I struggled to afford rent, so I built myself a tiny house. At 56, I moved in, and I'm finally a homeowner.
NEWS | 13 October 2025
By then, I was in my early 50s and began to crave something I'd thought would always be out of my reach: a home of my own. I knew exactly the kind of home I wanted: something small and sustainable, almost like a cabin. I did a Natural Building course to learn about straw-bale houses and building with cheap, recycled materials. But there was one big, persistent problem: I had no land to build on, and no way of buying any. Then I heard about tiny houses on wheels, and they ticked all my boxes. They were inexpensive to build and to live in. You could park your tiny house on someone else's land for a small fee. Best of all, tiny houses encouraged the kind of minimalist lifestyle I'd grown to love on my travels. I also loved that you could build a tiny house yourself, because they're small and there's no tiny house building code, at least not in Australia. Unfortunately, I had zero building experience.
Author: Enter Your Email. Louise Southerden.
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