MASSIVE 3-Bedroom TINY HOUSE - Perfect Design For Family Life!

To me, when I think about one of the most underappreciated aspects of what it really means to be home, it is not the physical structure itself but it is the people that we're home with. I know for me, my house wouldn't be my home if it weren't for the people that I love being there and this next story, I think, beautifully reflects exactly that. Hi Trudy, it's lovely to meet you. Nice to meet you. Hi Mahui, how you doing mate? Pleasure, pleasure. It is so nice to be here and what a spot you've created for yourselves. It's not too bad. Yeah, yeah. It's alright. Pretty lucky to be here. Yeah. Tell me about your journey into tiny home living. Well, when we got pregnant with our baby, we moved up here. It was a bit of a battle between where we were going to move, my home or his home, and I put a proposal together, typical Trudy fashion, to show him all the perks of moving to the north and so we moved in with my parents who are right next door and they've got a one bedroom studio. So we lived in there for nearly two years and in that time it was, do we buy a house? Do we buy some land? And we decided that we really wanted to be close to my parents, to the support system that we had here, why we moved up here. So we wanted to build on this land, but to do so, we had to go tiny because there were so many restrictions around our zone and we had a lot of friends who had tiny homes that we could go and visit, see what it was like and then we just obsessed over your YouTube channel and we just watched lots and lots and lots of tiny home videos and once, I guess, for me anyways, once I make a decision, I'm all in. Yeah, the tiny home approach became the pathway forward for us. As we were looking at growing our own little family, the answer was, oh, tiny home living was the answer for it. Yeah, it's not a little family though, it's quite a big family. Big now. You guys are growing. Yeah, yeah, definitely and the babies are just thriving in the environment. Tiny home living brings you a lot closer, so the babies just think it's a big playhouse. Yeah, they're young kids. So we've got a nearly four year old and then we've got a one year old. I guess when we were drawing up our why should we go tiny, a big one was the financial barriers that we were having to purchasing a traditional house and then secondly was we really wanted our girls to enjoy outside and so with a smaller house, it means they have a bigger playground outside and we're really proud of how that's worked in our tiny home. Yeah and the situation that you've created for yourselves here is just so perfect. You've got this lovely garden and I love that you're so connected to your parents as well because I am such a huge proponent for multi-generational living and all of the benefits that you've spoken of. Yeah, it works for us because of everything. I don't think it would have worked if we didn't have that as well. I'd also say it was a way of us recognising the somewhat privileged situation that we're in as a family with a property that's pretty sizeable because a lot of others are not in that situation where they have a plot of land and they can just plonk something on it and build. Yeah, I think we've all grown up in this culture that for so long has idealised individualism. You've got to go out and make everything happen on your own and within that we have lost so much of what it means to have those support networks, to actually pull resources together and create these really mutually beneficial situations for each other. Yeah, for Māori though it's really normal for us to grow up in an intergenerational house and to be closely connected to the people who lift you up. We've got whānau here in Whangārei as well and we've made some really good friends. We've got really safe spaces, circles, who love to come here to our taini who will bring their kids. My nieces and nephews, when we had our house warming, they were like, this is my favourite house ever! Both parents are quite big on manaakitanga in terms of hosting and Shirley's parents, they're super hosts and so any visitor is treated to fine dining and somewhat like royalty and their manaakitanga is next level. So when we finally settled and we had the deck, we felt it was important to be an extended arm of that hospitality, of that manaakitanga. I love that you said that because I think so frequently when we're talking about houses, there's all of this focus around design and functionality and yeah, all of that matters but it's so easy in the discussion of architecture to forget that home is really about people. Yeah, it's funny you say that because I had a friend come over and I was like, and I'm going to put a shelf on this wall and I'm going to put things, she's like, why don't you just put an art piece? And I was like, no because it needs to be practical, it needs to have multi-purposes, I've got storage and she was like, things are allowed to just be pretty. That piece of advice stays with me now because yeah, we're making a home and for our girls, they don't care about practicality so that was a big part in how we dress our tiny is making it feel like a really homely space. Yeah, now we found you guys on TikTok where you are so funny. The videos that you've been creating of life in your tiny home, they're just so good. How did you get started on TikTok? We're dinosaurs in that we prefer Instagram to TikTok and so we started on Instagram and we just wanted to share tiny living, normalise what it was like for a whānau Māori with two young girls to live in a tiny home so that was at the core and then we've got a couple of good mates who are also social media influencers and I would just meet with them and they would be like, you're going to do really well if you do, you know, share more about who you guys are and I was like, no but people want to know about the home, they just want to know how many drawers we have. He was like, they really don't, they want to get to know you a little bit more so it's, you know, through your storytelling then you bring them into how you live in your home and so we took that and kind of just ran with it. Yeah and TikTok is the app that the younger generation are reaching for and they may see themselves following that same path and building something that's better than this for what we have and that just leads towards what success might look like as a young Māori family in five to ten years time. And you call this your not-so-tiny home and it's true, this is a not-so-tiny home. I think the deck adds a lot to it and it was a non-negotiable for us moving into our tiny home that we weren't going to move in until the deck was done and it just creates so much more living space and yeah, what I mean, a tiny home with three bedrooms? Yeah. It's crazy. What size is it? So this is a 12 by 3, two-story, 60 square meters. Cool. And then obviously you have extended the space so well with this deck area and it's all enclosed and how lovely as well that you can sort of have all of this wonderful enclosed outdoor living and then you've still got this wonderful garden, like great security fence, you can watch the kids play out there, what a great setup you've created for a family life here. Fully designed on purpose that way. The fence is because we know that our girl loves to explore but she has inspired a lot of our designs. It kind of looks like Pac-Man. Wherever she's explored and pushed, you know, the boundaries are, oh okay, that's where we're going to go and sort of put something in place to keep both our babies safe and yeah, it's all done by design. And the layout of the deck has been inspired by a few of our friends at their home and so where we are, it's about an 8 by 4 size deck and it's actually the perfect size. Any bigger would almost be another home. Yeah, well I just love what you've created here. I think this outdoor area is so special. The relationship that you have with your whanau here is just incredible and I cannot wait to see what you've done on the inside of your home. Can we check it out? Yeah, of course. All right. Wow, this place is actually huge. It feels so spacious in here. Yeah, we love the design that we decided to go with and so the name of our house is Tirohanga. We should have spoken about this earlier but he actually named our house so I'll let him speak to the naming of our whare. Right, at the beginning, sort of the reflects and it captures the future ahead and the outlook of where we are as a couple building our family and the Tirohanga in the location is quite deliberate because if you do pan across the harbour, truly whakapapa connection to her patuharakeke side, her hapu out that way and where the grandmother lives actually, and in the funny old way, we're somewhat facing towards the homestead where she lives. So the home itself captures a new beginning. Where I'm from, the sort of metaphoric approach to the name was, if you go straight line east-ish that way, you know, you get smack bang to where I'm from. And so when we do welcome people in, it's also introducing the home to the guests and then vice versa, welcoming them guests, making you acquainted to the home Tirohanga that kind of shelters us and overlooks the space as a kind of a guardian. And so providing the name Tirohanga sort of captures everything. That we wanted to be. Yeah, I love that. Stepping into this space, I feel I get a sensation of that. There is something about the feeling of this home that is just so welcoming. And everywhere I look, it feels like family connection and you have so beautifully encapsulated that. Thanks. Blushing a little bit. A lot of it was very deliberate. When we went to the tiny home expo, we walked in a few spaces and they felt cold. And we knew that that wasn't the space for us. Cold to us. To us. They felt cold to us. And so when we did finally walk into one and we were like light, you know, excited. We saw a lot of possibilities and that's what we wanted our house to be. It was something that people step into and feel wrapped around. And to that end, here in the very heart of your home is the kitchen. Everything is built around the kitchen. Yes, very deliberate. And we did have a lot of discussions around whether we were going to have the doors in front of the kitchen or in front of the lounge. But we wanted this to be the inside outside flow. Yeah, what you see here is a beautiful design and still a work in progress for us in terms of making it practical for our family. It's a sense of exercising or appreciating a level of autonomy being in their own home. It took a while to actually go, hey, you know what? We can actually. This is ours. We can actually just drill a hole into the wall and because we're the boss, we can either be, we can put up with it or we can just get some putty and fix it up later or something like that. So yeah, and that goes with the kitchen design in and out sort of flow. How you see it is how we felt it best welcomes people into the space. It helps having the high ceiling and it gives that more of a roomy feel. Yeah. So the pantry, this was meant to be where the fridge goes. But I wanted a pantry. And, you know, the storage for the stairs, that was a big one for me too. After watching so many of your videos, I knew that that was just going to be a waste if we didn't put anything there. And then my parents have these really cool like corner storage things for the corner in the kitchen. And I was like, we need to get those. They're like $800 for one. So we were like, we don't need those. We'll find something else. And that's what we've just been finding, I guess. And then having the island is just game changer for us because it gives us somewhere to eat inside. It's also got more storage. And the fact that it's on wheels means that we can wheel it around the kitchen. It was our first table out on the deck. So that has been really cool for us as well. Yeah. I love that sort of multifunctionality in the home. And I love your acknowledgement as well of the requirement for things to change because we as humans, we're always changing. And so why should we expect our homes to remain consistent and not have that same evolution with us? Yeah, it's been a huge shift taking that on board, being comfortable with that for the now. That's what we feel right, how we feel that space to be. And then in a couple of months time, it's like- Change again. Yeah, we'll just change again. I don't like this anymore. It's still the same home, but the interior just might shift based on how we're feeling in the season. And so, yeah, it's been a huge mental shift, I guess. Yeah, great. You know, another thing that I noticed about this home is the lighting. You have really brilliantly used all of the negative detail to create these LED strips. It looks so good. I wish I could take credit for that, but that was the builders. So yeah, the lighting is so cool and it's throughout the whole house, the LED lights. Yeah, and I'd really like the open plan design between the kitchen and the living room here. We have seen designs where they sort of cut off the kitchen from the lounge and there's a walkway along the side. We did have a talk about whether that was going to work for us, but in the end, we just wanted the flow. And this window, when we saw it go in, I was like, it's way too big. I've made a mistake. Oh no, what have I done? And then when the house landed here, it was like, oh my God, yes. Yeah. Yes, this is good. This is exactly what it's meant to be. Yeah, we like our lounge. And as you can see, we love to adorn it in our taonga and make it its own little display. Yeah. TV is probably the last thing that was added to the space, but how the window captures the view, that was actually why it was put there, because we knew we had that amazing view. Yeah. And so, yeah, this is pretty much, this is the favourite spot in the house. Yeah, and I'm not sure if you recognise this couch, but this is one of the ACOSA couches, so it just pulls out to a mattress. Yeah, and we line up all our pillows along there and it becomes our little movie hub. Perfect. Yeah, when we're trying to force the kids to have a nap. Yeah, we've had friends over and they've just thought, oh, we'll just get a motel or Airbnb and say, nah mate, we got you, we can host you at home, we can feed you there and then we'll plonk you on the couch or something like that. So yeah, it's a really favourite spot for everyone to hang out in. Great. And then behind you is your daughter's room. Yes, she loves the space so much. We needed to dress it up for her so that she could be excited about her room. So we've got some toys in there and their clothes. And we did try to put both of the girls in there at one point and that just did not work. That was horrible. It was terrible. The worst two weeks of our lives where they wouldn't sleep, they'd wake each other up. So we split them back up again. Put our baby up there, her down here. We'll give that a go when we're feeling a little bit braver. Yeah, she really loves the space and it's a winner for us. Yeah, so beautifully decorated too. Yeah. One thing about our whole tiny home and not just her room is that our big girl has autism. And so this house is designed to be a safe space for her because she doesn't respond to her name. So when she's hiding under her covers and we're yelling out to her, she's not responding or she loves to explore the outside. So it's a relief for us to know that it's not going to take long for us to find her if she's playing and hiding. And also that she's not going to get out into anything and play with anything dangerous or get into a dangerous situation. So going tiny, while we didn't know that when we first moved in, it was a blessing in disguise for us. She can walk herself out, either go to the bathroom, feed herself from the fridge and she knows where our bedroom is and if she wants to come up, she just climbs up, opens the door and she's in. And then your younger daughter's bedroom is one of the sleeping lofts upstairs. Yeah, so we put her up there because we were worried about her navigating the stairs at night just in case she woke up and came looking for us. And also because she sometimes doesn't like to sleep through the night, so it's closer for us to go and check in on her. But again, we just had to make that space hers, dress the walls. There's a few dress up clothes up there for her and her sister to play with and a few more books, but it's mainly just their space to sleep. Perfect, great design. Alrighty, and down the other end of the home, we have your bathroom. Can we take a look at that? Yeah, let's go. Let's do it. Again, another really spacious room. Yeah, when we looked at going tiny, I was stubborn around having a separate toilet and my parents were like, you're a dreamer. Even the builders when we went in and we were like, we want another door for the toilet and they were really worried about if Moe was going to be able to fit in there or not. So we would go in and they had the floor plan drawn out. They wanted to see if he could fit in the space and I was like, don't worry, we'll make it work. Yeah, we'll make it work. I've been in worse at festivals and so that space there is fine. And the builders, once it was all up and they had the framing on and all that, they could see that, yeah, the space was great. In itself, although it's a tiny home, the bathroom is full size. Yeah, so the shower is 900 by 900 and then we're able to fit our laundry in here. Our daughters have both been in reusable nappies so we have those in here and yeah, we just really love the space. Great. I love that you were able to fit the laundry in here as well because especially with the little ones, a good washing machine is essential, isn't it? There is so much washing. Between the two of us, we were like, oh yeah, it should be fine, but no, just everything, not just clothes, towels, all of it. So yeah, we're so stoked that we have our washing machine right there. It does tend to give the house a bit of a shake when it's doing the full sprint, but you get used to it. Yeah, I remember when my nephew was born, I think from the moment he was born onwards, the washing machine just didn't stop. Yeah, and the washing machine tends to tell us if our babies are in here because of the nozzle and the beeps. So if we are having to try and find where they are and not in the play area, more often than not, they're in the bathroom fiddling with the buttons and just completely ruining the settings and throwing towels left, right and centre so you can pretty much just follow the trail of washing and they're in here. Fantastic. And then your bedroom is upstairs. Can we have a look at that? Cool. Let's do it. No need to walk into your butt. See my musty calves? It's a great height you've got here for the walkway too. Yeah, we really maximised the height. We tried to push it to see if we could get it any higher, but builders said that this is as high as it could be. So we took that and at least my hair can stand. Yeah, perfect. And this bed is ginormous. It's one of the best features in our house, I would say. And this is a long single and a king single. And we've put them together and we've put a California topper on it. So it's a Cali king, but we were thinking long-term and if we moved out, how would we get a Cali king out of here? So it's actually two mattresses pushed together. Yeah, what a good idea. And heaps of storage up here as well. Yeah, we were lucky that we had a builder friend who came in and custom built these wardrobes for us. When we first moved in here, we just had our tour boys from over at my parents' house and that was so impractical because we were trying to pull drawers out. There was heaps of empty space. So again, changed it up and she drew these up for us and we loved them. Yeah, they look so good. And looking out the windows here, from both sides, you've got great views. I keep forgetting how close to town you are. Yeah, we're really lucky in that we are technically rural, but we get that ocean view while still being very connected to the Whangarei community. Brilliant. And so how long have you been living in the tiny house now? We moved into the tiny home December 23. Yeah, and how was the tiny house working out for you? Right now, the age that our girls are at, perfect. We walk into a normal home now and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm a little bit overwhelmed by everything because of how... Far. How far everything is from anyone and anywhere. So all the babies we're visiting, it's always staying in Airbnbs, big normal homes. And it's like, oh, I can't hear them. I don't know where they are. So you have to walk around and you start to feel a bit of panic and anything like that. And then you find them. And when we come back here, you can just sort of push pause and you, oh, they're outside or not here. And so, yeah, it's been great. From the perspective of family life in a tiny house, I feel like there's a lot to be said about the closeness and the bonding that you get from living in such close quarters with one another. Yeah, for Mahui and I, we really love that about the connection that we have with our girls, that we can hear them talking to themselves before they go to sleep. The little giggling that they're having in their own rooms, even when the doors are closed, it gives us an insight into their personalities, into who they are. This home, for me, it feels like the beginning. It's our first. And when we drew up the plans, we had a discussion around what does wealth look like to us? And at this stage of our life, this is what it looks like. We might not have seven zeros on our bank account, but we feel really rich in the life that we have. And a big part of that is this house. At the end of the day, it's a shell. It's actually just a home on wheels, really. But how you live in it, that's what we've brought over from our upbringing. And if I've got it right, I feel like that's what it means to me. And what about the cost of building this home? Can we talk about that? So the cost for the house was $250,000 New Zealand dollars. And then all the other additions, we upgraded my parents' septic so that we could connect up to theirs and the deck. I think it all sort of ended at about $300,000 for everything, for moving, building the fence, all the land work. Yeah, and that's a great result too because you have got a lot of house here, don't you? Yeah, we do try to be transparent on social media around costs. And people are like, what, you can buy a house for that? And it's like, I don't think you can. Not even close. No, and not for the quality that we have. Everything was brand new. We were the first to move in and it was by our design. I mean, especially when we're still in an area where the average cost of housing is a million dollars. So to have everything that you do here set up for $300,000 is a fantastic result. Yeah, I joked with my mum and dad a lot. They're like, and what are you going to do? I said, well, you're going to live in it and we'll just swap. We're making it homely for you. That way we can just swap naturally. Because when you get older, that house is going to be too big for you. So then you'll need something smaller. And they were like, no, no, no, no, this is our home. The family dog knows the path between both homes and sometimes comes down here to hide with the babies. And when he's meant to be somewhere else. I'll get a phone call from my mum and she's like, um, hey, our boy's up here. And I was like, well, your dog is down here. And she's like, what? It's somewhat, you know, a blessing because now they feel comfortable and a sense of security to walk themselves to nanny and papa and the dog to come down here and hide. When he doesn't want to do anything. They essentially have two homes, our girls. They've got their own rooms up there and they've got their own rooms here. What are your plans for the future now? Well, when we first moved up here, we said we'd do 10 years in the north where I'm from and then 10 years on the coast where Mahu is from. And I think for the remainder of the years that we'll be in Whangarei, we will be in this tiny home. And then we don't have any plans to move it. So if we were to look at building something down the coast, it might be creating another tiny home for us to live in. Because there are things that now that we've been in this space for over a year, that we would change. What are those things? Lucky he's so nice and patient, but he actually can't fit under the mezzanine where the sink is. So a lot of the time his head is a bit cramped. We're always cooking like this. Who stands upright washing dishes? I'm right in there. It's not anything major, but it would help. Fair enough too. You mentioned before that part of the reason why you started your TikTok was to encourage other young Māori families to look at tiny home living as a potential option. Can you tell me more about that? Yep. So we were inspired by a few of our Māori friends who have tiny homes. For us especially, we were lucky to grow up in our culture where we can both speak Māori. We're around people who have the same cultural values as us. And that is where we consider ourselves to be incredibly rich, is those experiences. And for a lot of our disconnected Māori whānau, it can be hard to see the beauty in our culture when you haven't grown up in it. And tiny living is a reflection of how our tipuna used to live so close-knit. And so the thing that we were trying to achieve was a shift in mindset and almost glorify this lifestyle so that people could see the real joy in living in a tiny home. And instead of, I think there's still quite a strong narrative around it being a last resort or something that's, I don't know whether you'd be proud of it or not. And we are incredibly proud of living in a tiny home. Another way of looking at it on why there may not be as many Māori families living in a tiny home way is perhaps the challenges around access to land. What Māori land there is, it's somewhat not ideal at the moment in terms of location to live on. And there'll come a time, I believe that Māori, whether it is through tiny home living, but there will come a time in the near future where avenues like tiny home living for multiple families of the same family branch can really thrive. And as a community, perhaps the answer might be through tiny home. So to Māori who are looking at this video right now, watching your story, what would your message be to them? Send us a message. Definitely just reaching out and contacting us. And if we're not that person for you, if we can only take you so far then so be it. And we hope that the ones that we reached out to can take you further. We just hope we can play a part in what it might look like for that person and their family to be on that journey. We knew immediately that we were like, yeah, this is our life. This is the direction we want to move in. Well, I just think this is such a beautiful home that you've created for you and your growing family. I love the thought and effort that you've poured into making this such a wonderful home for a family. You've done such a remarkable job with that. And I really appreciate you opening up your home to me. Thank you so much for sharing your space with me. No worries. Cool. Truly and Mahui have created the most incredible home here for their family. And I love that the central thing about this home is family. When Truly said that this home makes her feel rich, I can absolutely see what she means by that. This is a space that gives the family everything that they need while focusing so brilliantly on everything that is really important to them. This is a home where there is an abundance of love, of care, of attention, of everything that nurtures us as human beings. And I cannot imagine a more wonderful, thoughtful space to have created for a family.