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House tour in 3 seconds. Kitchen, living room, bedroom. That's it. We utilize the storage for everything. This is the upstairs and this is the downstairs. The toilet, it's called a compost toilet. It doesn't flush. No. Melbourne and Sydney are the two biggest cities in Australia, but some of the homes are shockingly small. Today, I'm setting out to explore the tiniest houses and see what everyday life looks like for the people who live inside them. When I stick my hands out, it's like half of the house. Because when space disappears, every little decision matters. Woah. One pair of jeans can fit in one spot. That's my whole wardrobe.
My first stop is right outside Sydney, where my new friend Veronic has built a home centered around smart design and a real connection to nature. I've lived here for about 3 full years now. It's been a really great space to be in. This is my place. You are like in the middle of the nature. It's hard to explain how beautiful it is here. It's super green, mountains, fresh air. How far is the beach from here? Uh drive-wise, it's about 15 minutes. You can't walk it, but Not bad at all. No, this is my place. It's my little Barbie dream house. That's what I like to call it. Oh my god, it's totally a Barbie dream house. I know. When I got this place, it was just a white shell and I was like,
"Boring." Yeah. I made it pink. I made it colorful. I made it, you know, my sort of space. I wanted to be able to wake up in the morning and really enjoy it, you know? It's super clean in here. Thank you. Oh, that's the great thing about tiny homes I've found, right? That with a tiny home, you don't have to do too much. Mhm. You can do a deep clean, but a deep clean will take like maybe an hour or two. But it can get cluttered quickly, no?
Yes, it can get really cluttered. So, couch, living room area kind of, kitchen. Yeah, pretty much. It's all in one spot. We've got this TV. Woah. Let me see that. Yeah. Do you live alone in here? I do. I have a boyfriend who comes down every so often, but no, I live here on my own. I have autism. I can do a lot of things on my own. I finished school. I'm in university right now, but I find there's a lot of things that I really I do need help with, especially when I'm stressed with union things. There's things I need help with cooking um and taking care of myself. Having that support when I need it has been really helpful.
Most things I do on my own. Sure. So, but there is some days where I need I go, "Hey mom, I need that bit of support. Can you come and stay with me?" For sure. And so, instead of you know her having to drive down or anything, she can just walk down. Wonderful. Veronic, what's the best and the worst part about living in a tiny house? Well, it's definitely been a great experience best-wise. Just have my own space, but also that there's not heaps of stuff to clean up. That's been the best part. The worst part is the toilet. So, bathroom is very basic bathroom, right? But, the toilet is It's called a compost toilet. It doesn't flush? No. It's just a bucket in a fancy look.
Um you know those when you go out camping and they have you those big holes? It's like that. And every 3 months, I have to clean it out because it just sort of piles up on top of each other. It stinks. If I leave this door open by accident and I go out for the day and I come back, I'm like, "Oh." Oh, what's that smell? Is all this designed like your creation? So, this house was already made. We had the decision of building it ourselves, but I added a few extra things. Come on up.
Mhm. So, Wait, it was made like So, this house was already made. Um But, it wasn't here. You brought No, no, no. We built it here. So, this used to be a chicken farm. We made it into my house here instead. So, we've got the bedroom there. I'm just going backwards here cuz it's Okay, so squishy. This is your bedroom? Yeah, this is the bedroom. Cool. Your head nearly touches the ceiling. If I get too excited, I very often smack my head on the roof. It's like an inch. This is my space. I wake up to that as my view. That is crazy. Oh my god, what a view to wake up to. I know. We get to see all the animals. I see wombats here, kangaroos, deer.
Wait, oh my god, sorry. It's It's a very stereotypical. So, you actually see kangaroos here? Yeah. And they're just like hopping across? Um the more I see more wombats than anything, but yeah. So, no, we see what kangaroos all the time. The stereotypes are true. There actually are kangaroos everywhere here. Oh, yeah. This is my desk area and my obsession with Dragon Age. I've loved Dragon Age. It's a video game series and a book series and everything like that. It's one of my favorite things to do. Sometimes I'll use it as just a comfort sort of thing. At this point in my life, I don't have anything I want besides Dragon Age. My
entire Christmas list for my parents and family and everything was Dragon Age. My biggest thing was this bad boy down here. Wow. So, he was in USD. He was about 600 700 Wow. Cool collectibles. So, I usually do cosplay of um like League of Legends and anime characters. So, yeah, that's downstairs. This Oh, yes, this is my this is cool. I know. I spent a long time setting up my entire space. This is like awesome. Like, I really strive to find unique and cool people and you fit that role perfectly. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. And then we go to kill the stairs after this. What are you studying in uni?
Psychology. Nice. Yeah. Can you read my mind? I um I actually have a degree in performance, so acting. Oh, nice. Uh I want to do music and drama therapy. tell you're like you're really good on camera. Thanks. This room I've sort of not fully sorted out yet because at the end of the day, I bought this house and I'm not made of money. So, this is going to be my cosplay room. So, Wow. Yeah. So, do you actually wear this? I do wear these for cons and stuff. Yeah, obviously. specific costume? So, these are two different ones at the moment. I'm fixing up this wig right now. This is the designated boyfriend area. He's allowed to have his space.
I love that. All my walls are actually magnetic. Wow. Oh. So, um That's your boyfriend? Yeah, yeah. I just can't believe these views. I've said it like 10 times now. Like, the views are unbelievable. Do people hike up that mountain? So, that's actually farmer's land. So, that all the way there is my neighbor's property. So, this area used to be run by like a cult. Really? Uh I'm really interested in cults. Not like a bad like more just like a very highly religious group of people. Cheers.
Nice to meet you. Nice strawberry cup. Thank you. It's going to be too hot. It might be. It's perfect. Good. Yeah. So, I'm not drinking my tea with milk and apparently it's strange for you. Well, yeah, I think we're very British that way. I must say, when you drink tea from a strawberry cup, it tastes better. It makes it look cute, you know? Veronique's tiny home is unique and for one person, it really works. Our next home is the smallest one I could find in Australia and it's the first one I've ever featured on wheels. I'm meeting up with Steve and his girlfriend whose skills are put to good use by building a tiny home that goes wherever they do. And this time, my parents are coming
with me. They're here visiting Australia for the first time Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oi, oi, oi. and I want to take them to meet real locals. All right. They're just rolling in right now. With the beeps. Yes. My house on the back of my truck. Awesome. It's literally in the back of your truck. Yeah. Uh we've been living in this for about a year now. Uh it's myself and my partner Jade. I built it from scratch. It's like steel frame and then core room panels and then everything else is just clad in How long did it take you to build it?
About six to nine months. Uh probably over a period of like three years of running out of money and motivation and stopping and starting and Wow. Uh Did you help build it? No. Only a couple little bits. done the artworks. Um there's a couple artworks on the wall and there's a big mural on the outside. She's definitely done some bits and pieces. What is your job? I'm a carpenter builder. I was going to guess that. Yeah. Build Residential houses for a living, so this is definitely different for me. Do you mind if I ask how much it cost to build? I reckon probably 20 to 30,000 in materials, including like a winch and some heavy-duty wheels and
stuff cuz it comes on and off. It's a tipper, so it tips up and it rolls off, so it was a bit of engineering in that cost some money and then a million hours of labor. So, got a double bed up here. Got a nice big skylight that opens out. Um, some windows either side, which gives us lots of ventilation. It's all just sort of storage and pantries and just real like low-tech basic cupboard sort of thing and like clothes and stuff in here, but they're just little like pins that pull out. Opens out. Woah! That's cool. Yeah. You see that? Look down. Look at It's like one pair of jeans can fit in one spot. That's it. That's my whole wardrobe.
It's a guy wardrobe. That's I get it. Yeah. One pair of shorts, one pair of That's it. I brought more on the trip. These are my going out ones. Made the window and sewed it. Um, like made the mechanism that opens it. Um, Woah. So, that fully opens out. Woah. it's just real simple like brass copper fittings and that's a pewter piece of like my grandfather's shed. Do you sleep with it open sometimes? Uh, if we need to. To be honest, with this thing on open and we've got like an extraction fan here up in the ceiling. Um, with that on and that taking air out, it pulls fresh air in across us.
So, whose idea was this? Yours or yours? Steve's idea. Yeah, that was mine. Yeah, I think I had it just before we met. And what have been your biggest struggle living like this? If you have any. Maybe just routine. There's not as much routine. The other side of that is just the experiences and just being able to be flexible. So, it's pros and cons. Where is the bathroom? Uh, we've got a compost toilet uh, down here. What? Yeah, yeah, there is. That's a toilet? You can lift it up. You can have a look. Yeah, sure. Let's see it. This is a juicy content.
Yeah. Woah. Very low-tech. Yeah. Uh Wow. And then we have a shower at the back. We've got gas hot water. If you open that door uh Really? You have a shower in here? Yeah, you got to kick the bottom. Uh yeah. Uh-oh. You said kick the bottom. Yeah, yeah, kick it. And then up on your right there, uh that's a shower up there. This is a shower? Yeah, and I've just got a hose that attaches to it. Yeah. It's gas. What? Where do you get the water source? We've got a water tank, uh down underneath. Um Mom, you're amazed right now. I'm I Yeah, I got to hear more about the shower.
Yeah, well, there's another one here, so that's why this is built like a deck. And so there's a little shower outlet up in there, and it comes down, and we can have a shower here. Again, I haven't had to use it. I didn't want to dedicate floor space to it cuz you watch a lot of other vans on YouTube. wherever you are? Yeah, but we can shower out there. We can shower in here. We definitely had a few bucket baths here, but with the way the floor's done here, the water goes down and out. How many square meters would you say this is? I think it's about eight. And it's about like a meter wide to walk through?
Yeah, not even. whole, yeah. Yeah, it's about 700, I think. What about cooking? Uh We have They just laugh. They're like, "We don't need food." We have like a induction cooktop that we can put out on here, um and we can just plug it in. Uh we've got a new power outlet. Yeah. we've got [clears throat] We've got solar. Because you guys basically live on top of each other, do you ever find the need to have your own space? Like you just go take a walk or uh do you guys Does it bother you just to be all
Yeah. I mean, like I'm married, too. They're married, but I'm What do you argue? What do you do? Yeah. Uh we generally get along, uh but I mean, we also have jobs and we work like we're traveling and working and stuff, and Yeah. And if we're just tired at the end of the day, we just sit in different spots and just be quiet. you have a job, so you park this thing and you both go to a job during the day? All my tools are on the other side. So, And what do you do? I'm a tattoo artist and I also do murals and paintings. you need a place to do your tattoos. Yeah, I just go to a studio.
Okay, so wherever he goes, you can find a studio and work? Yeah. I guess that has been probably one of the challenges is just trying to balance both of our schedules and the truck always has to come with me cuz it has the tools in it. And then sometimes that leaves Jade a little bit stuck. We've got a second car at the moment. Nice. So, you guys both have jobs. What inspired you to live this small when you It seems like you could afford a bigger house. So, we don't have to work so much and we can enjoy life and go and travel and see Australia. So, what's been the best and the worst parts about this lifestyle? Uh this is just freedom and which is that was that's the absolute goal. Love that. What's
a struggle that you haven't brought up yet that you have? Cold beers. Where are the tattoos? It's the got the artist right here. I've got Jade's doing uh Jade's doing this one at the moment. It's a classic kookaburra. Dude, that is Yeah. You're doing that? Yeah. This by far is the coolest little house. Yeah. All over the world. This is really cool. That's what I told them, too. You won the prize, dude. Awesome. Even the way you have all your cabinets and everything is amazing. Yeah. You know, and all the little the way you just simple. It's very simple. You must have had to get rid of a lot of things in order to live this kind of lifestyle.
Yes. So, how was that? That was probably the hardest bit. Just condensing everything and when you move house, you can just lift everything up and put it in the new house. With this one, you we can't. We have to lift every single item up and think about do we need it? Are we throwing it out? What happens with every single piece? Um so, yeah. That was your friends and family think about your lifestyle? Uh they've got heaps of our stuff under their houses. Um No, we've got pretty accepting and family and I mean it's it's pretty on brand for us. I don't think anyone was too shocked that we wanted to pack up and move into a truck. I've been crafting on about it for 10 years anyway. But yeah, there's no rules to it
and everything's flexible and that's it's designed that way too. If we want to run them and we want to travel with them, if we want to take it off, we'll take it off. She's 14 years old and she likes being on the road. She gets to cruise around and see new sites. Um, so yeah, we generally just lift her up and then she lives. Aw. Later. Right there? Later. So cute. Later. She lives there, but she also likes to go and look for crumbs. So yeah, it's my original work truck and so it's got my tool boxes with my full set up on it, ladders, all my planks and everything I need. It's a
little bit covered up, but Jade's done a big mural on the side there. That's amazing. All right, Steve, nice meeting, man. nice to meet you. Take care. Farewell. While I make my way to the next tiny home here in Australia, I want to take a second to thank the sponsor of this video, Revolut. If you sign up using my link below, you can get a $40 bonus. No matter how you live your life, managing money shouldn't be complicated. Whether you're traveling, working remotely, or just handling everyday expenses, having control over your money actually matters. Revolut is a global financial app that is used by over 70 million people worldwide. It lets you hold, exchange, and spend in 25
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I could spend all day hanging out in Sydney, but now my parents and I are heading to a home unlike any of the others just outside of Melbourne. The last two small homes felt manageable for one or two people, but imagine raising an entire family in a space just as small. That's exactly what Nick and Val have done with their kids and we're about to see how they make it all work. This is our uh little tiny house. So, we've been here for 2 and 1/2 years. The house came down on a big truck and just got delivered, so we had this field here, which has kind of been empty for a long time. And so, mom and dad said,
"Yeah, we can put the uh the tiny house here." So, Rick and his truck came and uh dropped it off. Literally dropped it off. So, it's 3 and 1/2 m wide, so that's roughly 10 ft. Yeah. This is our living room, dining room, and your kitchen. Yeah, so we've got the little fridge, uh a two-burner gas stove, um the sink, coffee machine, oven, and we utilize the storage for everything. So, under here, storage for our towels and going swimming. That's nifty. And then like under here is Wow. cooking equipment. We've got the stove for winter because that's like our main source of heat. We have an AC unit upstairs and the fan. So, yeah, so with that combined, like it can get pretty hot in some of these other rooms.
What do you think about this, Mom? This is I'm just shocked. But, I love the way you use your storage. Do you cook here a lot? Do you Are you able to Oh, every meal? Every meal. Do you have to go to the grocery store frequently because you can't store a lot of food? Or do you shop for the week? Or how do you shop for the week. Yeah. We take a lot from the garden. We take a lot of herbs and veggies from the garden, lemons from the trees. That's our food storage. That's tall, skinny cupboard over there. So, you have cats? Yes, we have two cats, two little tabby brothers. They've got a tunnel that goes under the house into the back. tunnel.
cat tunnel. them? Or they just know how to do that? They know that's where their litter box is. But, there's a hangout zone. There's a hammock and some viewing platforms. And they can in an enclosed space that they can hang out in. Catio, yeah. Yeah, the catio. Yeah. So, you don't pay for rent because you built like it was one price for the house. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And do like you have Wi-Fi and stuff? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, we've got 5G Wi-Fi. So, the bills are water and internet? I Well, we said we would pay his parents the difference of electricity and water when we moved in. But, after a few
months of living here, they couldn't tell the difference of Great. So, it's free. All right. In you go, James. Whoa, this is cool, man. This is a bro hang. Teen hangs. Wow. You've done a good job here, actually. huh? Yep. You like to do games. Yep. Very cool in here. I've got like my storage for LEGOs. Do you watch YouTube? Uh, no. In Australia, it's illegal for under 16s. That is so crazy. I don't know how I feel about that. It's like I see the pros and cons of it. They're both under 16. It's illegal to watch YouTube. So, I hope you'll be able to watch this video. Yeah, with me.
Yeah, yeah. With me, that'll be fine. I don't know when your birthday is, but chances are by the time this comes out you'll be 16, so you'll be legal. Thank you for the tour of your room. I'm 5'9" on my tippy toes, so the roof is about I don't know how many meters that is, 1.8 m? It's about 1.8, yeah. Yeah, see there we go. Okay, so what's in here? This is the master bedroom? So this is our bedroom, yeah. We do have um her and Soko across and Nick's building a barn door that goes across here just so we have a bit more privacy, but we love this room. It's it's big enough, it's got a great view. So you're
from the US, what's the best and the worst thing about living in Australia? Well, the worst is definitely that it's so far away. So that's the hardest part is That's the hardest part for me. So how often do you get to go back? So we try to go back every year or two. And what's the best thing about Australia? Me. Well, I was going to say the people, so um yeah, the people. I love the their um outlook on life. Is it easy to make friends here? Yes. They're really outgoing. Yeah, really outgoing. If you drive about 5 minutes that way, you'll hit the beach. Which is yeah, which is incredible.
Mom, are you nervous going down the steps? No, they're very narrow steps, but they work. You got to be careful. Especially in socks. All right, we are going down the stairs. Cool. Oh, Sophie Lane. Can't mistake it. Whoa. That bed's taller than you almost. Yeah. Wow, look at you. And then you can go underneath. It's like a cave. Whoa, it's a whole it's a cave in here. You almost have like two beds in your room. This is one bed and that's one. Oh wait, sometimes I do sleep down here.
This is awesome, you can read, yeah. Yeah, the other night we had a sleepover and I slept upstairs and Sophie slept downstairs. That's so cute. Yep, the other night when I jumped in bed I found a needle. I also found a needle when I woke up. Where was the needle? Like here. There's just a needle in your bed? sewing, she does um Oh, you sew. So you have sewing, yeah. Yeah, be careful you don't roll over on a needle. How far is the hospital from here? Uh 20 minutes. Oh, cute. Those are awesome. So, do you cut out the pattern and everything or it's already made? fabric in that box over there.
Wow, you cut it out and everything. So, these are yeah. You know, everywhere I look there's another corner with things. So, it's really like organized. I didn't even see that, but she's got like all these like drawers here. He's a major crafter. So, all of that's all craft supplies. That's not even her clothes. Her clothes are your clothes you have a closet in here. If you look behind you. Nice. A lot of pink and purple. Yes. Yeah, there is a definite color theme. Yeah. Cool. And so, this is our bathroom. So, and laundry. Singular bathroom? Yep.
Seems to be pretty nice. Yeah, we have our like if you jump in our towels are hung up or Can I go in? Yeah, of course. So, you take turns going to Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're going to take a shower, babe? No, I'm just heading for me. So, this washer no dryer? Uh so, it is a washer dryer, but this time of the year everything just goes straight out onto the clothesline. And it closes it dries in like an hour. 2 hours, 3 hours. Outside 20 minutes. 20 Yeah. You guys are so happy and joyful and this when most people would walk into a house this small they would immediately say, I can never live here. I would never want to do this.
most people say. You can see people sort of seizing up when they come in here. Like they have this vision of like what would I get rid of and what would I do? And I have to say, it's okay. I'm not asking you to do it. The best part about Nick and Val's home is that it's not too far away from Melbourne. And it's also just minutes away from the beach. They even got their own piece of property right along the coast and Val is taking us to see it. is the Port Phillip Bay. Wow, Mom, look at this. What do you think about this? Wonderful. Wow. small home living ain't so bad anymore, right? Normally what we do in the summer is we wait till about 6:00 to come down here. We set up a table here. We have
drinks and dinner here just on the little veranda and watch the sunset and have a sunset swim and that's our favorite sort of summer thing to do. This is amazing. Okay, so on the beach, all the way from the city, from Melbourne down to around the Port Phillip Bay, we have these beach boxes or boat sheds. You can buy them, you have to own them privately, and then inside, you can store anything you want in them, beach items, but um there's no running water and no electricity. But, we've got like a little boat, chairs, toys, umbrella.
Nice to have this right on the water. Mom, look at this. They have every all the beach stuff in here. so nice. It's a great way to store what you need for the beach without having to do it in your house. have to bring it all. So, it's another storage. So, if you were to sell this today, how much It's about $600,000. Yeah. Amazing. How much? About $600,000 they go for on Yeah. Well, I mean, you're just walk out and you're on the beach. How much better than that? I literally had no idea that we are 5 minutes away from this incredible beach.
I can't feel my feet anymore. Oh, they're so hot. Oh, it's cool. It's crisp. Yeah, it's refreshing, right? refreshing. How is it, Mom? It's It's nice. After the beach, I want to surprise my mom with a truly Australian experience, hanging out with koalas and kangaroos. You don't see that in Yeah. Oh, right there. Mom, can I feed that? Mom, what do you love about kangaroos? They're just cute, and they hold their babies in their front pocket, their joeys. Oh, you're so cute. Aw. How do you feel right now, Mom? Wonderful. What do you think about it? Yeah, it's pretty cool. Look at Mom feeding her little joey. I never knew it was called joey. You know, Mom's life bucket list is feeding a kangaroo
in Australia. Look at that big smile on Momma's face. They're so cute. It's a little peak moment for Mom's life right now. So happy. Aw, so sweet. Say Frosty. How do you feel right now? This is amazing. This is a dream come true for a long time. After hanging with koalas, I head back to Melbourne where an Italian expat named Luca shares a super compact apartment with two others right in the heart of the city. How old are you, bro? 23. Oh, you're a young guy. Yeah, for now only working but What's the job? Container loading. All right.
Luca, this is the hallway? Like these are all rooms? Yeah, these are all our rooms. Yes. Wait, this is another one? So this is your room here and then there's one here and one here. We're entering Luca's place now. Here we are. Buongiorno. Welcome. We have the main room with the kitchen here. This is the whole space right here. Yeah. How many people live here? Three. Three people. My shared room with my friend, which is like really messy and Yeah, it's not too bad in here. No, I mean it's fine. You share this with another person?
Yeah, with my friend. There's two people in this Damn, bro. What's the best and the worst part about living here? Maybe what I miss the most is some maybe privacy. But not even too much. It's fine. So two guys sleep here. So you're just snuggling the whole night. So the best part I don't really know. That's it's enough. Yeah, it is enough. For sure it's enough but it's just small. Yeah, it's small but we can survive and it's fine. This is the bathroom. Nice. Pretty standard. Yeah, really standard so Definitely a dude's house. Yeah. You can see that. You can see that a bunch of dudes live here. You came to Melbourne to work in construction? And I mean not really. I finished the university 3 months ago. And then I wanted
to do an experience with my friend and yeah, we decided to come here. I know that with Australia it's really difficult to get a visa to like live here and work here. How did you do that? I think for Europeans it's not that hard. They just ask you for a proof of like money. That's all they ask. Nice. Yeah. What is this room? This is my other housemate friend. So. So does he have to pay more for rent? No, no. We pay the same. And how much do you pay? Uh $300 weekly. Weekly? Yeah. I've never in my life had anyone explain a weekly rate. It's uh usually per month.
I think it's Here it's like the common things. To be honest, it's not that cheap. No, but I think Yeah, that's the thing. But I think everywhere here is not really cheap. You do have a little bit of a balcony here. I mean, it's basically literally straight down. So is life good here? It's pretty good. What I like the most is that like people are really nice. Like even if you pass from a street, people like smile at you or they wave at you. What I find really funny about Australia is like the way that they like when they speak words, they speak they cut off words. They like brekkie, like Maccas. Everything is like
Arvo, yeah. Arvo, I think afternoon. I hope I'm not wrong. You can make fun of Australians because they make fun of everybody else. Yeah, they So they don't take offense. They're very sarcastic. When I walk in the street because I have red hair, sometimes they call me ranga, which is like a joke for people with red hair. So you just got to like joke back with them. Okay, so now we are going to do a kitchen tour. Show me what you got. I mean, yeah. So just the sink, you know. Um we have a bit of a mess, so obviously. Where we cook We try to cook. I think I'm the worst. Bro, you're Italian.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going to offend everybody in your country. Yeah, but my friend is better. You got to cook a mean spaghetti, no? Yeah, no, yeah, yeah. I can cook them, yeah. He's like, "Yeah, like come on. Does a bear in the woods?" mean, we have the freezer with not much inside. Okay. And a bit more in the freezer, you know. All right. Pesto, you know. Yeah. It's actually the dish from my city, but it's really bad compared to the one in my city. So Yeah. So, how much money do you spend in 1 month for food and everything? Like your living expenses. I mean, not that much. We're not living like a really fancy life cuz we just work
during the week. Then in the weekend maybe we just get some drinks in a bar. Surely less than 1,000 euros. Like Nice. Yeah. Pretty good for Australia. At your age, bro, you're doing the right thing. You're traveling, you're meeting people. When I was 23, I was living in South Korea and I just took a job to teach English just so I could like live abroad. So, you're doing the same Good job. Thank you. But my hairstyle didn't evolve into Korean hairstyles, whereas your hairstyle and your mustache has completely evolved into Australian. Why do all the men have this mustache in the hair? It's like so like Well, I don't know. But it's fine.
I like it, so I just Yeah. I like it, too. It's It's got a good style. Yeah. Luca's apartment is no joke, but this lifestyle isn't just for the young. My parents and I are about to meet a British expat named Roma, who's pretty happy living in a small space, proving that tiny living can work at any age. So, originally this was a room and I had a little tiny old style caravan. And then I'd been following Rick and Havenwood Homes for a long time. So, I went with my eldest daughter to have a look. And then now it's your home.
Yeah. If we come up this end, you can see there's just literally It's a trailer that runs underneath. How he did it, I don't know. He reversed it in and it just fits. Came in at 159, $159,000. For me to buy a two-bedroom apartment by the seaside, which would be my dream, uh 800,000 uh dollars now. Can we take a tour inside? Absolutely. Come on in. Put the kettle on. First impressions, this place is beautiful. It's colored nicely and it's well designed. It's clean. This is specifically for a singular person, really. I liked it because it was light and airy. It's got some massive amount of windows. You can get all the air in that you want.
Put the air con up there that I put I wanted it to feel like home rather than a temporary thing. On the whole, it's just lovely. I mean, it's it's lovely being close to the family for a start. I can hear that you're British, and how long have you lived in Australia? Um so, we've been here 20 years in October. What's better, UK Australia for living? To be honest, I think here. Um it's getting tougher and harder at the moment, but I think the world is, to be honest. But I think there's more opportunities or have been more opportunities for my girls here than maybe they would have had in England, especially looking at England now.
Obviously, bedrooms at this end and then the bathrooms at that end. This is your bedroom? This is my bedroom. There's not many men that see this, you know. Actually, probably not. You're probably one of the first. So, this is my summer and winter stuff. I tried to sort of keep it all packed away, but it actually didn't work. It was too much of a nuisance. So, you had to basically put everything into these bins. Yeah. And then I just thought, "Do you know what? It's too much like hard work. I have to climb up and down, and it's just too much like hard work." So, how do you get up there? I have a little ladder. It's actually a doggy step.
Let's see that. But you can still reach it from down there. Okay. Yeah. So, that's all your clothes? That's I mean, that's about a quarter of my mom's. And then this is all my work clothes, which one day, in 2 1/2 years cute. all of that will be gone. Those are her work clothes? So, these are the seven dwarfs here. Aw. And these were made by my great grandma from Scotland. Whoa. Like so, these are super old? super old. Oh god, yeah. Like if you had to take a guess what year she made them, what would you say? God, probably 1980s, 1970s, 1980s.
Whoa. So, you got a nice fan in here. is so good. Yeah. is great. Do you ever feel lonely in here? Not in here. I think that's just a life thing. Sometimes when you're on your own, you just feel a bit lonely. If anything, I felt more homely once I got this place cuz it felt like I'd achieved something. So, you can push this back all the way. Oh. Oh, now so if it's nice weather, it just the whole house is breezy. So, this is my Would you like me to get into the shower?
This is my humongous shower. That is pretty big. bestest. I love it. I feel like I'm in a hotel. It's actually the biggest like comparatively if you compare it each room or each This is the biggest thing you have. It's crazy. It's crazy, but I love it. It's it's just fine. I love coming in here and having the windows undone and yeah, it's lovely. Obviously, we've got the good old toilet. You've got the washing machine in here. Yeah. Nice. Storage cupboard, laundry room. Yeah. Is that meaning that you talk a lot? Maybe a little bit. That's where you keep your tea thing?
Well, I don't make tea in a pot mostly cuz it's just me. Got you. I This is a This is my mom's proper set that she Cute. So, this is a special occasion one. And does it feel claustrophobic at all? Like you ever wish you had more space? yes and no. For me, I think it's fine. When all the grandkids come in and there's four of them running around and causing a riot, then I think, "Oh my god." But no, mostly, I feel really contented like this. I've got a little whistie dog that lives with me. It's um cup of tea. So, what's the best and the worst part about living in a small home?
Well, small home I think obviously because you do have to get rid of so many things. The best, I just like that it's so easy to have within something like this like a backyard. The worst part, I suppose having to get rid of things and cuz we're older I suppose. I don't feel I've achieved as much as I should have done, but circumstances got me here and that's that's all there is to it. But this is pretty good. Oh no, just about enough. Oh, you're going to have a half a cup, mate. There you go. goodness. You're so sweet. Help yourself.
You're a big eater. I thought you might. Very hospitable. I'll snag a biscuit. Oh, delicious tea. Delicious. Thank you. Cheers. Thank you very much. Welcome to my home. Oh, Oh, cute. So cute. Amazing. If money wasn't a factor, would you live in a bigger house? If I'm honest, yes. I love this. I probably still keep it if money wasn't an object. And the kids could have it as a little playhouse. My dream would have been to have a seaside unit or apartment. We really appreciate you being so hospitable and showing us around. For
me, if I can push this sort of idea out there, there's a lot of ladies out there that are in my or in my situation where maybe you're divorced or elderly or you're just struggling with a pension and going to retire. This is such a unique, great way of having a home. This opened my eyes to see what you could actually do. This is great. I mean, you feel like it's spacious and You can make it [clears throat] as homely and lovable as you like. And for me, that's This is me. I think it's my heart, my soul. Did you want to take cuz you Did you say you've got towels? Did you want to take one? Cuz they're just sitting in a cupboard.
Would you like to take one? Take that top one off. That's so nice. Take the top one off. Oh my gosh. Are you sure? Because my mom would hate me having it in a cupboard. So For me, with love. Oh, you're going to make me cry. But don't do that cuz then the boys will laugh at us. Oh, absolutely. One, two, three. She'll display it in the house. So, that's it. Just do you have your number cuz when I come to Cable, I'm going to send you a photo. Oh, lovely. Yeah, that'd be great. I know. That was so sweet. After meeting Roma and so many others living small in Australia, I've realized that tiny homes are a lot more than just size. For some, they offer
freedom. For others, they create space for family, creativity, and a closer connection to nature. And in the end, these homes prove that no matter how small a place can be, it can still hold a very big life.
