She Proved Everyone Wrong With Her £12,000 Tiny Home!

Life is filled with people who love to tell us all the reasons why we can't do something, but what happens if we just don't listen? Well, maybe something like this. Hello Lara, it is great to meet you. Nice to meet you too. It is such a pleasure to be visiting your beautiful home. Thanks for coming. And I have to say this is probably one of the coolest tiny house parking spots I've seen. Yeah, I'm really lucky to just have the space and also to be like quite sheltered, which is great. How did you find this parking spot? Found this parking spot by talking to people down the pub. What a great way. I know, it was really good. So I had another space and it all fell through quite last minute as it is. And yeah, I went down the pub and met a guy who knows a guy who had some land, who has a farm and it was great. Literally the next week moved up here. Wow. Yeah, I was very lucky. Yeah. And especially being in a place like this, you've got so much going on around you, but you're also so private here as well. You get to be plugged into this amazing community with everything that's going on in the farm, but then you also get all of this to yourself. Like you say, it's really nice to be part of a community. There's people checking in, I feel safe, which is really nice. But yeah, I've still got my own space and I can shut the gate and people are good at just letting me potter around in the garden. That's nice. Perfect. And can you talk to me a little bit about your journey into living in a tiny house and how all this came to be? Yeah. So I've worked for the circus for about 10 years. Cool. Yeah, which is amazing. And so you do a lot of touring. I was living in my van and I'd lived in a caravan and a wooden wagon. And so over the years I've lived in really small spaces and then COVID happened and the industry kind of dropped out underneath us and entertainment kind of didn't exist for there. But it was kind of great in a way because I was able to explore carpentry and yeah, I've always kind of thought about building something that I could live in and then yeah, ended up doing it, which is kind of, yeah, kind of mad. Fantastic. So what do you do for the circus? I'm a costume maker and I'm now a set builder as well. Oh great. So I've been doing costume mainly with the circus and then the last few years I've moved into more carpentry based since building this. Great. I've changed the career a bit, which is, yeah, lovely. Amazing. Did you have any carpentry experience when you tackled the tiny house project? Nope. I had like a drill that was really rubbish from like a supermarket, but yeah, I just kind of wanted to learn. Yeah. And I have a lot of very useful handy friends who were great, who were just like, no, you're doing it wrong. Like, why are you doing it like that? Obviously, you know, you just kind of research, do loads of research and talk to as many people as you possibly can. And yeah, I mean, it's still standing, so it's all right. It's a miracle. And what was the process of building it like? Challenging, but really, really fun. I absolutely loved it. I think the challenge was to try and do as much of it myself as I possibly could. Yeah. I would go back and do it again. I think the process of building it, I should have taken more time and like enjoyed it while I was doing it because it kind of got like, oh God, I've taken six months off work. I've got to get it done. I've got to get through this. And I actually loved it. I think sometimes it's really hard to fully appreciate a project like that when you're in the thick of it. Couldn't agree more. The majority of my work is I make things for other people. Like I spent my entire career making things for other people. And so I get to enjoy the process, but I never get to enjoy the end product as well. So this is kind of nice because it ticks all the boxes. Yeah. I love that. And I absolutely love the style of your home as well. Can you tell me about all of this? So this is larch cladding, which I milled, which is kind of crazy. You milled this as well? I milled this as well. No way. Yeah. So that was really, really fun with a guy in Devon who just taught me and let me do it. And it brought the costs down because I was doing so much of the process. That was part of it. I wanted the challenge. Wow. I know. It was really cool. That is incredible. And I love the style of the home as well. You've just got this wonderful, warm kind of cottagey aesthetic to the home. Yeah. Rustic. Rustic. Rustic. Yeah. I think I should have oiled it and it maybe would have lasted a bit longer because it's cracked. It's also put on wrong, which is really fun. I am going to have to redo it at some point, but I'm just kind of putting that off because it's a really big job. It's a big job. I think the beauty of it is though, you've got all the skills to do it now. Yeah, right. We'll get there. Yeah. And it fits in so well to all of the surrounding structures as well, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. It's so funny. So when I did it, if I'd have oiled it, I think it would have stayed more of that kind of lovely larchy colour for a while. But actually, I think it blends in a bit more darker. So that's kind of worked quite well. Yeah. And like a bit more hidden. Absolutely. And I see you've got the solar panels here as well. So you're solar powered? Yes, I'm solar powered. I'm cheating slightly because I can connect up to mains here, which is great. So I'm actually currently running on both. Best of both worlds. Kind of amazing, but the majority of the time I am completely solar. And also I've got underfloor heating, which is completely outrageous. And that's never running off solar. Of course. Yeah. So to be able to plug that in, in like the depths of winter is heaven. It's absolute heaven. And what size is your tiny house? Tiny house is on a 540 trailer. Right. So 540 by 240 wide. Perfect. Tiny. Yeah. But the benefit to building truly tiny is you can get these great parking spots as well. It makes it so much easier. You can hide. Yeah. I think you can be a little bit more tucked away, which is great. And who's this that we've got here? This is Monty. He's a good boy. He's a lovely boy. And how's Monty finding the tiny house? I think he likes it. He doesn't ever go upstairs. The stairs are a bit treacherous, I think for a dog. So he's down to his domain and the tiny house is kind of built for him. Right. Like he wasn't in existence when I was designing it. So it was like when I was doing the kind of 3D digital render of it, there was like a picture of a dog in a corner, you know, like he was kind of, it was being designed for him. So yeah, the house is kind of designed for the dogs. Brilliant. And I love the way that you've got this sort of courtyard area out here as well. And you're able to expand the home out here as well. And you've got all of your lovely flowers, growing some veggies. You've got a nice table here. Yeah. It's been really good to be able to spread out a bit. A bit more of a garden. I'm an outdoorsy person. That sounds really cheesy, but I love being outside and I love being able to grow vegetables and flowers. And so I've kind of gone a bit mad with the pots. I love it. Well, already I am so enamored with your creation and I cannot wait to see what you've done inside the home. Can we check it out? Yeah, come on in. All right. This is absolutely charming. You know, when you get that sensation of walking into a house and it really feels like a true home, this is one of those places. Thank you so much for saying that. That's absolutely lovely. It is home. And it's one of those things, again, it's so cheesy, but like you wake up and you're like, I built this. Yeah. I get to live here. And it's like, how I want it to be. It's really special. Yeah. You have just filled this with so much character and so many eclectic, beautiful items that you've curated for the space. Yeah. It's like wonderful stuff. But it's been so nice to build the house around my stuff. It's like, I knew that I wanted this burner and I knew that I wanted my record player. That's nice to kind of create something around the things that you already have. Yeah. Well, that way you end up building a place that's truly for you. Yeah. I totally agree. And Monty definitely has his place there. He looks very comfortable. Yeah, he's really happy. And one of the things that I really noticed about this house, being about five and a half meters, it's definitely on the more compact size of tiny homes, but it does feel so spacious in here. You've done such a good job of keeping the sense of space. I think it's the height. I think that makes such a difference. I'm really glad I did the pitched roof. I was originally going to do it so it's like higher on one side and you have like a sloped flat roof. It makes it feel so much bigger because it is a very small space to live, but you can stretch up. Makes a huge difference. Yeah. And what a cozy lounge space you've created. Beautiful couch right by the fire. Yeah, it's great. And again, it's like seating that you can store stuff in. It's like everything becomes two things. You can't just have like a sofa. It has to also store things and also like fit into the space. And so, yeah, it's all made to fit in the space. But yeah, it's really cozy. It's so cozy. When the burner is on, it's really hot in here. So funny, my mum was really concerned when I moved in that I would be cold because I'm a really cold person and they live in the very old cottage a few miles away and like they're freezing and I'm boiling like here in a t-shirt in the depths of winter because it's such a small space to heat. So yeah, it heats up real quick, which is nice. Huge, huge benefit to tiny houses. So easy to heat and especially if they're well insulated, they just tend to be really warm year round. This is working really well. I've got wool in the walls and it's warm and cool in the summer. And yeah, that works quite well. So it's good. And you've got the underfloor heating in this one, which is another huge benefit. Yeah, that is really dreamy. And up there, I love the way that you've got such a dedicated space for your records. Yeah, that was such a huge thing. I love my record player. My uncle has a record shop, so I end up having a lot of records, which is great. And it was nice to just be able to build a space for them to be and like I can access them really easily, which is great. Perfect. I'm a big fan of these cupboard doors as well. That just adds so much character to the home. I was working on a set a few years ago and they were being thrown away. There's loads and loads of beautiful Indian doors that were being thrown away. And so we went through the skips and took them out because it's like, I want this to be in my house. They're stunning. They didn't need to be thrown away. So yeah, that was a really good find. And what's in there? So this is my wardrobe. This is like stuffed to the gunwales with all my clothes. Gotta have room for the important stuff. And I absolutely love your stair design here as well, especially using those gorgeous timber slabs just really pops in the house. Yeah, I love my stairs. I milled it. You milled this as well? Yeah. Yeah, which is so good. So this is one of the first things I milled. So this is ash. I really, really, really wanted a hardwood ash floor. Right. Couldn't afford it. So this is actually oak, which is equally fabulous. Still beautiful. Yeah. Wonderful. But so I was able to put ash in as my work tops and I love it. And then this is you just from a friend's garden, as is this structure here from a friend's garden. And then this is beech, spalted beech. Spalting, it has all these mad patterns inside. And I didn't know it was spalted. The guy who handed me the log did and was like watching me. And I sort of cut it in half and was like, it's stunning. It was like, this has got to be a step, you know, kind of throughout the process was able to find the pieces for the stairs, which was amazing. And then had a friend help me fit it because I was like, I put metal bars through them to strengthen. The spalting is actually, it's not great. It's basically when the wood's gone rotten. Right. So I'm using, but like it's working and it's fine. It's safer than it sounds. Safer than it sounds. Yeah. The only thing is, I think it was a lot younger than we thought it was and it's moved and warped. And so I've kind of bow tied it in and kind of wrangled it into a bit more because it's changed and moved quite a lot over the years, but that's part of it. Yeah. It's sort of that wabi-sabi ethos of fixing something and making it more beautiful in the process. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And again, you have got a lot going on in the kitchen over here. Yeah. It kind of packed quite a lot in. I think it works really well and I've got everything that I need, which is fantastic. Yeah. Are you much of a cook? No, I'm a really bad cook. Hence the burnt cake on the bench top. Hence the burnt cake, which is so annoying. I'm normally quite a good baker. I do bread, but my oven is a bit of an incinerator. So it either takes hours to cook and I get bored. So then I scorch everything. Is it a gas oven? Yeah. I find gas ovens really hard to use. They're savage. And it's wicked because it's so good. And with the three hobs, it works really well. Bits really well. But yeah, it's a bit of an incinerator. Gotcha. I'm sure it still tastes good. Yeah. It'll be delicious. And again, the ash bench top in here just really makes this whole kitchen come to life. I love it. I really wanted to have this kind of live edge and I think it works really well. Lovely amount of storage in the kitchen too. And I especially like all of the little trinket storage that you've created above the bench tops too. Yeah. I think it's good to be able to see things and access things really quickly. So like all the spices and herbs and things, it's nice to have them out and on show. And also like they're lovely things. I think I quite like being surrounded by my stuff. Cool lighting features in this space as well. One of them doesn't work and I've no idea why that light doesn't work. I've really tried. It worked for ages and suddenly it's just stopped and I'm not pulling it out of the wall. So I've not quite got to that point yet. Fair enough too. And beautiful stained glass windows as well. Yeah. So the stained glass window in the kitchen and the bathroom came out of a skip. Someone was throwing them away and they were just the panels and they're so beautiful. And so I made the surrounds for them. And yeah, it's been really nice to use those. But all the windows are reclaimed. They've all come from secondhand places. Wow. It's mad what some people throw out. Yeah, totally. Like you can get some real gems and shove them all together and it's a house. You make it sound so simple. Yeah, just like this. Yeah, just like that. Shove it together and it's a house. Nice. And great position for the sink as well. It looks like quite a compact sink though. It's tiny. The sink is tiny. And actually I was going to get one with like a draining board built in, but then I would have had to cut so much more out of the ash and it's a really huge bit of ash so I didn't want to. So I've got the kind of draining board that you can like tuck away, which inevitably I never tuck away, but like it can do if I want it to. It's great. And can we have a look in your bathroom? Yep. It's really small, but you can have a look. Let's have a look. Hey, this is really cool. I love this copper feature you've created around the entrance. I had this copper leftover from a job and I ended up doing like really late night copper archway in here. I don't know, you just have an idea and you're like, yes, that's what I'm going to do. I love it. It is beautiful. And that has to be one of the coolest compact baths I've ever seen in a tiny house. Yeah, I love it. Teeny tiny bath. What a great design. Yeah, it's been good. It hardly ever gets used as a bath. It's mainly used as a shower tray. Yeah. But it's good to wash the dog. And like if I'm filling up the water, then sometimes I fill it up and have a bath and that's lovely. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. And you're on mains water here as well. So you've got lots of water supply? I have a water tank. So I've got a water tank. I've got 140 litres in the corner. But yes, I just fill up from an outside tap. Oh, right. Okay. Really easy. Cool. Nice and easy. Weirdly, I think tiny house builders in the UK almost have a bit of an advantage because so many of your homes here are really small already. The amount of available products on the marketplace for compact spaces is just so much greater than say in America, Australia, New Zealand. Yeah, it's really interesting. The build was great because I got so many things second hand. Yeah, the bath was found on marketplace for like 50 quid. And it's like all these finds and it's great. It's stopping them from going into landfill. There's nothing wrong with them, you know? Absolutely not. And then you've got the composting toilet here too. Yes, it's so simple and it takes up no space. So yeah, a little composting there. Yeah. And again, lovely the way that you've added the copper there. I think it just kind of like ties it in. Yeah. I don't think there's anything that copper doesn't make look better. And it's so fabulous. And like it ages and you get all those weird greens and like the patinas are lovely. So yeah, it's nice to watch it change over the years. And really nice use of very vibrant colour in here as well with the orange. Yeah, I like colour. It's nice to have some good bright colours around you. Very nice, cosy bathroom you've created there. And upstairs is your sleeping loft. Can we have a look at that? Yeah, come and look. Alrighty. Again, it's just such a cosy and comfortable space that you've created up here. I wanted there to be enough headspace to be able to sit and read in bed because the pitches are different. This pitch is different to that pitch of the roof so that I can get in and like not have to duck down. Yeah. I think that makes a huge difference. Absolutely. And another really great window feature up here. This is my £5 window. Brilliant. I'm so proud of this window, except for I put it in a really, really bad place. Like it should be there. It's too far down. And also I wish that I'd bought one that was opening. Right. Other than that, yeah, wrong window. But you do have the opening skylight. Opening skylight. Love having the deluxe because you can lie in bed and see out. That's nice. Absolutely. And again, lots of colour up here as well. Yeah, I think I'm a very colourful person. And also like I'm a costume maker, so I end up having quite a lot of colourful fabrics in my life. So it's nice to like bring them in, use them, you know. You've got the record player up here as well. Yeah. It did have a space down there, but I needed more storage. So it's now up here, which is absolutely fine. So I have to pull it out slightly to make it work, but I love it. Yeah. It's a great thing to have. Very nice. So how long have you been living in the tiny house now? Two, three years. I was kind of building at the same time. Yeah, three years. Wow. Fantastic. Yeah. And how is life here working out for you? I really love it. I think it's one of those things that will never be finished. You know, it's just kind of, it's a nice thing to kind of keep going. And yeah, it's great. I love living in the house. Yeah. I think one of the best things about being a DIYer and having all of the skills to do that is you do get to have all of these ongoing projects and continuously be changing and improving things in your home. That's a really nice positive way of spilling that. Yeah, it is. It's wicked because I made it. I should be able to fix it. Yeah. It's that. And like certain things like that light, I have no idea why that light won't work, but we'll get there. It's been a really fun ride. I've really enjoyed learning everything that's gone into, yeah, building this house. The journey of building this tiny house and living in this tiny house has taught me that I'm very stubborn and I've really liked the challenge. I think it's just taught me that you can do it. You kind of have to believe in yourself sometimes. And also, I'm really lucky to have an incredibly supportive family and an incredibly supportive network of friends because I think going into it, there are a few people that are just like, what are you doing? You have no idea what you're doing. This is the most ridiculous thing that you're going to sink your savings into. And yeah, it's quite nice for them to come over for a cup of tea now and a piece of cake and be like, and they love it here. And how fantastic as well that building this tiny house also empowered you to take on this brand new career building sets in the circus. That's fantastic. Yeah, it's been fun. So where I built this house, it was kind of on the same farm as friends who run a set building company. And I think they saw me building the house and were like, would you like a job? Because we've watched you build the house. So do you want to come and work for us? And that was great. And obviously this is a DIY project. You've poured so much of your own labor into the space. You've really cleverly collected so many of the materials for this build. Can we talk about the cost that was involved in building this home? I think it's cost about 12 grand. Wow. From start to finish. But that cost has been kept down hugely by the fact that it's my labor, which is so it's free labor. I had help with the roof. Really proud to have friends that was able to come and help me or professionals. But yeah, I think that's probably how much it cost. That is a fantastic achievement. To somebody who is watching you right now, thinking this is really, really cool seeing what you've done, but I couldn't do something like this myself. What would you tell them? Just do it. Like I couldn't do it and I've done it. Like honestly, I think, and maybe it's because I'm quite stubborn and very curious. So I'm really happy to learn. But yeah, I had a drill when I started this and I did it. I found that people are just really happy to help. I think it's just so nice to have a community that's so supportive around you. And that's what the alternative housing community has been really for me. Yeah. Here in the UK, one really common thing that I hear is people are afraid that they won't be able to find a place to park their tiny house. How was that for you? It's really stressful. I had spoken to somebody else who had built a tiny house and was on a friend's piece of land. So I knew that that was going to be a hard thing. So I tried to get that sorted before I even started the build. Because yeah, it's an expensive problem. Like if you can't stay where you are, it's hard to find places. That is definitely the hardest bit. But you just get talking to people and it's amazing how, again, community comes together. And like, I'm really lucky that it's worked out. Because the places are there. Yeah, they are. There's so much space in the UK and in Scotland and Wales. And yeah, there are, there are pockets of land that aren't being used and there are farmers and there are people with big gardens and driveways and that sort of are really helpful and happy for people to be there. It's just how the local councils see you or you just have to be quite careful about where you're placed. And you don't want to get on anybody's bad side. Yeah. I think one of the things to remember is that tiny homes are one of those things that kind of work for everyone. There's a lot of landowners that really love having the ability to share their space, whether it's for a little bit of extra income or whether it's for a bit of extra help on the land or a bit of security or just having somebody nearby on the property to keep an eye on things. There's a whole various array of reasons why it works for both parties. Yeah, that's so true. It's really nice because I'm here. I kind of, I rent my space here and I help out as much as I can because I love these people. Like they've been able to help me live the life that I want to be able to lead. And so, yeah, of course, I'm happy to help. I help on the farm and I love it. Or, you know, help lug bales around. I don't know, just whatever you can do because these people are wonderful and kind of, yeah, it gives both ways. Yeah, it really does. And now after three years, you are well settled into your beautiful home. What does the future hold for you now? I think keep building. Keep building. I think bigger and better. I've learned so much from this build and I would do so much differently. Yeah, I think I'd like to make something a little bit more permanent one day. Right. There's kind of lots of mad ideas in the pipeline, but yeah, I need a space to build on first. Yeah. Great plan. And you've got all the skills to do it now. Yeah, we're getting there. Lara, this is a truly beautiful home that you've crafted here for yourself. Thank you so much for sharing it with me. Thank you for coming. Lara's home is absolutely stunning and I absolutely love the fact that it was stubbornness that helped to get her here. That idea that if somebody else can do it, why can't I? And now, here she is. How good is that?