Heather du Plessis-Allan: Living large in a tiny house

Small houses, like this Auckland example, mean less to clean. Photo / Richard Robinson

The house I live in is tiny. It's a little smaller than 90sqm. It's possible to vacuum every room from one power point. The kitchen looks like it belongs in a hotel room. It's perfect.

We bought it for the view. From our balcony you can see an old monastery perched on the side of a big hill, and the whitecaps on Wellington's harbour below. We've filled our little house with the things we love. We can warm it all winter long with a single heater, and in the summer open the balcony doors right up.

I loved this little house completely, until someone said something unkind.

The couple were very wealthy. They lived in a very big house. Several very big houses, actually. "Oh no," said the wife, looking around my apartment, "we definitely couldn't live like this."

Live like this. With those three words, my tiny house became something to be embarrassed about.

That comment bugged me for months. I stopped wanting to have guests for dinner. I began to feel claustrophobic. I began searching Trade Me for bigger places. But I couldn't find anything as perfect as my small house.

In truth, I don't want to live in a big home. I've done it. Before we moved into the small apartment, the pair of us had rattled about in a huge old place in the suburbs. It was so large, the sound of footsteps echoed off wooden floors. We could both be there, but not run into each other for an entire morning. We had two lounges. One for each of us. And because there was so much space, there was junk everywhere. I call it junk, he calls it antiques, darling. But now, there's only space for what we need and what we both like, and that means fewer hours spent dusting.

We are actually very on trend, living frugally. It's the future. Some of my friends are drawing up shoebox houses, to perch on the edge of steep plots, just to be able to get into our stupidly priced property market. They figure it's better to own a small place near the city than a big place in the suburbs. Or no place at all, if you're a first-home buyer doing the rounds of Auckland's auctions.

In fact, all the hipsters and environment-lovers are doing it. They call it the tiny house movement. The truly committed would judge me harshly for my 90sq m. They live in places as small as 24sq m. That's about the size of a standard master bedroom and, in that space, they squeeze in everything.

They'll put a bed on a mezzanine floor, build in a bookshelf to hold everything from the ornaments to the television, hide a fold-out dinner table in a nook in the kitchen next to the potbelly fire.

Most of these places are architecturally-designed and beautiful. Some of them run the risk of burning down when you spot how close the pot belly fire is to the wooden stool.

Perhaps we should shrug off the notion that a big house is something to be proud of. Rather than giving you status, it's wasting your money. Instead of providing space, it's giving you more to clean.

I've finally come full circle and realised I have nothing to be ashamed of. I may live in a space as small as my mum's lounge. I may bash my elbows constantly, thinking the walls are further away than they are. But I don't need more space and I have chosen to live like this.