“What does it mean to come home? [To have] a place where you know, in your bones, you belong?”
So starts this journey – one of deep thinking, sustainable living, and more than a few matters of the heart.
Let’s get this out of the way: If you’re looking for a DIY guide to building your own tiny home, this is not the book for you. But if you appreciate utter honesty, inspiring prose, and a peek behind the curtain of a woman’s journey to building her own home in her ’50s, on her own terms, let me tell you about Tiny: A Memoir About Love, Letting Go, and a Very Small House.
Within the pages of this pretty new book, travel writer Louise Southerden bravely shares not only the nuts and bolts of how she came to build her own tiny home on a leafy block in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales (despite having never held a power tool before), but the story of disintegration of her closest relationship, at the same time. Oh, and they just happened to be building the ‘tiny’ together, on his land.
Inspired by small, slow living after a solo stay in a simple forest hut in Norway, Louise made a pact to herself to make this her way of life for good. She wanted to get off the rental hamster wheel and have some security – but as a freelance writer, her budget was also tiny.
What follows is a raw and honest account of the year she spent researching, drawing plans, sourcing materials, learning building skills and getting clued up on the lingo, and building it bit by bit from the trailer up – navigating a tumultuous relationship with all its angst and emotional drama at the same time.
Read it to be inspired by the cathartic process of whittling down to what is truly important in life, believing in yourself, and ultimately, finding home.
