The principles of zen design have reached far and wide into all corners of the architectural world
Including tiny house design today we've traveled to Byron Bay
To meet a wonderful couple who have constructed a beautiful zen inspired tiny house on wheels
Good day Kester, good day Bryce. Good to meet you, good to meet you mate.
Hey Nadia, lovely to meet you. Hello Bryce, nice to meet you.
What an amazing looking tiny house you've got here and what an incredible spot
You've found an amazing little nook for it here in this backyard haven't you. Yeah we're lucky to have the two-story house in front so
it keeps a pretty private, so we kind of designed the house around this exact location
We knew where the trees were going to be so where do we put the windows so the whole house is designed around this
exact spot. So what was your motivation for building a tiny house? Well we've actually been living in the big house
downstairs with our friends for about seven years and they've got three kids so the kids were getting bigger and bigger and we knew that
at some point we couldn't share a bedroom with them, so
We wanted to all keep living together and it's a bit of a challenge in in the Byron Shire to
find a place to live so we thought it was kind of the perfect solution to build a tiny in the backyard one of the
things i feel most of all
living in the space is
grateful for the fact that our friends let us put our tiny house here in such a beautiful location
That's the main thing i feel it's just incredibly grateful that we're able to live in our own space and be surrounded by lovely people
you know our chosen family if you like yeah particularly being at a park straight between established trees and looking at this beautiful view
just, feels like home and and you just feel yeah really really grateful
every day
for the beautiful space and and the incredible location that it's in with our beautiful friends and family now this tiny house
it's a little bit bigger than normal isn't it what are the dimensions of the home it's actually three metres wide
Internally but then we've got little eaves on the house so it's actually 3.5 meters wide technically and it's seven meters long
With an extra 50 centimetres on the trailer tongue for the window box so i think
34 square metres including the loft actually having this wraparound deck is an
Amazing addition to the house as well it adds, so much livable space doesn't it yeah it's incredibly functional and
You know we've had maybe 12 to 15 people in this house so they've been a couple of occasions
yeah, more regularly than we thought
And it works so well having a little deck outside and even having it around the this sort of
northwest corner here is incredible it means that cups of tea and wintertime and you know lots of little
spaces for people to kind of come and hang out and we we designed it so that it's completely modular and
Can be taken apart in a day and put back together in two days and popped on the back of a tow truck okay?
So i can move it with the house so when you were actually designing this tiny house
what was the inspiration that went into the aesthetic of it well we were kind of inspired by
a combination of japanese design and
swedish or nordic design so we loved looking at all the swedish lake houses and
Then then we were kind of inspired by the clean minimalistic lines of japanese design so a bit of a combo
how long with the coziness of the scanner
absolutely can you tell me about some of the materials that went into the construction of this it's basically a simple
timber frame design and
When it came to cladding i think we wanted to use you were looking at urban line.we or not yeah we yes we really loved
The look of old silvery wood
So we wanted to try and emulate that as best we could but we couldn't really afford it and so we went with a pretty
eco-friendly option which is this stuff's weather tex it's a australian company and i do sheets
Made out of waste australian hardwood yeah but then we we wanted some contrasting cladding so we got some beautiful
cedar and we did the show sub d bunch on the on the cedar kista got, to buy himself an epic
Flames wrapping torch and have some fun so that was cool so that's on the window box and the?
extruded window about the front unit and of course you've got that very iconic blue door as well
yeah
totally just to give the little
homage to the the skander look we originally painted it yellow and it was just felt a little bit too urban so
we were trying out all these different colors and our friends looked at the sky and he said maybe
Maybe it has to be sky blue
Too to frame into the sky so that's what we went with hmm
we love it
Well the exterior looks great i cannot wait to see what you've done inside can we have a look come on in thank you?
wow this is super spacious
big right it's like the tardis we couldn't believe how spacious it was on the initiative you can definitely see the combination
of
scandinavian and japanese designing this and it's such a great blend isn't it thank you yeah we really really love it we love the the
nice black frames of the windows which feels a little bit deaf and easy and the
Kind of kind and answer type stare and but then the coziness of the sheepskins and that yeah look that's very?
scandinavian over there like houses so yeah
And especially because the design is also so
open it just feels like it has a really nice flow through the home yeah we kind of maxed out on the windows i
Originally had even more windows in the design
My dad's an architect and here to look at the plans and that's kind of the one thing the one?
Suggestion he had was to scale back the windows but, he did suggest is huge
2.5, by 2.4, door so the builder said we couldn't really have gone any bigger with that
but yeah
We love love all the light in the space and one of the things that you're immediately greeted with in the house is
This incredible plug box over here what a lovely feature thank you yeah we hadn't really seen that done elsewhere
um again my dad in all of the houses
He designed for us as i was growing up we always had a planter box and a stairwell
So that's kind of like a little
ode to him
yeah
i thought we loved it it's really nice that it creates a little privacy screen it's lovely having the green inside and
feels really alive and sort of blends in with the outdoor garden really nicely
and of course here we are in our annual living room and look at that window box what a great addition
it's pretty special isn't it it just gives that extra little bit of space and it's the perfect little not
To sit in on a rainy day with a book it's excellent, so what do you do for watching a movie in here well
Brilliant projector on the coffee table and off you go yeah so i feel fine about
cinema it's super cozy and you can have four people lying down watching a movie which is pretty special in a tiny house yeah
yeah
Well that's that's one of our favorite features and then it looks like you've also?
Actually built a whole lot of storage into this space as well absolutely we've got storage everywhere probably more than we need so
We have all of our puppy gear in here because we've got two dogs which is one of the reasons why we went a little
bit wider in the house we've got like spices and stuff in here this is casters man shed
He's got all of his tools it's a very tidy man ship
and we've got a shoe drawer in here which i'm quite proud of this is where my one little bit of um
woodworking i made the little shelves for our shoes
You, know a tiny house and shoes that's really nice but, we also have nine hundred
depths underneath the window box so you can just lift these up
And it's super deep storage under there as well
so we are not wanting for storage it's brilliant this is my favorite draw this one here a
nice long deep drawer everything they don't have to go digging to find anything there dubillac eat all
the household drawer
This is our bag drawer because you have to have somewhere to put your bag when you come home from work and this is our
other favorite one this is our
Electrical books so that's where we have a la electrical cords and
computer stuff i
just, love how you itemize all of those things because being able to really just type everything away and know it things are in a
Space is part of
Just, basically working for you and your being able to actually living it right i think to live in a small space you've got
to maybe have a bit of a
predilection for being organized and being able to live in
Had things you know organized very well organized it certainly helps there's no, question about there nobody wants to be a tiny house hoarder
And then behind us here we have your beautiful kitchen and all of this cabinetry is just so well done isn't it
luckily the people we ended up going with they had a guy who worked a lot with caravans and
So he was fantastic
He managed to
Do a really lovely job all the finishes that you know really the way we wanted it and he managed to source a very lightweight
ply as well for all the carcasses for all the cabinetry
And i think that's probably saved us an enormous amount away and then tell me about the design of the kitchen we'd love to cook
And we often cook together
But we like space when we cook or we get grumpy so
quick we wanted a galley kitchen and we wanted quite a lot of counter top space for preparation caster was really
Enthusiastic about having as much wood in here as possible so we're so glad we went with the tazzy oak bench top it's it's really
beautiful and really nice to work with and work on and we have a lot of things in jars saying we wanted that accessible
Because it's kind of inspiring to to see your food in front of you to get excited about what you're gonna cook
So we wanted the open shelving
the full stove the full oven because we hadn't had an oven for seven years in our other house
So we were quite excited about being in a bake again and
We wanted everything in drawers so we we kind of maxed out on the drawers and we've got a quite a cool pull out
pantry as well
Which, you can leave open and then that kind of becomes part of the space you don't have to keep shutting it so that works
really well but my absolute favorite part of the kitchen is ridiculous it's this little cupboard here
Which is um the dog food cupboard you know you never have any way to put your dog food so we designed the covered specifically
oh
the dog stuff it's really cute
one of my favorite bits about the kitchen is this big window a big gas lift window that opens
right up some of our friends of
like and our tiny house - a food truck because of it and
it's it's fantastic you can open it right up and you feel like you're standing at the sink and washing up outdoors so
it's great and it means people can be standing outside the tiny house i have drinks pass them right from the kitchen
absolutely we almost went as far as putting like a little
fold down bar outside the window but maybe that can be staged -
great idea and is this the bathroom
through here yes this is it we wanted a few things with the bathroom
We didn't want it to be very different from the house we wanted to keep the floor exactly the same
So there was the sense of continuing space
We wanted the shower to kind of blend in with the walls for the same reason so it's a pretty clean
simple bathroom and we wanted an outside
Of door because
we have an outdoor shower and it's just brilliant we use it all the time and the other thing was we
Often wash the dogs in the shower so we wanted to be able to just
let them straight outside and rather than running wet through the house so we've got a um separate composting toilet which is just brilliant
like no
odor whatsoever and
we really really love it and just some simple
shelving that we we kept open in the end we didn't go with cabinets because we just wanted everything to be accessible and i really
like how you've typed the basin in the corner of the shower there as well yeah we realized without being at
Obviously by having the door here we had to give up having your vanity
Here, so we just went with a little wet room
So we just have the the duct board that we take out when i have a shower?
kester always showers outside so this is my shower
we just thought i would just pop a little thinking there in the corner and then people can watch their hands and it works really
Really well it's brilliant and i have to say that i'm totally with you on that one kiss there because if i've got an outdoor
shower there is no way i'm using the one inside the house
Not a chance not a chance not one you can share under the stars?
Exactly and then you've got a sleeping loft in this home too don't you we do we do sure yeah look you can't the stairs
So we've designed it once you get to the top you go straight onto your knees oh?
i
was not expecting this it's like you've got your own little zen garden up here yep totally
It's so beautiful and we we went with a slightly bigger loft
So that it really felt like a bedroom and we had space on both sides
and that's big enough over there that you can do yoga over there and kassar can sit and do meditation so it
really feels like our entire other space yeah absolutely it's uh
Having the especially having the plants i think you get this lovely filtered light it provides a really lovely screen so that
you can have one person up here i'll often sit up here and read a book and
And i wouldn't even know there was someone else downstairs
One thing which is very unusual about this design is you have no lights in the ceiling yeah we decided to
go without lights in the ceiling mainly we wanted to keep the lighting quite low at night and we actually have
led strip in the planter box as well that you turn on and it lights through the plants so you get kind of a dappled
plant light on the roof which is really really lovely
Beautiful what a great little design feature yeah so how long have you actually been living in the home now we've been here
It's probably a year in three months i think mm-hmm yeah that's better and how are you finding life in the tiny house
Perfect to be honest this house has far more storage than all the other houses we've lived in the space is far more functional and
Everything is right there when you need it you haven't got very far to go and i think when a house is
thoroughly thought through and designed around the way that you live in a way that you work as a couple
It's it makes such a big difference like it's incredible everything is the way
you need it to be so you don't need anything else and
obviously this is not a diy build project you have brought in tradies on this project
so what was the cost of this build all up
The house cost
seventy-three thousand and then the deck was another five thousand so about another five thousand on top of that
australian and i mean for a for a house of this quality and finish that is a remarkable price isn't it
yeah, we budgeted less of course but
we're really really happy with the outcome it is
more amazing than we could have imagined
really happy with with all the work that was done it was an incredibly rewarding
process for us and something that we didn't know we could do
but
Now we've done it looking back i think anyone can do it this house is just
such a treasure
I love how practical it is i love all of the stories that's been built into it but it's still so open and just beautiful
everywhere i look congratulations on finishing an amazing project thanks brad thanks there's a saying in zen buddhism
that only when men knows that enough is enough will he ever truly have enough this house has enough style enough
practicality enough function and most certainly enough beauty to truly make this home enough