This Is Lucille, a Tiny House With a Very Playful Vibe

The Lucille is all about fun, though perhaps in a different way than you'd imagine. It's a tiny house designed for two-person occupancy, with all the creature comforts of a standard home but working overtime to compensate for spatial constraints through playful touches.

With tiny homes, it's standard procedure to find a "get" that would make potential customers or existing owners overlook the spatial constraints. That could be one or more unique features, or a surprise addition like a fold-down terrace or a bed that slides into a wall when you're not sleeping in it, or off-grid features, extended autonomy, or unique styling.

As with every other niche product, tiny houses have to have something out of the ordinary to be truly appealing to potential new owners, especially in a context in which they still remain prohibitively priced. In the case of Lucille, that could be the extra playful touches inside, which add personality to the space.

Lucille is a turn-key build from Texas-based builder Decathlon Tiny Homes. They offer a series of models to choose from, with a long list of options for each, which makes them semi-customizable. You can opt for the standard, base model that will require more work on your part to be fully livable, or you can go full out and get a unit that's ready to roll the moment you step inside.

The Lucille is based on the company's very popular Zeus model, which also happens to be among the smallest available. It sits on a double-axle trailer with 24 feet (7.3 meters) of usable length, so the home offers a total footprint of 254 square feet (23.6 square meters), including the loft that doubles as the owner's bedroom, where you get no standing height.

The layout of Lucille is a standard single-loft one, with the ground floor reserved for daily activities and the loft dedicated to sleeping. The kitchen is located centrally, with the living room and the bathroom on either end and a large, storage-integrating staircase leading up to the main bedroom.

In short, there is little innovation here as far as the layout goes. Even the kitchen has the same layout as other, larger units we've covered previously from the same company. So what is it then that makes Lucille the belle of the ball?

It's all in the details, as the saying goes. In this case, it's the combination of colors, both inside and out, and the use of playful touches like hand-painted hardware on the cabinets, matching the flowery pattern on the stairs. Whereas most tiny houses try to create the impression of airier, larger spaces with monochrome finishes that favor whites and nudes, Lucille goes all-in for color – and the most surprising combinations, to boot.

As anyone who's ever done any type of home deco project will tell you, playing with colors is fun, but it can end up looking very bad if you don't do it right. Lucille does it right, with neutral butcher countertops in the kitchen, sky-blue overhead cabinets, and bright red drawers below waist level. The red extends to the cabinets under the stairs, clashing beautifully with the pale blue of the Galanz vintage-looking fridge.

Of course, there's more to Lucille than just beautiful colors: it's packed with creature comforts, as well. The kitchen comes equipped with a full range, a deep farm sink, and plenty of storage options. The bathroom is flanked by two very large wardrobes with hanging bars and equipped with a full-size shower, a standard flushing toilet, and the most beautiful custom sink with vanity.

The living room is on the small side and left unfinished in the video tour below. Still, it's large enough to fit an extendable sofa, so it'd double as a guest room and a wall-mounted TV for Netflix & chill nights. The high ceiling with exposed beams makes this space feel less claustrophobic.

Speaking of claustrophobic, the bedroom loft is prevented from being just that by means of expansive glazing. It's framed by windows on three sides and comes with an overhead skylight, so it's bathed in natural light and gets a nice cross-breeze, both of which should make you forget about being forced to crawl whenever you're there.

The Zeus tiny on which Lucille is based starts at $89,570, which is the "but" you were probably anticipating. For all their pluses and surprises, and advantages, tiny houses are still far from accessible.

This becomes even more obvious here once you consider that this price tag will get you a usable unit since it includes even some stuff like a microwave, refrigerator, and 30-gallon (113.5-liter) water heater, but not features like the skylight, ceiling fans, or other items you can't do without on the daily.