Tiny Homes and a Camper Van Allow Two Kite Surfers ‘Freedom’ - The New York Times

With a little house in The Hague, a compact getaway on the Italian island of Sardinia and a well-designed camper van, who needs a conventional home?

Who says you have to live in one place? Maybe a few tiny homes would be preferable.

That’s what Robert Losonsky and Edith Wassenaar discovered when they traded a typical home in the Netherlands for several smaller ones, adopting a peripatetic lifestyle — one that prioritizes activities like surfing over work — in the process.

Oddly enough, their embrace of small-scale living began with a hunt for more space.

In 2017, they were living in a 1,500-square-foot apartment in an upscale neighborhood in The Hague. “But we started to work more and more from home,” said Mr. Losonsky, now 54, who had a career in sales at Microsoft, while Ms. Wassenaar, now 49, worked as an independent marketing consultant and business coach.

Inevitably, there were conflicts. Ms. Wassenaar, for example, might want to entertain clients in the apartment while Mr. Losonsky was on a conference call. “So I thought, ‘Well, why don’t we find something small on the side, so we don’t always have to disturb each other?’” he said.

Tiny Home No. 1: a 19th-Century Fisherman’s Cottage

1. Global Architects

2. Global Architects

3. Global Architects

5. Global Architects

6. Global Architects

7. Global Architects

9. Global Architects

10. Global Architects

Because they were avid kite surfers, they decided to look for a place on the North Sea in The Hague and found a 600-square-foot fisherman’s house built in 1878 just steps from the beach. After buying it for 180,000 euros ($190,000) that April, they spent 18 months and 150,000 euros ($158,000) doing a gut renovation with help from Global Architects.

“It was in really bad condition and looked like not much maintenance had been done over the last hundred years,” said Arthur S. Nuss, the firm’s owner.

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Tiny Homes and a Camper Van Allow Two Kite Surfers ‘Freedom’ - The New York Times
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