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Meet Mariëlle and Chris and their lovely DIY Tiny House which is parked in a lush green corner of a local Nudist Club in New Zealand that needed some extra income to help pay the bills! While the couple aren’t nudists themselves, it ended up being a perfect place for their 10 x 26 tiny house on wheels.

Because Mariëlle and Chris are from two different countries, they wanted a home that wasn’t tied down. They built this red-clad tiny house out of SIPs (structurally insulated panels) during about 3 months which they took off from work to focus on the home. The total cost for the project was around $27,000 USD (or $45,000 in New Zealand dollars).

Living Big in a Tiny House did a wonderful video tour and interview with the couple, so be sure to watch the whole thing and learn about their epic waste recycle system and bee-keeping!

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DIY Tiny House Built with SIPs at New Zealand Nudist Club

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This is one couple’s DIY Tiny House in Ecuador! James is from Ireland and built the home with his Polish partner, Monika.

The two are in living tiny in Ireland right now after spending five and a half months on their Ecuadorian home. There’s more to do when they return, but in the meantime, enjoy James’ build story and our interview with him:

It was built from mid-September 2016 to mid-February 2017. It essentially started out as a truck trailer, these types of trailers are quite common in Ecuador. Once the trailer was purchased we essentially just built a little house around it.

Neither of us had really done anything like this before, and I have never worked in a trade or anything so it was quite an undertaking for us, especially in the quite short time we had available to us. We had to get some hired help for a few weeks to speed up the process, but we did a lot of the work ourselves, including the furniture and loft.

It’s quite basic compared to some of the Tiny Houses out there, but needless to say we are very proud of it. Unfortunately we had to leave Ecuador just as it was completed (a friend is living in it at the moment) but we plan to make it back in the near future.

We use Eucalyptus wood for most of the construction, with some Pine in the roof structure to keep the weight down. Bamboo was used on the inside of the roof, and the walls are insulated with foam and covered in wooden board. It’s quite spacious inside.

Also I like to think that someone who has never built something or perhaps doesn’t have building skills per se, could look at our house and say ‘Hey I could do that!’. We built the house for $6500.

The rest of the interview is below the picture tour of the home’s construction. Enjoy!

Related: Christine’s 16 x 32 Lofted Barn in AL: Her Story

One Couple’s $6,500 DIY Tiny House

Couple's DIY Tiny House in Ecuador: $6,500 to Build

Images via James McSherry

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