They Built a Resilient Off Grid Tiny Home For Uncertain Times | Tiny House Big Living

When I think about going off the grid in a tiny house, so much of it is really about taking control. Taking control of our finances, of our power, of our water, our food. All of these things that are essential for our modern lives. And today here in Victoria, we're about to visit a stunning DIY tiny house that has tackled these things beautifully. Hi Lizzie, how are you? Hey Bryce, how are you? Very well, thank you. G'day David, how are you doing Bryce? Very well, thanks. It is so nice to see you both again, because of course this is my second time meeting you. We met many years ago at a tiny house festival when you were just starting to dream of building your home. Yes, that was Sydney 2020 March in St Ives. Yeah, that was a game changer that one. Yeah, it was a great event, wasn't it? Very good. Well, it's so great for me to see that you have brought your tiny house dream to life now. This is so exciting. Thank you. Thank you. Tell me about your journey into this home. Ah, that's a great question. We were living in Hong Kong and we basically decided to move in 2018. We made the decision. That's why we were at the tiny house carnival. Yeah. And geopolitically speaking, it just seemed like the right time to move back to Australia for me and to Australia for Lizzie. And tiny house was just a perfect option for so many reasons. And of course, having lived in Hong Kong before, you're both no stranger to small space living, are you? That's right. This home with its outdoor area is bigger than our last apartment in Hong Kong. Really? Yeah. It's a luxury for us. Yeah. And you've got so much more space around you too. Yes, indeed. There are no high rises here. No. And speaking of that, this parking spot is absolutely beautiful. How did you find this place? This was through parkmytinyhouse.com.au with Brioni. Yeah, who you've visited her tiny house. That's right. Yeah, we did. So she basically brokered us with our current landlord for this parking spot. Yeah. This is quite a large working farm, isn't it? It's about 700 acres. Yeah. And we have a quarter of an acre. Yeah. Fantastic. And you've just started setting up your section here as well. You're looking at the blank canvas pretty well. Yeah. It's a blank canvas right now, but we're going to turn this into a food forest, won't we? Yeah, that's the goal. What a great idea. And a quarter acre is actually a perfect amount of land to play with in order to do that, isn't it? It is. It's quite a lot. We're going to be doing a ton of food here. Yeah. Awesome. I can't wait to see that. And you're creating quite a cool off-grid set up here on this property too. Yeah, that's right. We're fully off the grid. We've got rainwater catchment. We have gas for our on-demand hot water and our stove and we've got solar. Yeah, perfect. And you've started setting up something really cool with your greywater here as well, haven't you? Yes, we have. That was from one of your earlier clips with a the grease trap, the worm farm and then the reed beds. That's right. Murray's set up. Correct. So we just copied that as we do a lot with your shows. Oh, that was a great idea and it works so well, doesn't it? It's such a simple system too, but so efficient. Yeah, exactly. And so tell me a little bit more about what it was that really attracted you to the idea of living in a tiny house. Smaller footprint, affordability and just that alternative living that we need to all embrace because of the housing crisis all over the world. Yeah, self-sustainability. Yeah, and minimalism. Yeah, so yeah, I guess that's part of the smaller footprint. Yeah, absolutely. And I can tell that what you're doing here on the land with the tiny house, with the gardens that you plan to establish going off the grid, you're building a lot of resilience here as well, aren't you? Yeah, that's the goal. I think in these uncertain times, one of the best things you can do is attempt to grow your own food. I agree. So that's the next big goal, basically. Great. Yeah. And this tiny house, you designed and built this all yourselves, didn't you? We did. We have to thank you because we borrowed the design from one of your New Zealand episodes. Oh, cool. The Pahutukawa design. We just swapped it around. We reversed it. And then YouTube University, that helped a lot as well. Yeah, great. You don't really have experience in building. No, no, we came into it. We're pretty proud of our perfectly imperfect home. Yeah, beautiful. You're so right about that as well. YouTube has just become such a powerful resource for builders and people that are just wanting to give something a go. Because if you have any question about any aspect of building, you can almost guarantee that someone has created an instructional video on it somewhere out there. And tell me about the process of building this for you. What was it like actually getting stuck into your own build project? That was arguably one of the best jobs I've had. And it was nine months. And Lizzie basically worked part time so I could work full time on the house. Oh, great. Yeah. And we lucked out with people helping us along the way, didn't we? Well, we manifested it. And then when we arrived in Australia, we were so blessed to have the supporting backbone, like my friend's friend, and we landed on a place where we can actually build our tiny house for free. Oh, wow. Yeah. And we're so grateful. And then the building process, basically, we used plumbers and electricians for all that stuff. And we had a Harry. Harry was our, gosh, master builder of 45 years experience who helped us do all of the plumbing and difficult things. So handy to have somebody like that, that you can just call on for the tricky stuff. And just if there's anything you're not quite sure about, just get a little bit of help and guidance. And I absolutely love the style of this tiny house, especially nestled here into this hillside. It just looks absolutely idyllic. Thank you. Thank you so much. Can you tell me about the exterior design? Yeah, sure. So when we started building the tiny house, we pretty well went for the easiest option. We were lucky enough to have the build four minutes away from the closest Bunnings. So we used everything pretty well brand new and just the easiest way to do it. The outside cladding is Weathertex. It's good old colourbond roofing. And the windows were custom built for us by local people. Okay, good. And you've got this great outdoor space as well, a place to sit and take in the views. Yeah, I had to have a veranda because you just need to double that living space basically. And what are the dimensions of your home? The dimensions are eight metres long by two and a half metres wide and 4.3 the standard legal height. Well, this place is just absolutely beautiful. And your tiny home just looks so perfect here nestled amongst this gorgeous landscape. And I cannot wait to see what you've done on the inside. Can we take a look? Of course. Okay. Gosh, this is lovely. Your home is so beautifully styled. Thank you very much, Bryce. It's nice of you to say. Yeah, we spent a lot of time basically designing it. I'm more in charge of the paint work and yeah, plants and stuff like colours, colours, colour scheme. It wasn't easy. We had a lot of challenging conversation and discussion. It was a slightly difficult birth. Right. Just in terms of conflicting design ideas or? Yeah, because I'm a bit more modern and it's a bit more traditional in a way. But you have reached such a beautiful point in this home where everything just comes together so harmoniously. And I feel like you've created the best of both worlds. Thank you. Yeah. So for instance, we ordered the trailer that has the wheel arches poking up. And so we sunk the floor in with that step in mind. Yes. And we also, the joists underneath the floor, because they're sitting directly on the metal trailer, we turn them 90 degrees. So instead of having a 70mm joist height, it's a 35mm joist height. Oh, great. So it saves space for the headroom in the loft. Perfect. Really nice. I think you really do feel like this is such a nice spacious home, especially entering into this part of the home where you've got the full height of the house to enjoy. And then you've also got the full set of skylights along the roofline, which just looks so good. Yeah, that was another one of my deal breakers and promoting that diurnal living. Yeah. When the sun goes down, we're in bed and we are. And we are, yes. And when the sun rises, we're up. So it works out really well. And the only lighting we do have in here are LED strip lighting, which is great for the solar in the loft, the kitchen and the bathroom. That's it. The rest are just lamps. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, such a nice way of doing it. And again, just living all the time with that natural light is such a great way, isn't it? It's just sort of immersing yourself into the natural rhythms. Yeah. And of course, entering the home, we are now in your lounge space, beautifully built-in couch and who couldn't love the wood fire? Yes, the Cubic Mini. So there's a small story there. We originally got a much bigger fireplace, which you can see was pretty well this shape here. And it was about that high. So it was it was large. But we got told that our plumber who was going to put the flue in and set it, he couldn't sign off on it because it was just way too close to the sofa. So we ended up going with the Canadian Cubic Mini, which has been fantastic. They're such beautiful fires. And I think one of the things that makes these so good as well is they're so efficient on their clearances. Initially, they're designed for boats and camper vans. Yeah. So it's great. Beautifully done. And storage in here as well? Yeah, absolutely. I built it, but Lizzie filled it. Yeah, kind of. I drew it and then he made it happen for me. This is why he's so great. Yeah. When I want something done, he just makes it happen. Yeah. And I see you've got the radios there as well. And that is just such a brilliant idea. Yeah, that's a part of us becoming ruralised. Lizzie gets one, I get the other and we can talk to each other. I think it's a 25 kilometre range or something. It's one of those safety things that not a lot of people think about. So whenever I see that someone's got a radio in the house, I'm like, yeah, I'm very proud of you. This is such a good, very well thought through. Yes. And then this ladder leads up to your office. Indeed. More of my office than anything else because I fit there perfectly when I'm sat, but he can fit as well. I just fit. When I lower the office chair. Yep. Lovely bookshelf and decoration built into this part of the home as well. Especially that plant box up there looks really good. Yeah. I've taken much of David's space because that's his and hers. But I've taken a bit of his space as I usually do. It's a reoccurring theme here. It just makes it a bit more. Separate space. Separate space from the whole house. Oh, and we have to introduce you to Frommie, who's just been going crazy since we planted him up there. Yeah, that is impressive. Yeah. Fantastic. Plants always just do such a good job of making a space feel welcoming, don't they? Yeah, absolutely. And I have to thank Lizzie for that. She's the one with the green thumbs. Now, your kitchen. This is absolutely beautiful. I can really see that the kitchen is a very important room in this house to you. Thank you. Yes, it is. We both like cooking. Lizzie's better at it than me. She can look into the fridge and 45 minutes later, there's food on the table where I have to get right into my recipes, go shopping, plan it out at least, you know, 12 hours in advance. We've got the copper sink. The copper kitchen is actually one of the things that I really wanted. And I said to David, I have to have this one. And he was like, OK, let's make it happen. Because the color theme of the place is green, copper, maybe gold and wood. Yeah. But we also have this portable, movable kitchen bench. Right. That, you know, when we have visitors, we can just pull it in the middle or just take it outside. We can even have a dance floor when it's gone. Yeah. So give it a bit of space. I like to cook. I do my cooking classes as well. So it's just a great little nook for us. Yeah, because you actually teach cooking classes as well, don't you? I do. Sometimes I do my cooking class. I teach Filipino cooking classes from time to time, which I absolutely adore because I just love the thought of sharing my roots because I grew up in the Philippines. I just wanted to share what I can and utilize Australian ingredients as much as possible. Yeah. And I love Filipino cooking as well. It's just so good. I'm actually afraid that if I ever visit the Philippines when I get back to New Zealand, I won't be able to fit in my tiny house. I doubt it. I think as long as you do a lot of exercise, this is why we complement each other because I like to cook. I like to eat as well. But he runs his business, PT business. So I go do the trainings and justifies my eating. The perfect match. Exactly. And you've got lots of prep space in there and it is a very fully featured kitchen, isn't it? We modeled this kitchen on a lot of the kitchens that we've had in Hong Kong apartments. And it's basically a galley kitchen, but it's got enough space for everything we wanted. We've got a gas stove and oven, which is perfect. That saves our solar. We also have a chef's window that opens up onto the veranda, which is fantastic. Lovely. Yeah. That's such a great way of doing it as well. Taking your favorite elements from all of your past kitchens and putting them all together into this home. Yeah. It's pretty foolproof, isn't it? Well, I enjoyed it. We've also got a little breakfast nook around the corner there because we've got the bedroom stairs above all of our shelves and pantry and fridge. We had space and it just all sits in there nicely. And then above the kitchen is your bedroom. Yes. Our sleeping loft is one of our favorite spaces to be. A couple of things we did. We've got a miniaturized futon base underneath the mattress just to sort of preserve the mattress lifespan. And we also have a lot of headroom in the loft, so we can completely sit up. And the stairs going up the side of the bed means that I obviously sleep on the stair side and Lizzie goes around to the other side because there's a slight height difference there. Right. Yeah. And we don't have any clothes storage or anything much apart from the bed up there, which is one of my... I don't really like the idea of crawling across a bed to access clothes storage. Yeah. And also we don't have a lot of... there's just a skylight and the loft end window, which is perfect for ventilation, letting in light. We want to be cocooned basically when we're sleeping and then left by because we want to wake up when the light is up and then sleep when it's dark. And it reminded me of tree houses that I built as a kid when we sleep in the loft. It does a bit, doesn't it? It kind of has that cubby tree house vibe. It's cozy, it's safe, it's secure. We thought hard about how we're going to design it. We were thinking of the louvers. Having louvers that opened all of these automatically. But they're manual, so you can open them right up. Right. To increase airflow, especially in summer. Yeah, nice. That's a good idea. Yeah. The floors in here are absolutely beautiful as well. Thank you, Bryce. They are... Tasmanian oak? Yes, Tasmanian oak. And that was the first thing we built on the trailer. And we've also got both lofts and the stairs leading up to the sleeping loft in Tasmanian oak as well. Such a gorgeous timber. Yeah. We've utilized all of the timbers in here, including the last bit, which you can see is a tiny bit in there. That's the story behind that. It's almost like a keystone. It is. It was the last tiny bit of Tasmanian oak we had, which went right there. I love that you have used absolutely every last bit of it. And around the corner here, it looks like there's a lot going on. Is this kind of a laundry space over here? That's our universal clothes storage unit, which we're very proud of, because it's just a very easy access for pretty well 70% of our clothing. Correct. That we use on a daily basis. Everything in here has been handmade and he's done it all, basically. Fantastic. And there's an interesting story that goes along with that beautiful LG washing machine down there. We don't usually have enough water to run the washing machine. Yeah, that's a 60 liter minimum wash. So with a 5,000 liter tank, we often find ourselves using the local laundry mat. Is water so restricted here? Pretty well, yeah. It's a 5,000 liter tank because of the area of rainwater catchment we are limited to. And then we have to draw water from a nearby tank when it gets low. And that's true because this is actually quite a dry part of the state in general, isn't it? Yeah, very dry. Yeah. And getting drier, unfortunately. Yeah. And then tucked into the corner there is your bathroom. Can we have a look at that? Absolutely. Okay. Oh, this is a lovely design. And hey, I love the bathtub. Yes, that was one of Lizzie's deal breakers. Yeah. Was to have a bathtub. I actually fit into it as well. Yeah, it's good, isn't it? I love it. Just, you know, in Hong Kong, you don't really get to have like a bath as such. Showers only. Never had any. So when we got here and made our own tiny house, why not? Just, you know, we can design it and put it in. It's just one of those things that absolutely beautifully finishes the home. Gorgeous copper tap. We're in here again as well. Again, tying into that color theme of the home. Yeah, that's Lizzie's choice again. She picked all the tapware. So, yeah, there's that copper theme, which never seems to age, does it? Yeah. And they age beautifully as well when they do. And the composting toilet there too? Yeah, the separate, once we adapted to composting toilet life, never looked back and it's really good. And a very interesting design with the vanity here. So we've got the vanity there, which is Lizzie's domain. And then we've got the drawer just underneath the vanity bench. That's mine. Great. And then underneath the vanity and below that, we've got our kitty litter tray and the walkthrough. They've essentially got a walk-in bathroom for the cats. Cats are just always so spoilt in tiny house design, aren't they? Yes. They do look like very happy cats. They are very lush cats. They get very well fed and very well groomed. And how long have you been living here now? We've been living in this parking spot for two years and we were in our first parking spot for one year, so three years in total. And coming into this tiny house has been such an incredible journey for you both. It was something that you were dreaming of even before you came back to Australia. How is the reality of tiny house living matching up to your expectations? Surprisingly easy, because when we designed it, we wanted to design it so it was as comfortable as any apartment we'd ever lived in. We don't lack for anything. But we also like functionality, so we really love living in our tiny house. Bryce, you're always saying you build your first tiny house for your enemy, you build your second tiny house for a friend, and then your third tiny house is for yourself. We've pretty well done a pretty good job on the first effort, because we had so much time to design it. I think it was 19 months in the designing process and frequently going to YouTube University. Yeah, and I think having come from Hong Kong, where you both lived and very small apartments there as well, you very much have already a good idea of how you utilize your space and exactly the way that you needed to design this tiny house to make it work for you. Yeah, a live course of ergonomics, basically. Well said, I like that. For me, it's being independent from anyone or anything. With being off the grid, we don't depend on people for electricity or water or gas. We do it all ourselves. Eventually, the food will become like that as well, and I think that's what appeals to me the most. Yeah, it's peacefulness, and it's just being away from all the stress that's happening. You come home here and feel like you've actually been transported to a resort somehow, because you go to work, you get all that stress and business of life, but you come home here and you just feel like, ah, I'm home. You cannot wait to come home, actually. And what about the cost of building your home? We've discussed this a lot. So what we've worked out, the closest we can get is landed here, including the veranda, including the water catchment and the solar. It's about $130,000 Australian, which is not including the nine months worth of DIY that we put into it. Yeah. So it's not bad. Great result. Yeah, and bearing in mind as well, those were the times when we were building, the cost of materials tripled in price. Yeah, that was mid-COVID, so we were paying premium dollar for plywood especially. So yeah. Yeah. The costs went up alarmingly during COVID, and to be honest, they really haven't come back down since, have they? No. They went sky high and just stayed there. Yeah, $130,000, I think that is a great result. You've got such a quality home there for that, and a beautiful parking spot, your solar system, all of that resilience built in. Now, I just can't wait to see some gardens out there. Yeah, let's see. Yes, so hopefully when you revisit us in two to three years' time, you'll have a chock-a-block quarter of an acre of food. If it's not feeding us, it's going to be feeding chooks, bees and worms. I would absolutely love to see that, and hopefully we will be back to see you in a few years' time then. That'd be awesome. Yeah. This really is just such a beautiful home that you've created for yourselves. I can really see how much thought and effort you put into the design, and just how much love you put into the build of this home, and making sure it was exactly what you need. Thank you so much for sharing it with me. Thank you so much, Bryce. Thank you, Bryce. Lizzie and David have done such an amazing job designing and building their tiny home, and I think one of the things that really sticks out to me about this whole project is all of the thought that they've put towards building resilience in their lives. Building a tiny house, going off the grid, collecting their own solar power and rainwater, and even now starting to grow their own gardens. With all of the crazy stuff that's happening in the world, maybe this is something that we should all be thinking about doing.