There is a chance that you will not always live in your Tiny House where it is now. Perhaps the location is only available temporarily, perhaps the flow of tenants is desired, perhaps you would like to move to a different type of home, larger or in a different location. For TinyFindy I looked for experiences of Tiny House pioneers with moving.
Some go to another region or even another country. Sometimes they leave their house behind for the next enthusiast, there are also Tiny House residents who take their house with them to the next place. What are the main reasons for taking this step and what challenges do you encounter?
Kleinhuizen
Tiny House pioneers Karin and Gijsbert have already visited several different residential locations with their family. They started building their first Tiny House in 2016, one of the first in the Netherlands. Although they had been looking for a location to live from the start, they knew that the chance that it would be there when the house was ready was very small: “That’s why we had a place on a campsite in Bilthoven, where we could live in our Tiny House for six months.’
From Bilthoven they were able to go to Nieuwegein at the end of 2017: ‘We got a place at the Tiny House project ‘Kleinhuizen’ where we could live with a group. The location was beautiful and spacious with lots of greenery, but unfortunately the place was temporary, pending a new construction project. At the end of 2019 we had to leave here again and we were able to move with a large part of the group to Kamp Zeist, near Soesterberg, where we could live anti-squatting for an indefinite period.’
At the beginning of 2022, they heard that they had to make way for the construction of an asylum seeker center: ‘Ironically, an asylum seeker center was demolished on the same site in 2021 because it was no longer needed.’ They have been continuously working on a Tiny in the municipality of Altena since 2020 House project: ‘Unfortunately there was no overlap between the projects, so we moved to a ‘normal’ house in the summer of 2022. We have now started building a larger, future-proof Tiny House, which we hope to live in in 2024.’
Moving on wheels
Their first Tiny House was on wheels: ‘A conscious choice so that we could move relatively easily despite the uncertainty of where to live. Unfortunately, moving on wheels turned out to be such an operation that we decided to do this with a low loader and crane from the 2nd move. The great thing about moving a Tiny House is that it is relatively easy. Make no mistake, it is still quite an undertaking that takes a lot of time and energy, but compared to a normal move, it is really not that bad.
It is very special to see your house pass by on a truck, with almost everything still in it, even your bed still made. Once the house is up and electricity and water are connected, you can actually live in it again immediately. In addition, you take your entire house with you every time, so that investments in your home also go with you. On the other hand, moving with a Tiny House is in almost all cases not a voluntary choice. I think everyone who lives in a Tiny House in the Netherlands longs for a permanent place.
Unfortunately, due to regulations and legislation, it is often only possible to get temporary places for a Tiny House. The uncertainty about whether your permit will be renewed and the difficulty it takes to find a new place cause a lot of stress. Fortunately, the terms of projects are getting longer (10, 15 sometimes 10+10 years), which gives peace of mind. But let’s not romanticize the move, because we would have preferred to have a permanent place from the start.’
Gijsbert and Karin were in one location for a relatively short time each time: ‘As a result, you actually had to work on a new location as soon as you were there and even that is not always enough due to the sometimes very long lead time of a permit process. Our new house has no wheels and meets all the requirements of permanent construction. Although we would very much like to live in a Tiny House project, this also gives us the opportunity to live on our own piece of land in the future, if that is possible.’
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