Meet ‘n’ Greet #8 – People in Tiny Houses in Europe

Next up in the Meet ‘n’ Greet Series is Veronika and Jonas. 

Can you build the structure of a Tiny House in 2 months with no experience?
Veronika and Jonas went for it!

Check out their adventures while in their Tiny House, on the site: Oni On Adventure.

Let’s get into it, alright. 


Where are you guys from? 

We are both from Bavaria, the South of Germany.

And where was the Tiny House built?

We built the Tiny House in Romania. 

What’s your story and inspired leading you to build a Tiny House?

We were on a bicycle trip the last three years and after a bit more than a year the idea of Tiny Houses appeared. We both loved it as the way of living that we got used to showing us how little you need to still have enough.

So we started watching many youtube-videos about people living in Tiny Houses and we began to plan our own.

In the beginning, it was more just for fun, but after a while, it got more serious. The plan was to keep on cycling but keep our eyes open to maybe have the chance to visit a Tiny House somewhere along the way, as we never had been inside one so far.

That’s how we found out about the company Eco Tiny House Romania. We loved the Tiny House style and wanted to visit them.

A few emails were written when we saw the possibility to build our own Tiny House directly in Romania with help from Eco Tiny House. And we decided to do it.

They have never had people around building their own house there, but that was something we really wanted to do:

Building our own Tiny House, not just buy it.

We ended up staying in Romania for two months building our house (Sept.-Oct. 2019) and loved it!

How did you go about planning and building your Tiny House?

Right from the beginning it was clear we wanted something within the normal rules, so, for example, no oversizes. For the inside, we thought about the things or areas inside the house that were important to us.

So Jonas really wanted to have a bathtub for example and I didn’t want too many foldable furniture but be able to also leave something on the table while watching TV for example. But generally, we tried to build a house that would just be enough for the two of us.

How long did the entire project take?

The main building process took two months (41 building days). After that, only the interior was still missing. But to build the interior it took longer, as we also started working and looking for places to put it eventually.

We could have been ready way earlier if we would have wanted to. So far we haven’t moved in though, but looking forward to it. 

What challenges did you run into?

Some things you can probably just learn along the way and some challenges are not as bad as you were expecting and some things are so difficult, but you never thought about them.

So for example connecting our toilet would have been way easier if we would have known that there is a standard height in which the connection in the back as to be or some plug sockets will always be at the wrong spot, even with planning. 

The building itself turned out to be easier then we had expected. In the end, it’s just cutting, sanding and screwing together different kinds of material.

Even though we thought we would need one month to get as far as what we ended up building in two months (but for two inexperienced people one month would not have been possible, I don’t know why we thought so in the beginning.)

We thought we would face a challenge in finding a place to put it in Germany, but we actually even had a few places to choose from. The challenge that we weren’t expecting (but we could have) was organizing the companies to connect the house to water and electricity. 

And that’s exactly the situation we’re in now: the house is close to ready but the place to put it, is not.

What was the total cost of building your Tiny Home?

We are not finished yet, but we’re really close to it. Now we spent just over 30.000€.

Have your spending habits changed in any way throughout this tiny house project?

We didn’t live in our house yet, but we’re preparing ourselves. So we really think about the things that we buy and if we really need it. 

If you had to start over would you have built your Tiny House in any other way?

Some plug sockets would have a different spot :D. But so far, it’s just great. For our current situation, it’s just perfect. Even though we’re already talking (sometimes) about our next house as it’s clear that this won’t be the house forever.

In your network do you feel there is a growing interest in the Tiny House way of living?

Definitely. As I mentioned before, so many people contacted us when we were looking for a place for the Tiny House. Some just wrote to us to come and see the house. 

Best tip for someone wanting to live in a Tiny House but not sure if it’s something for them?

It’s about you and your character and if you’re not sure if you would like to live in a Tiny House: visit a Tiny House, stay in one.

And if you liked it but you’re still not sure, then (for me) there is nothing to say against a Tiny House and it’s just that step out of our comfort zone and you should do it!

Many thanks to Veronika and Jonas for sharing their story so we together can inspire more people to jump into the kind of crazy adventure of building your own tiny house, even people with no previous experience! 😀 

For more tiny house interviews check out the others in the Meet ‘n’ Greet Series. 

Wondering whether there are magazines about tiny houses in Europe? See this post on Best Tiny House Magazines Out there. 

For more on Tiny Houses in Europe check out the top asked questions about TH’s. 

More interviews lined up.

Stay tuned !