Custom Sakura Tiny Laughs in the Face of Winter and All Downsizing Fears

Sakura is among the first units delivered by Canadian builder Minimaliste Houses. Today, Minimaliste is a key player on the local and even the international market of tiny houses, having established a reputation with their massive, usually park-model tinies that have off-grid capabilities and are rated for year-round use. Sakura set the tone for them – and the bar very high.

We've covered Minimaliste houses before for a very simple reason: their units are solid and reliable, designed to withstand the harsh Canadian winter and go off-grid. At the same time, they're very spacious and comfortable through a combination of gooseneck design and smart layout, and they are rustic-elegant in finishes. They're inspirational tiny houses for the tiny dweller of tomorrow with the right budget available.

Minimaliste was founded in 2015 with the stated goal of spreading the word (in a very practical way) on the benefits of tiny living. Today, the company's lineup includes a handful of very successful models, each offered with different layouts or even different sizes, so everyone can get their dream tiny to suit their needs and budget.

The Sakura is not among these models because it's a one-off and fully-custom unit, completed and delivered to the owner in 2017. It still holds its own today, after all these years: it remains a beautiful example of downsizing in comfort, and because of it, laughs in the general direction of all downsizing fears and the cold Canadian weather.

Designed for a couple with very specific tastes, the Sakura sits on a triple-axle trailer with extra width, so it's a park model. It offers a total living area of 380 square feet (35 square meters), including the space in the reading loft, but only 320 square feet (29.7 square meters) with standing height. That's still very impressive by tiny house standards, and even more so if you consider that Minimaliste threw in a rooftop deck and a bedroom where you have standing height throughout – besides a ridiculous amount of storage.

Among the biggest misconceptions about tiny houses is that you have to crawl through bedrooms and won't get enough storage, no matter how multi-functional your furniture is. Sakura is proof that you can have both in a relatively compact space that loses nothing in terms of functionality or aesthetics because of it.

The ground floor holds the living room with an L-shaped couch, a galley-style kitchen, and the residential bathroom. The main bedroom is located in the gooseneck part of the trailer, so it's accessible via a staircase that retracts halfway to create more space in the living room when you have guests over. Unlike most lofted tinies, the Sakura has a proper bedroom, with a queen-size bed and storage on both sides – and under the bed.

The kitchen is the only area where an obvious compromise was made, but it's still packed with everything you need for daily living, including an electric oven, a four-burner stove, sink, full-size fridge, and some counter space. There's even a washing machine and the same ridiculous amount of storage as in the bedroom. On the other hand, the bathroom is positively huge by comparison, with a full bathtub, a sink with vanity, and a Nature's Head composting toilet.

The loft over the bathroom is designed as a reading room with integrated storage options, including on the landing that extends along the wall, under the window. This is the only part where a standard tiny house configuration is apparent, down to the way in which you can get up to the loft using a removable ladder. But Minimaliste packs a surprise here as well: there's a second, smaller ladder up there, which leads to the rooftop terrace. Safety handrails are in place both in the loft and on the terrace.

The Sakura comes with an RV-style hookup and connection to the grid and offers certain features that were unusual for tinies at the time. For example, it has hydronic radiant underfloor heating and doesn't rely on just the mini-split to withstand temperatures as low as 40 °C (- 40 F). It also comes with a ventilation system with two heat exchangers, full insulation for an R-value of R21, double-glazed windows, and three-step water filtration.

Minimaliste showed off the Sakura ahead of delivery, saying the total cost for the build was CAD 130,000, which would be approximately $95,800 at the current exchange rate. It wasn't exactly a steal, though, because prices for tinies were lower in 2017 than they are today. A standard Minimaliste unit starts at $97,500 as of the time of press, so if they were to build another Sakura, it would be for a considerably higher amount.