for visitors. Now Mr Scott is helping other tiny house enthusiasts design and build their dream home.
“There’s a sense of “I can do it” with a tiny house, there’s a sense of taking control of their life, they’re not just consuming.”
“Then there’s all the simplification aspect of it, which is just awesome and the lower costs and the lower (environmental) footprint ... but I really think it’s an empowerment and meaning thing.”
Mr Scott believed the movement was about turning away from consumerist lifestyles and going back to basics.
He said as people got more lost in mobile phones and computers and consuming, “the art of actually socialising with the person next to you is falling away”.
“So as things get extreme in one area, it bounces back to the other,” he said.
“There’s a whole movement to homesteading and survival and becoming wild again,” he said.
Mr Hughes said he believed “tiny house people” were asking themselves what really made them happy.
“Life is too short. We only get one shot at this and there is a large number of people ... that are starting to re-assess what they are doing with their lives,” he said.
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Originally published as How $30k can get you into a house