This Elegant Tiny Home Hides Spa-Like Bathroom & Large Kitchen, Is Made for Year-Round Use

If anything, downsizing is about improvement. Sure enough, you're moving into a much smaller space, which means all types of compromises will have to be made in order to make it work, but the goal of the move is to improve the quality of life.

Downsizing is all about reducing costs and your carbon footprint, about intentional living and being able to travel more with your entire home in tow. Tiny houses are the favored solution for downsizing and have been so for the past two decades – but their popularity has only soared in recent years.

With the boom in popularity came a wider variety of models, from the teeniest-tiniest units to large mansion-like models that can only be moved with a special permit. Minimaliste is a Canada-based builder that specializes in premium tinies that are mostly park models.

The Thuya range is the smallest in their lineup and was introduced a while back when a custom unit proved so popular with clients that it became a fixture in the lineup. The latest iteration of this model brings a wider frame, which means more interior volume. It also has an upgraded bathroom and aesthetic touches that turn it into the perfect year-round home for a pair of downsizers.

This new Thuya is 26 feet (7.9 meters) long, including the bump-out section on the trailer tongue, and 10 feet (3 meters) wide. This means it's strictly a park model that can be moved with a special permit, though its size won't affect maneuverability once the permit is granted.

The tiny can sleep as many as four people, but it's not designed as a full-time residence for such a large party. It's ideal for one or two people who can live comfortably even in extreme temperatures.

The refreshed Thuya sits on the new Minimaliste re-engineered galvanized steel trailer and comes with all-around insulation. It relies on a mini-split for heating and AC but has a backup electric heater for redundancy. It's offered either with a 50 amp connection and propane or a 100 amp connection and fully electrical – the model toured in the video below is in the latter spec.

The layout is a standard single-loft one, with the loft designed as the main sleeping space over the bathroom. The ground level holds a living room with a couch that converts into a sleeper, a dining table for four, a very large kitchen, and an equally large and very surprising spa-like bathroom.

For a tiny house this compact, the new Thuya offers an incredible amount of storage throughout, including in the loft bedroom. Storage in the sleeping loft is not something you're likely to see in many mobile homes with this configuration.

The interior matches the elegant and slightly somber exterior style but with more delicate custom touches in surprising places – like the gorgeous zen-like shower cabin. It adds a very exotic touch to the space and turns it into a true pampering spot.

The unwritten rule with tiny houses is that most will compromise on space in the bathroom in order to offer a larger living area or a larger kitchen. The Thuya is seemingly able to offer both without cutting into the bathroom, which has the enclosed shower cabin, a composting toilet, a small sink with vanity, and even a laundry corner with a washer-drier unit and overhead storage.

The kitchen is surprisingly large, too. It has a single long block on one side that integrates the electric Furrion two-burner cooktop, the Furrion oven, and a deep stainless steel sink, but it expands on the other side, under the staircase that leads to the bedroom. Here, you will find a residential fridge and plenty of storage, including a pull-out pantry and a vented cupboard for the cat's litter box. When you live in a tiny house, this is the kind of detail you can't leave to chance.

Like all the other units from Minimaliste, the new Thuya is designed to be energy efficient, durable, and reliable in extreme temperatures. It's also quite good-looking despite its comparatively compact size, thanks to premium materials and a color scheme that favors minimalism.

You probably sensed a "but" to this presentation, and you were right. Minimaliste caters to the premium segment of the tiny house market, which means standard units are on the expensive side – and custom versions of these standard units even more so.

The new Thuya showcased in the video tour is a custom unit, so no mention of pricing is made during the presentation. For reference, though, the standard Thuya model in the old configuration starts at $125,500. Downsizing can be fancy and with fewer compromises, indeed, but it will add to the price tag.