This Off-Grid Tiny House Has a Minimal Interior but Will Keep You Comfortable Year-Round

People have different perceptions about tiny living. For some, it's about embracing a minimalist lifestyle and reducing their carbon footprint, for others, tiny homes mean more financial freedom, while others are drawn to them due to their cute and creative architecture. But moving into a tiny house is not just about becoming the owner of a beautiful property. It's a significant lifestyle choice, so choosing the right tiny home for your needs is paramount.

If you are living in Canada, for instance, where winters tend to be long and harsh, you will need a durable, well-insulated tiny home built with high-quality materials to keep you comfortable throughout the year. This is the kind of homes SoWoCon Ltd. is building. "La Solana," or the Sun Lodge, is one of their most recent designs and offers a minimal interior that allows owners to live a simpler life, with a focus on sustainability and a more intimate relationship with their surroundings.

SoWoCon Ltd. is a family-owned business that was founded in 2016 and operates in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Besides tiny homes, they also build greenhouses and offer landscape design services. Their tiny homes are built in line with the original tiny living philosophy, meaning they are mobile, versatile, make the most of the available square footage, and are more about embracing minimalism than anything else.

The La Solana tiny house offers owners the perk of mobility as it comes on wheels. It sits on a double axle trailer and is 24 feet (7.3 meters) long, 8.5 feet (2.6 meters) wide, and 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) high, meaning it is road-legal without special permits and you can move it according to your whims.

The modern two-tone exterior is clad in a mix of metal and vinyl long-lasting siding, coupled with a durable metal roof with a single slope roof line and rainwater collection system. All the walls are built using 4-inch solid wood, with high-quality insulation and hardwood flooring to ensure the tiny home is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Moreover, to ensure inhabitants stay warm during the harsh Canadian winters, the builder equipped the house with a modern wall-mounted propane heater.

The interior offers 200 square feet (18.6 square meters) of living space, all distributed on the ground floor. Obviously, you're not going to fit a growing family inside such a compact space, but for a single individual or a couple serious about downsizing, there is enough space to squeeze the essentials.

This is exactly what the designers included inside La Solana: the bare necessities for a minimalist lifestyle. The single-floor layout includes a kitchen, a dining area that can double as a lounging nook, a ground-level bedroom, and a bathroom.

A lot of tiny house designers incorporate large and numerous windows into their designs in a bid to foster a stronger connection to the outdoor surroundings. SoWoCon Ltd. goes against the grain in this respect as well, as La Solana has minimal glazing. However, this doesn't mean the interior is dark and somber. On the contrary, the house boasts a well-lit interior with plenty of natural light seeping through the full-light door and the four small windows.

Once you step inside, it's hard not to notice the lack of a proper living room, but the dining area with a built-in bench, a wall-mounted table, and an additional stool will have to suffice. A beautiful hexagonal shelf is mounted on the wall, offering space to display books, framed photos, and other decorations.

Next to the entrance door, there is a mudroom area with a tall storage unit that offers space to hang jackets, scarves, and hats, as well as store your shoes. This is a nice feature to have in a tiny home, especially since this model is so compact and the entrance is next to the kitchen. The mudroom helps owners avoid bringing mud and dust into the living space.

The kitchen is compact yet functional, with a full-size propane stove, an under-counter fridge, and a deep sink. A couple of cabinets and some long open shelves offer storage space for kitchen utensils and groceries.

A divider wall that looks like a double-sided bookcase separates the common area from the sleeping space, creating a sense of privacy and intimacy. The bedroom is fitted with a custom-made queen bed perched on a raised platform that offers plenty of storage underneath.

Though minimalist, the bathroom inside La Solana impresses with a beautiful round glass sink sitting on a custom-made vanity, a modern compost toilet, and a space-saving shower.

Highlighting this tiny house's sustainable credentials are the natural wood interior with expertly crafted custom furniture and the solar power system that comprises one solar panel, a 245 Ah battery, and a 2 kW inverter. Coupled with a propane hot water heater, a composting toilet, and 80-liter freshwater and gray water tanks, La Solana allows owners to take their home on the road and live off the grid anywhere in the world.

SoWoCon Ltd. hasn't revealed any pricing information for the La Solana design, but it does guarantee that the tiny house will function year-round, even in the harsh climate of Atlantic Canada.