Tiny House Italia
A few years back we had the chance to buy an extremely small, completely dilapidated space in a very small group of houses in Piemonte, Italy. We’d lived for 10 years in Italy, having renovated a huge old ruin into a luxury B&B. When we sold it and moved back to my husband’s native Germany, we desperately wanted some way to stay attached to this beautiful wine region, and this house came along. The 481 square foot attached house was super inexpensive but in need of work. Having a good amount of renovation experience, I redesigned the space to make it work for modern living, and had the experts do the heavy duty work of relocating walls, laying floors, putting in plumbing and electricity. We took over all the finish work - mounting shiplap, wiring light fixtures, plastering, painting. It’s not finished yet, but that’s intentional. Each time we go down, we focus on a small project to complete. We’ve carefully chosen pieces that fit proportionally in the space and have not over filled it. We saved a great deal of money on the furnishings by using pieces we found or already had (including an old kitchen that I repainted), allowing us to splurge on the “heating system”, a wood burning stove which is also an oven to cook on. Here are some before shots and how the work has progressed until today:
Still to do are the outside areas (there’s a tiny garden - a real blessing), and I’ve been making handmade tiles to use as a backsplash and in the bathroom. At some point we’ll mount those, take care of the exterior (plaster, paint, pavers), and this little haven will be finished! For the price of a new car, we have a house that will continue to appreciate in value and give us joy. I keep going back to that thought…would I rather be driving a new set of wheels or have a holiday house in the wine region??? The answer was simple. I love this house because of all that it stands for: extremely simple living and frugal living, the feeling of being in a private loft space but in reality being part of a tight-knit Italian community, and never having to go on vacation anywhere else - because our second home is our favorite holiday spot. This second home went a long way to creating the lifestyle we were after, and we’re so happy we did it.
