Owning less, so that what you own doesn’t own you. That’s one way of summing up the tiny house movement, which has its roots in a desire for minimal living.
There are many reasons for choosing a tiny house over a traditionally built one. They are transportable, so homes can be moved if circumstances change, are less reliant on municipal services and work with a lock-up-and-go lifestyle.
That was one of the reasons that Sybille Essmann decided to “go tiny”. Her journey to her own tiny home started in Johannesburg, where she had a three-bedroom house. After selling her business in 2014, she decided to take a travelling sabbatical. While hiking in Peru, she broke her leg and had to have surgery. During this time the seeds had begun to germinate and she realised she had lived very comfortably out of a suitcase and a travel bag.
Coming home to her double-storey home, navigating the stairs “was a nightmare” because of her leg. She had begun watching some of the TV programmes on tiny homes, including Bryce Langston’s YouTube series Living Big In A Tiny House. “I became obsessed with them,” said Essmann.
She sold a lot of furniture.
Her nephew had 64ha of land near Stanford in the Western Cape, which she could live on, and so the journey began.
Essmann contacted the team at Cape Town-based company, Tinyhome Africa who designed her home.
Essman’s home is 26m2, and a generous deck doubles as living space. Tiny homes are also about maximising the outdoors, with sliding doors to open up the space. In her bedroom, Essmann showed me the generous cupboard space, saying it meant she’d kept more clothes than she should have. She has a double bed: “You can lift it and there’s storage underneath, too.” Above her bed is a collage of picture frames of family, proving that a tiny home is about curating what you want in a space: objects must mean something.
What Sybille Essmann spent on her tiny home:
The home structure: R450,000
Fireplace: R32,000
Solar power: R75,000
Extras and sundries: about R35,000
Water tank: R2,000
Sanitary: R15,000
Decking: R40,000
— Tiny Box: What it costs
There’s a sliding barn door to close off the space, should she need to, from the living area. A grey sleeper couch with a vivid red covering livens up this area. There’s a small fireplace, and a TV on a wall. A red Persian carpet, bought on her travels, fits the space perfectly, taking pride of place on the vinyl flooring. The kitchen is done in mint-green carpentry with ample storage. The counter is a place to prepare food, eat and work on her computer.
A small, but well-appointed bathroom leads off the living area, with a shower that has a sit-down ledge as a way of “future- proofing” the space in case she can’t stand up in the shower.
Essmann loves her tiny home: “It’s a lock-up-and-go. I don’t have to worry about anything. I don’t have to water plants. I don’t have animals. It just suits my lifestyle. I’ve managed to put everything that I need into my home. I have more than sufficient space. I don’t feel claustrophobic at all.
“It’s also given me the opportunity of downsizing. And it’s really practical, I’m a practical type of person, I’m not sentimental. I have few things, I’m not going to hang on to stuff that isn’t useful. It’s something that I can live in for the next 10 years or so.”
There’s also an eye on the future: “It’s a type of structure that you could rent out [on] the Airbnb.”
Yulande Roxburgh, the founder of Tinyhome Africa, had wanted to build tiny homes in SA after becoming fascinated with the concept. During the Covid-19 pandemic she teamed up with Grant Brooker to build a tiny home, and demand has since taken off. They have since built about 55 tiny homes and have a waiting list. It takes three to four months to build one, and then the home is delivered by truck. Because of SA’s municipal regulations, tiny homes are settled on a number of plinths anchored into the ground. These homes are also smaller than those built in the US, for example, as our roads aren’t as expansive. There is also a 4.3m height restriction when transporting a home on the road, taking the height of the truck into account as well. Plans must be submitted to the council, and different municipalities have different regulations.
Tinyhome Africa offers units of various sizes, with the biggest being 37m2. Clients can purchase more than one and add them to each other to create a larger home. Roxburgh lives in a tiny home and explains that the lifestyle choice means not having lots of stuff. “You really need the basics — your clothes, your kitchen stuff — the rest is digital, books, movies etc. So keep them very open plan. And we use a lot of glass, floor-to-ceiling glass,so that you feel the outside while you’re on the inside. Think about it. If you’re in a house with a wall, your mind reads the wall, right?
“In a tiny home, your mind is not reading that boundary because it’s literally looking right through the stacking doors, onto decks which pretty much double the space.”
While Tinyhome Africa is based in the Western Cape and mostly supplies the market there, but it they recently transported six homes to a game lodge in the Kruger National Park.
Finishings are fully customisable, with proper waterproofing and insulation. They are often cheaper to heat and cool than regular homes. They can be moved and, of course, they can be taken off grid, as Essmann has done in her tiny.
Karina Flood, who started Tiny Home Essentials, helps people who are interested in joining the tiny house movement. She puts people in touch with various suppliers in SA. “I wanted to create an SA hub, especially for individuals and businesses who want to become part of a community. It’s also a safe place to ensure that the people that they are dealing with are legit or trustworthy.”
A perusal of Tiny Home Essentials’ Facebook page highlights suppliers of pods, the Midvaal Tiny House Policy, timber manufacturers and suppliers of A-frame homes, among other things. These are some of the collaborators that Flood works with: “I collaborate with businesses. I find businesses that not only have a good product ... [and] have a fair price, but they’re also real, genuine people with good customer service.”
Flood can also offer advice on anything related to tiny homes and does not charge for this service. While the tiny home movement is in its infancy in this country, there are more and more companies that cater to the growing demand for living lightly on the planet.
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