Living Big in a Tiny House

It's time to start putting the roof on the Tiny House! In this video expert builder Alan Drayton from BioBuild Ltd shows us how to install a corrugate roof. The roofing material we are using is .55mm marine grade colour steel form Dimond Roofing.

It's been a year since we last caught up with Shaye and Tom in their tiny house and since that time a lot has changed! Their tiny abode has transformed into a wonderful home for their growing family, which now includes newborn daughter Hazel.

Windows and doors make up a very important part in the design of any house. They also have a very large effect on the thermal performance of a home. In this video we talk to the team at Windowmakers Ltd about how aluminium joinery is made, and find out more about the options on the market. We also get to watch some of the construction of the windows that will be going into our Tiny House.

This week our house moves one step closer to being completely enclosed as our windows are installed! In this video, Alan from BioBuild Ltd shows us how to install the window flashings, sill support bar and the windows themselves.

Our solar system is being installed on the Tiny House! In this video, we meet the team from Solar Group (http://www.solargroup.co.nz) and watch the first part of our solar install.

This little pop-top camper might not look like much from the outside, but for 22 year old Lily Kemp it's home. For her it means freedom and provides an escape from the rent trap. With prices in Auckland City (New Zealand) going through the roof Lily spent just $1500 to buy and do up an old pop-top camper that she now lives in for a fraction of her previous rent. Best of all, she still gets to enjoy all the benefits of central city living.

Natural builder Alan from BioBuild (http://www.biobuild.co.nz) talks us through the process of installing our weatherboards for the Tiny House.

In an ideal situation, you'll be able to find weatherboards that are able to span the length of your house which means you don't need to worry about joining them. In most cases though, that's not possible. Our weatherboards come in lengths of 4.5 meters, which means we will be needing joins in our longer sections.

Once all of your weatherboards have been installed, it's time to look finishing off the corners nicely. There are a number of ways of doing this, but in our case we are using corner boxes. Abodo (www.abodo.co.nz) do supply ready made corner boxes, but as we have 45° corners, we need to make those ourselves. To keep all the boxes uniform, it means we have to make all of our own corners.

We're almost totally enclosed in our tiny house and will soon be moving onto the internal fit-out. We thought this was a great opportunity to show you around the house so far and what we have planned for the inside!

This week we visit Underhill, and incredible hobbit-home like, eco-cave house built into a hillside. The off-the-grid house is cleverly constructed to resemble a cave. With no electricity in the house, the stone, wood and rustic features truly make you feel like you’re stepping back in time.

Have you ever dreamed of living in a belle tent or a yurt but were a bit unsure of how to build a platform for it? In this video, we show you how it's done.

With the platforms for both the Lotus Belle tent and the Bathroom Hut built, a rope bridge was the obvious choice for joining the two. Here's how we did it!

This super simple, DIY kitchenette was actually converted from an old sideboard, making the build incredibly simple and very cost effective. If you're looking to build a kitchenette for a small space such as a tiny house, a motorhome, caravan or sleep-out, then this is a fantastic option. In our case, we are constructing this kitchenette to be installed in our Lotus Belle tent, which we will be living in while we complete the Tiny House build.

Earthships can be built to create fantastic survival shelters. This simple shelter is being constructed in Te Puke (New Zealand) as part of a training program aimed at teaching survivors of Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu how to construct these robust buildings for their communities.

If you've ever dreamed of living in a luxury tent in the forest, then this may just be the set-up for you! Over the last couple of months we have been flat out finishing the project and getting everything ready for me to move in. The Lotus will be my home while I finish building the Tiny House. Watch the update on this set-up here: https://youtu.be/MamjU0RqZTM

Peak Oil, economic collapse, global warming. There is little question that if humanity remains on the path we are on now, then there is little hope for a sustained existence on the planet. We need to change our thinking and adopt a more harmonious stance to our relationship with the biosphere. The principles of permaculture teach us how it is possible to thrive on the earth and actually have a positive impact on the environment around us and together with the tiny house movement they provide a hopeful model for the future.

This student built her own Tiny House on wheels and now lives in her amazing home mortgage free!

Constructed almost entirely from recycled materials, this spectacular Tiny House on wheels was constructed for only US$10,000 and is packed full on clever design ideas.

Molly and Al lived an incredible life together on the road in their House Truck before finding their own idillic piece of land to set up a small homestead in the South Island of New Zealand. Their story shows an evolution from living in a house truck, to finding a more permanent solution for their retirement, that still allows them the freedom to hit the road when they desire.