NEVER TOO SMALL 40sqm/430sqft Tiny Cabin - Gawthorne's Hut

Gawthorne's Hut is situated on our 480-acre working farm where we have grass-fed beef and haymaking using sustainable practices. Guests who come to Gawthorne's Hut absolutely love coming and staying on their own. They have their own laneway to drive up from Mudgee and their piece of Woolgoura is just for them. I'm Steph Gordon, my husband and I are the property owners of Woolgoura and the hosts of Gawthorne's Hut. Gawthorne's Hut's on the outskirts of Mudgee, a small township about three and a half hours drive from Sydney. Gawthorne's Hut was specifically designed to host on Airbnb from the get-go. Mudgee had a vibrant and existing tourism industry and we had a spot on our farm that we thought we would love to share with others. We talked as a family when we often picnicked and decided that it would be a positive use of the land there to build Airbnb type accommodation. We really wanted to build something that was a little bit different and unique with the view that doing so would get the project a lot more exposure and to do it well we knew that we had to get an architect involved. The main idea was to really create a simple robust building that was able to reference the materiality and the elements around it. So the small space is maximised by having you know limited internal walls and having a quite open plan. The only spot that's enclosed is the toilet. One of the main parts of the brief was to create an off-grid sustainable building. It was really important that we got the orientation right for the solar panels. So the 30 degree roof means that we get great output from the solar panels which was important. The building was designed with a 6.6 kilowatt off-grid solar system. We have 12 kilowatts of battery storage which is housed away on the western side of the building. You don't see any of that at all. It's behind a big opening panel. The building also has 40,000 litres of rainwater storage. 20,000 litres of that is reserved for firefighting. This building's in a bushfire prone area. The building's designed for maximum natural ventilation and with maximum insulation values where possible. Double glazed timber windows and doors are operable so the building can cross ventilate in every direction. The flooring is a polished concrete slab. The slab was really about grounding the building in the landscape while also providing a good amount of thermal mass. We lined the building with black butt ply. We wanted something that was a little bit darker and more higher end than your normal plywood. A ceiling fan provides cooling in summer. A small wood fireplace provides heating in winter. The kitchen is fairly minimal. We built it out of some of the leftover timber from the walls and ceiling. There's a two burner gas cooker and a fridge. The dining space itself is just an extension of the kitchen bench. Looking out over the view with a big window that can be opened for natural ventilation. The dining area also allows the space to be used as a study or workspace if required. The main idea was that a lot of the dining could really happen outside you know by the fire pit sitting on the concrete step outside. The bedroom has a king-size bed. We had it made locally by a furniture maker. In terms of the bed head we've used reclaimed bricks from an old chimney that we had on the property. It's quite low to the ground and it's positioned under the lowest part of the ceiling so it creates quite an intimate sleeping space. The bathroom was intended as an open space really which is about sort of maximizing the feeling of space internally but it also allows good views from all angles of the property from both the bath and the shower. We can get away with that because the building's positioned in a quite an isolated spot on a farm so there's no privacy issues with the open bathroom. The only enclosed area is the toilet. The recycled brick bed head just helps mediate between the bathroom area beyond and just giving a little bit of separation to the sleeping space. Because it was going to be guests that were using the space and when they were coming here it would typically be for the first time we just needed to be really conscious about the building being very intuitive and how it was going to be used so things like light switches to be easily located, the kitchen appliances being able to be used without instructions. You might have guests arriving late at night after driving so the building's always set up lighting going, possibly the fireplace roaring as a welcoming gesture. Pasteo and Airbnb gave Rick and I the opportunity to value add to our farm to also create an income stream that was more sustainable than cattle grazing on that particular piece of land. The farm's into its third generation. We feel that we're setting our farm up as a more profitable business to ensure the continuity of family ownership. What we've loved most about hosting on Airbnb is being involved in the vibrant, mudgy tourism community and having guests say that they've experienced something unique and positive that has created memories for them that they're going to take home with them. Each year we as a family have a tree planting day where we put in species local to our area in an attempt to offset a bit of our carbon use and return Woolgoura to a more bush-like setting. We're going to give our guests that experience and they can plant a tree before they leave and make their own small contribution to a greener, more eco-friendly Australia. People have busy lives and I think they need time to reset, chill and just relax and Gawthon's Hut provides that opportunity.