To paraphrase old Rose in Titanic, it's been four long years, but we still remember 2020 or, as we call it, the year we'd all like to forget. The Coolangatta is a happy reminder, a sort of phoenix bird born from the ashes of that terrible year.
One of the few good things to come out of 2020 was the shift in perspective on the division between work and family life, made possible by the work-from-home approach to the health crisis. For many, this brought forth the question: if you can work from home, why not take the home wherever you want?
The conversation on working from home and its impact is a much broader one, but today, we're focusing only on one (positive) aspect: the freedom to work from home has meant, for many, the freedom to move around constantly and thus combine business with pleasure. After all, if there's no employer to breathe down your neck and mandate a strict routine, you might as well make the most of the opportunity - and have fun with it!
This explains the relatively recent boom in popularity for mobile homes, as well as the still-present #vanlife fad. Mobile living, it turns out, is both a lifestyle choice and a profession onto itself, as long as you're capable of spinning it into monetizable content.
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No wonder, then, that even builders turned their attention to projects that meet the demands of an increasing number of customers. So, while the rest of us folk still living in city apartments or houses in the suburbia will have to make do with a makeshift "office" on the kitchen table (*indulge the exaggeration), tiny house builders are able to fit an actual office space inside the compact footprint of a tiny house.
A good example is the Coolangatta 8.4 tiny house from Australian builder Removed. Removed is a relatively new presence on the tiny house market, with the company having just turned two years old this May, but it already boasts a solid lineup and a decent customer base. Their promise is to offer "off-grid living, no compromises," by means of what they describe as "Australia's most sustainable tiny homes."
The Coolangatta, which was completed in October 2023 and has since moved to its permanent parking spot and lives as Bella Tiny House, is neither off-grid nor superior to others from a sustainability perspective, but it still deserves points for packing extra functionality, elegant styling, and plenty of comfort within a compact floorplan.
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Sitting on an 8.4-meter (27.5-foot) by 2.4-meter (7.8-foot) heavy-duty triple-axle trailer chassis, the Coolangatta uses a dual-loft layout to achieve most of the above. As such, communal daytime areas are located on the ground floor, with sleeping and working upstairs in the two lofts.
The design is entirely custom, having been created with input from the two owners, both of them working from home. The team at Removed loved it so much that they decided to turn it into a base model, which means future tiny dwellers can choose it and then further spec it until they get the home of their dreams.
As it is now, it features an oversize living room with an L-shaped couch framed by windows, a kitchen with an integrated dining table, and a decently-sized bathroom that features everything from a shower to a washer-dryer and plenty of storage.
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The bedroom is located in the bigger loft and features a drop-down platform that offers standing height and probably serves as a changing area. For a loft, it's packed with plenty of features, too. There's a wardrobe for storage and a large-screen TV at the foot of the bed, with additional storage behind it. As is standard in many tiny houses, the staircase leading up to the bedroom has integrated storage.
The office is in the smaller loft, accessible by means of a removable ladder. It doesn't have any standing height, but the desk that extends along one wall comes with another drop-down platform, allowing the two residents to sit correctly during workhours. A pair of office chairs have been modified to suit their new environment and now lay flat on the floor.
Coolangatta is a compact home, but it still packs all the necessary features for long-term or full-time living, round the year. There's insulation in the walls, floor, and ceiling, while a mini-split will pull double duty to keep the temperature inside at comfortable levels. The home comes with RV-style hookups for water and electricity, but we assume it could be taken off the grid with extra investments.
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Having been designed as a full-time residence, Coolangatta has every feature you could need to be comfortable, from plenty of storage options to a well-specced kitchen, space to relax, and the dedicated area where you can put in the hours to pay for all this. It's elegantly designed and furnished in a way that makes up for the compact footprint, with large windows that let the inside in – or the other way around.
A base Coolangatta model is AUD132,990, which is approximately US$88,200 at the current exchange rate. For a tiny of this size, it's actually priced affordably – but only in comparison to what other tiny house builders are asking for similar units.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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