Couple Maria and Tino moved from Germany to the US for a job. Tiny house life held a lot of appeal for them, and when an opportunity came up to buy one, they went for it. Luckily, they also secured a parking spot in a Portland, Oregon, backyard with full hook-ups and space for a garden.
Their 26-foot tiny home is filled with creative storage solutions and lots of room for their new baby. You enter through the kitchen. To the right of the door is the raised living room that creates a large storage compartment underneath, accessed from the outside. There’s room for a sleeper sofa, a baby gym, and a workspace for Tino.
Mario and Tino customized their tiny home to work better for them. For example, they built a counter-height table in the kitchen as a dining table and home office for Maria. Additionally, they made a creative DIY clothing storage solution in the stairwell to the loft bedroom—“flying wardrobe”! It’s a hanging closet rack on a pulley system, stored out of the way at the top of the stairs. Watch the tour above to see this in action.
Now Mario and Tino are moving back to Germany to be closer to family. They also this as an opportunity to promote tiny living as part of the growing tiny house movement there. Like the US, German cities are experiencing a housing crunch.
“So while we’re here we observed tiny houses are also becoming a thing in Germany for several reasons. I think people are just curious about the concept, want to try things out, people also want to downsize, and be more sustainable and so on. And for sure, there’s also thoughts about financial reasons to go tiny.
I think like in the US the housing market is going crazy in some cities in Germany. Like Berlin, for example, used to be where we actually lived. It used to be a very cheap city to live. Now the housing prices or prices to own an apartment are basically what they are here in Portland. So not cheap.”
-Maria