Ikea Designed a Tiny Home With Escape and It’s the Most Ikea Thing Ever

First things first: Ikea is amazing for all sorts of reasons. They make affordable, mostly quality furniture and sell the idea that anyone with minimal interior design skills can pull off the most stylish interior, as long as they follow instructions. Their range is amazing, their stores are heaven for adults too busy to actually go places, and they have something for every taste, every pocket and every need.

Backed by the philosophy of Scandinavian minimalism, it’s actually surprising that they didn’t get into the tiny home game earlier on. The tiny home movement has been around since the early 2000s and it’s to real estate what Ikea is to interior design: the promise of a scaled-down, more sustainable, cheaper and yet way fancier lifestyle.

Late in 2019, Ikea partnered with Escape Tiny Homes, whose builds Forbes once described as “the most beautiful tiny homes in the world,” to develop a one-off mobile home that would showcase only Ikea products and a focus on sustainability. That project, called simply the Ikea Tiny Home Project, was completed in early 2020, with the resulting tiny house scheduled to go on a tour across the U.S.

Plans were canceled when 2020 went full-swing douchebag on us, and Ikea turned to offering virtual tours of the home. If you have some $60,000+ to spare, you can buy it – or order one similar to it with Escape.

“Ikea’s People and Planet Positive sustainability strategy is our roadmap,” sustainability manager Jennifer Keesson said of the project. “We want to meet the needs of generations today without compromising the need of generations in the future.”

Based on Escape’s Vista Boho XL tiny home, which starts at $47,550, the Ikea home is a single-level mobile home for two. It has a fully equipped kitchen, a living slash office slash dining room, an open-plan bedroom and a tiny bathroom, all packed within 187 square feet (17 square meters) of living space.

Despite the diminutive size, the home has plenty of storage and pretty much everything you need for daily living. Moreover, it has solar panels on the roof, water-saving systems in the kitchen and bathroom, and a tank, and plumbing that allows it to go off grid for longer stretches. Based on a double-axle trailer, it can be towed from destination to destination and is perfect for most types of weather, thanks to proper insulation.

Ikea didn’t change the layout of the Vista Boho XL, but instead strove to make the space more Ikea-like with all-Ikea products. To that end, they focused on using multi-functional items, like the dining table that can double as an office or can fold down to a fraction of its size when not in use.

All furnishes are made either from recycled materials or sustainably grown wood, in light colors and lots of whites, to create the impression of more space. Then, this illusion of space is ruined by adding lots of Ikea trifles, from an insane number of potted plants to the most rustic or hippie-style decorations, which truly makes this tiny home the most Ikea build ever.

That aside, this is a beautiful and practical tiny home. There’s plenty of storage space, both vertically and under the couch and the queen-size bed, lots of natural light and precisely that homey feeling you expect from a home, small or not. A mini-split air-conditioning unit warms and cools the place, energy-efficient LED lights are used throughout, and there’s also the possibility of hooking the home up to the grid with standard RV-style hookup.

Ikea has no plans of making a second such home, and this one can be had for $63,350. However, Escape is taking orders on similar tiny houses, sans the Ikea furniture, with prices starting at $47,550, and a myriad of customization options.