As house and land prices move further out of reach for so many, multigenerational living is becoming a really popular option, as families come together to share land and resources. In this weeks video tour, we explore a stunning modern small family home which has been beautifully constructed in a suburban backyard.

This week, we travel to Melbourne to visit the incredible micro apartment of architect Douglas Wan. Originally constructed in the 1950’s, the apartment was originally intended as nursers quarters. Its now been completely reimagined for modern living and transformed into a stylish and exceptionally clever micro studio apartment.

Hidden away in the backyard of a suburban Sydney neighbourhood is a wonderful small family home. At only 31.5 square meters (340 square feet) this house is truly tiny, in fact, it’s smaller than the swimming pool. Thanks to some fantastic small space design however, the downsized house is a beautiful and functional home for this young family.

 Matt and Lisa’s tiny home on wheels is quite something to behold. Jet black with hints of cedar trim, this modern tiny house has a lot going for it. Amazingly, this tiny house began it’s life with a simple match on a dating app which united two souls, one with an obsession for tiny homes, and the other with a passion for building. Sarks flew, ideas grew and a year later this spectacular home was born.

 This beautiful tiny house on wheels is packed with some very clever design, including an ingenious pop top roof which lifts up to give owner-builders Ben and Nat the ability to stand up in their sleeping loft. Built as a DIY project, this small home has lots to love and is all the young family needs. 

After traveling many vast and open oceans a 40ft shipping container landed on the shores of New Zealand in what was to be it’s final voyage. There, it was purchased by a young couple with a grand vision of converting it into a spectacular home. While the container’s travels may have ended, it’s journey had just begun.

This dynamic young couple are both used to tackling big projects, and their latest victory is a stunning tiny home on wheels! Eve is an olympic athlete, while her partner Chris has a business crafting beautiful solid timber furniture. Together, the couple decided to build their own home after having to leave their apartment.

 If you’re a fan of a good movie, or relaxing in front of the television then this could potentially be the ideal tiny house for you. Packed full of clever design features, this home on wheels even has an incredible movie theatre loft, creating the perfect space lie back, relax and watch a movie.

In this weeks episode we are back to revisit Evans, a retired boat builder who has constructed a brilliant and compact home in a 20ft shipping container. When we first met Evans, I was impressed by his obvious skill and creativity. After many years working as a shipwright and furniture maker he has clearly honed his talents, and those gifts have all been well used in the clever construction of this fantastic tiny home.

While some build their tiny houses as temporary stepping stones, other builders are truly in it for the long haul. After falling in love with the concept of living in a tiny house and the freedom that it offered, Helen set about building her dream tiny forever home.

Willem and Kate are a powerhouse couple who have teamed up to build a spectacular tiny home for themselves. With Willem’s skill as an architect and Kate’s designer edge, the pair have done an amazing job in creating a beautiful and functional tiny family home which sits perfectly nestled into their .5 acre New Zealand bush property on Waiheke Island.

 I’m always absolutely amazed at how a shipping container, a cold, hard, metal box can be transformed into an incredibly warm and welcoming home. This stunning house in Victoria, Australia is a perfect example of that, with three 20 ft shipping containers being joined together to create an amazing, solar-powered home.

Dolly’s Tiny House is absolutely incredible. While it may look a bit like a giant dollhouse, this wonderfully designed home is no toy. At 7.2 by 2.4 meters (23 x 8ft) this home on wheels fits a whole lot of house and is possibly one of the best designed homes that we have visited so far with an amazing amount of functionality built into a very small home. 

This incredible tiny house has been built for a remarkable price. Builder Jesse has taken a whole bunch of salvaged materials (mostly lots of old fence palings) and constructed a fully featured and whimsically beautiful tiny home all for less that $20,000.

This week, we take a look back over 2018 and five of our favourite tiny house tours of the year. It’s always hard work choosing only 5 tours for this video as we travel to so many incredible homes and love them all for their own uniqueness of design and function. I hope you enjoy our selection!

We are working hard to get the tiny house finished in time for Christmas, and with the help of the elves we might just make it! Of course, we had to take a bit of a break to decorate the house to get into the spirit of the season. We also ventured into the Variant Spaces workshop, where Jake and Kasia help us to turn offcuts from our cabinetry into some lovely Christmas decorations for the tiny house. 

This young couple has given themselves an incredible start to life! After graduating from university, Sam and Simone threw themselves right into a building a tiny house on wheels. 

This stunning off the grid home in Australia may be tiny, but it has a very big story to tell. Constructed as a do-it-yourself build by recent empty-nesters Jan and Kev, this tiny house is open, spacious very efficient and completely off the grid.

 Our ambulance camper (or campulance) makes for an incredible home on the road! We never set out to purchase an ambulance but when we found this one, it was love at first sight. Ambulances are well maintained, have plenty of space in the back and often come kitted out with all kinds of cabinetry and storage so they can be some of the very best vehicles to convert into campers after their service.

When we first met Ryan, he was living in a different tiny house on wheels. It was a beautifully handcrafted 28ft home which was finished to an exceptional standard – you can see the full video tour of that first home here. Today, almost two years later we caught up with him in a completely new and much smaller home. 

Jay Shafer is the Godfather of the modern tiny house movement. I say the modern movement, because for the vast majority of human history, we have lived in small, simple shelters. It was almost 20 years ago that Jay designed and built his first 90 square foot (8m2) tiny house on wheels and that moment sparked the very beginning of the tiny house movement and a trend towards reclaiming the human right to affordable simple shelter.

Hidden deep amongst the mountains of California’s High Sierra is a stunning little permaculture oasis. Surrounded by towering trees and flourishing gardens, one young family has taken the leap into permaculture and homesteading on this land, where they have also built a beautiful little yurt which the family now call home.

It’s been a year now since we built our Little Zen tiny house in North America and in this weeks episode we re-visit our own home and talk about our experiences living in a traveling tiny house on wheels. 

As a solo parent, life can be a bit of a challenge. The skyrocketing cost of housing in cities such as Sacramento, California certainly doesn’t help make things any easier. One solo mother decided to do things a bit differently though, and managed to get out of the rent trap by building an amazing tiny house where she now lives together with her teenage daughter.

 As children, so many of us have dreamt of building homes or unique sanctuaries in the trees. There’s something about a treehouse which truly epitomises nature and our ability to live in harmony with our surrounding environment. This treehouse, a stunning and geometrically ornate structure shaped like a pinecone and suspended amongst the towering redwoods in California takes that dream to the next level.

 This family are doing things a bit differently, living a minimalist, debt free life style in a stunning tent. Zac and Katie together with their children Fox and Grizzly escaped the high stress, high cost lifestyle in Southern California and returned to Katie’s family land in New Mexico where they have built an incredible tiny tent house, going back to nature and living a rewarding life close to nature and each other. 

SB and Matt are a young and dynamic couple, who after getting married decided to build a tiny house on wheels before moving to Colorado from Oklahoma in order to avoid the incredibly high rent prices. Working together to build their home, they were able to do the vast majority of the labour themselves. Matching that with some thrifty material sourcing, they managed to construct their home for the amazingly affordable price of only $18,000.

 Asha Mevlana is an incredibly talented musician who is used to a life on the road, traveling the world as an electric violinist with the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Wanting to put down some roots and have a solid home which would also suit her unique lifestyle, she chose to build a tiny house.

 Jayme’s home is something very unique. As a yoga teacher, she understands the importance of body movement and has designed her brilliant home on wheels to reflect that and encourage her body to move as much as possible. Her home isn’t only functional however, it’s beautifully constructed using almost entirely salvaged materials. 

Doug and Stacy are living the pioneer lifestyle in the 21st century. After quitting their high-stress city lives they moved onto a property in rural Missouri where they could be debt free and construct a beautiful little pioneer style homestead. Today, they raise animals, grow most of their own food and live simply on the land.

In a way, Purple is like a modern day wizard, transforming items which have been left behind by the world and transmuting them into something new, giving them new life and purpose via upcycling. The same could be said of his old Bedford bus, which he has renovated into a wonderfully comfortable tiny home on wheels.

When this young family grew tired of the city life, they made their escape to a stunning rural property in Northland, New Zealand. The land they purchased was quite unique and had a beautiful spring-fed dam which they have used to float a stunning tiny house cabin on pontoons. 

Sustainability and efficiency have become huge topics of discussion amongst commercial and industrial builders across the globe. By using more environmentally friendly building materials, we can create homes that don’t hinder the health of the environment or ourselves.

Mark has lived a very unique life, sailing and traveling around the world working as a professional mime and clown. Now, in his retirement he is living the island lifestyle on an incredible off-the-grid house boat where he is able to enjoy life and spend his days looking out over the ocean. 

Imagine waking up each day in a stunning new location, stepping outside your home, grabbing your surf board and hitting the waves. Kiwi electrician Johnny Johnston is living that dream, traveling and working all over New Zealand while hunting down the countries best surfing locations all in his converted van.

 There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. That’s how the story goes, but this incredible small home is no fairytale. Constructed from ferrocement, this tiny house has been built in the shape of a boot. Despite it’s whimsical appearance, it’s a functional home and is currently used as a retreat for lovers and those who are wanting to escape reality and live a little fairytale of their own.

As an architect, Doug is used to designing large and spectacular homes. When it came to his own house, he decided to do something a bit different and challenged himself with going a lot smaller and designing and building a tiny house on wheels. With the benefit of his years of experience in architecture, his home is beautifully designed and filled with clever concepts to help make the space functional.

When Mandy saw the two railway carriages which sat rotting away on a property she was looking to purchase it was love at first sight. Despite their derelict state she saw their potential to be transformed into an incredible home. After 8 years of part time renovation work, the carriages have now been lovingly transformed into a wonderful, off the grid, small house which overlooks the big sky country of the Central Otago region of New Zealand.

This stunning small home in Wanaka, New Zealand is a perfect example of the influence that the tiny house movement is beginning to have on more conventional builds.

This home is a unique hybrid between a tiny house on wheels and a natural building. This young apprentice carpenter, gave himself a challenge to own his own home before he was 22 years old. What he ended up constructing was an incredible tiny home, which uses natural plasters on the interior to give his home an incredible earthen cottage appearance. 

This incredible home has been constructed using two 40ft shipping containers, which have been placed slightly off-set from one another to form a large living space in the centre as well as seperate rooms at the ends. Built as a DIY project by owners Matt and Ilse, this off-the-grid container house is now a wonderful, functional home for their family of five. 

If you love tiny homes but also the freedom of living on a boat, this small floating house boat could just be the ideal solution for you. Designed by Ian Ugarte in collaboration with architect Drew Heath this house on the water is designed to be the ideal live-aboard home.