Helga Tiny House Is How You Turn an Old Horse Box Into a Gorgeous Rustic Home

Helga is a custom house truck that started out as a 1989 Mercedes 814 horse box – a horse trailer, as they’re known in the U.S. Prior to ending up with maker House Box in Gloucestershire, Somerset, UK, it had been used to haul up to three horses at a time and came with a ramp that was used to help the animals up onto the shielded platform.

Today, the same horse box is a gorgeous house on wheels named Helga. Helga was completed in 2017 and was built on commission as a permanent, full-time residence for a couple. Since this was done for a private customer, pricing was never revealed. House Box specializes in converting military trucks and horse boxes, but Helga was their first such conversion – and the company’s seventh build in total. It is a true beauty, as both the video below and the attached gallery can confirm.

Because of the donor vehicle, Helga offers a much larger floorspace than other conversions or even some of the tiny houses we’ve been covering as of late. It can sleep up to four people, dine as many as seven, and has long-range capabilities that make it the perfect vehicle for roaming the country in search of that much-coveted #vanlife spirit.

Dean, the founder of House Box, describes the process of building Helga as a challenge, and not just because this was his first conversion of the kind. The clients wanted a home that oozed personality and had a rustic feel to it, so whatever modern amenities were included (and many were) had to be in keeping with the overall styling. The professional-grade audio system, the audio controls, the rest of the controls, the batteries for the solar panel on the roof, and even the plugs and the composting toilet had to be covered, chemically treated, and cleverly integrated into the abundance of hard wood used in the interior.

Indeed, what was once a horse box (delivered to the builders still with hay and horse poop inside) now resembles a log cabin, with the exception of the contrasting turquoise cabinet doors. Access is possible either through the main door in the middle of the house or the rear door that becomes visible only when the porch is lowered. The porch is the old ramp repurposed, and it comes with a sizable awning that offers protection from the elements.

Helga has a full kitchen, with appliances running on LPG: water heater, oven grill, and two-ring burner. There’s also a freezer/refrigerator combo, a sink, plenty of storage, and just as much cooking surface. Every detail has been carefully considered and even more carefully taken care of; even the kitchen faucet is custom, having been made by hand from spare plumbing and then chemically treated to look rusty.

On the opposite side is a small wardrobe for storage and the control panel for the electricals, and a small bathroom with a composting toilet and a shower made from used plumbing components. Also here is a wood-burning stove that provides warmth during cold days (and nights).

Towards the front of the house is the lounge area slash dining room, which converts into a two-person sleeping berth when guests come over. The L-shaped bench can seat five people, with two more sitting on a fold-down bench that is hidden in the staircase cupboard. As with most tiny houses, every inch of space is utilized.

From the dining area, up on the storage-integrating staircase, you get to the master bedroom, which is in the cabover. The entire area can fold down and upwards, so you can check the engine of the truck if there are issues with it; as you can see in the video below, Dean left nothing to chance in this build. “Master bedroom” is perhaps an overstatement: there’s room for a queen-size mattress, reading lights, and a couple of electrical outlets for charging your phone at night. But House Box elevated the roof a bit for more headroom and added two roof hatches, to allow even more natural light inside and avoid that feeling of “sleeping in a coffin.”

In a bid to further maximize available space, House Box added a roof terrace to Helga. It holds the solar panels and has hooks for easy storage, but it’s also large enough to host a small dinner party.

Since 2010, House Box has been working hard to prove that sustainable living solutions can be obtained by upcycling everything from materials to donor vehicles. Helga is a good, absolutely gorgeous example of that.