Nawaka: A Victorian-Era Tiny House With a Piano for a Bed and Awesome Secrets

Nawaka is a tiny house unlike any other out there, one that perfectly embodies the spirit of tiny living and mixes it with a passionate, life-long hobby. It is also a custom and DIY (do it yourself) build, but more importantly, it aims to educate on a long-gone way of life, while proving that you can add sentimental value to a home as small as this. Are you confused yet? It’ll all make sense soon.

The idea for Nawaka came to be in 2012, when Florida historian Shorty Robbins admitted defeat to the elements. Having practiced Civil War reenactments for many years, she was just about to give up that hobby after a particularly bad storm, when all the stuff she’d brought along for the show had been soaked through under the protecting canvas. A friend suggested that she build a tiny that she could use for that stuff and bring to events, and as they say, the rest became history.

Some three years later, the tiny was complete. It had not been an easy task, in the sense that Robbins worked on it every weekend she had off, occasionally with help from friends and experienced tiny-dwellers and builders. The design was her own, though, since she knew best what a Victorian-era house would look like.

Using an aluminum double-axle trailer to cut some weight and SIPs (Structurally Insulated Panels), Robbins soon had her frame. She clad it with cypress fencing on the exterior, added reclaimed windows, reclaimed floors, and kept on working on the interior around certain pieces that she knew she wanted to have in there. Like her grandparents’ dresser, which became her wardrobe, and the stairs to the loft.

She named the home Nawaka after the girl camp she would visit as a child and, while she initially used it for reenacting events, she soon realized that it felt more like home to her than her brick-and-mortar, debt- and stress-generating home. So she sold the latter and moved into Nawaka permanently.

She’s been traveling all across the United States ever since, becoming President of the THIA (Tiny Home Industry Association), founding several tiny home festivals and events, and generally working hard to spread the gospel on the many benefits of tiny living. During this time, she also got into tiny house renovations and continued to offer her own home for educational tours.

And this is precisely what makes Nawaka so special, the fact that it remains period correct even with Robbins living full time in it. This is possible because Robbins, as a historian, knows exactly which items are a perfect fit, and because she resorts to the simplest trick in the book when it comes to the modern stuff that she uses on the daily: she hides them away.

In total, Nawaka offers 125 square feet (11.6 square meters) of living space, divided between the ground floor and two lofts. The ground level holds the living room – the parlor, to be more precise – and a small kitchen, as well as storage and a hidden bathroom. The smaller loft over the parlor is for storage, while the larger one over the kitchen area is for the kids, and holds a single-person bed.

Robbins sleeps in the parlor, on the piano bed, which was actually one of the best-kept secrets during the period she’s trying to replicate. The piano bed predates the Murphy bed, so Robbins used her 30-year-old piano to build one for herself. In just three simple moves, the piano folds out into a single-person bed, with room to spare for the smallest of her three dogs, which serves as a bed warmer.

Nawaka is packed with awesome secrets like this piano bed. For instance, a larger smart TV is hidden behind the large painting on the wall, while a solar generator hides in the large wood box by the wood-burning stove she never uses. There’s a mini-split under one of the curtains, and hidden electric and solar-powered LED strips around the ceiling.

Robbins’ mini-kitchen, with a hot plate and a coffee pot, is behind her large wood bread bowl, so only period-correct items are in plain view, and the small RV wet bathroom is behind a curtain. One of the drawers in the storage-integrating staircase actually hides a portable washing machine.

Robbins struggled to replicate the look and functionality of a Victorian house into her tiny, from the pitcher pump on the porch fed from a 40-gallon (151.4-liter) fresh water tank, to the functional 1887 sewing machine on the fold-down leaf table, the (working) piano, and the gas lanterns in the living, which also serve as Florida-perfect heating solution.

More impressive than her ability to create a space that looks period correct while remaining functional, is the fact that she uses that same space for her everyday life. And she’s loving it, as it becomes clear if you watch a snippet of the interview below: this is a person who found her home by pure chance, after she built it herself. For that, she’s whatever tiny house inspiration you were looking for today.

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