Tiny Houses - Big Idea

TINY HOUSES – OR AS WE LIKE TO CALL THEM, POCKET MANSIONS – ARE MAKING BIG WAVES THANKS TO THEIR SMALL FOOTPRINTS. WE MEET MYSTEE UNWIN, WHO CALLS ONE SUCH TINY HOUSE HOME

- Mystee Unwin

WHEN I FIRST STARTED building my tiny house three years ago, I didn’t have land or even the prospect of it. But I craved a home, so I started the process of building a mobile home with the hope that I’d find somewhere to live in it when I was ready. Prior to this I was moving around a lot, helping on permaculture farms and travelling. In the process I culled my possessions over several years – every time I returned from a trip with only a backpack of essentials, I realised more and more that I didn’t need those things that I’d lived without for months on end. I guess deciding to build a tiny house was the final move towards living with less; the things you’re attached to become less important and the space their absence provides becomes the thing you crave.

A PROJECT IS BORN…

First I bought my trailer, which was a brand new caravan chassis I found on eBay, then I made it roadworthy and registered it as a tandem trailer. Next, I put it out into the universe that I needed to find a block of land for $35,000, as that was all I could afford without having to get a job just to pay a mortgage. The next week I found my land west of Melbourne and a few months later I moved my house there.