Moniek Brunen is one of the residents who opens her front door today for everyone. She previously lived in a semi-detached house, but she is now completely used to her mini house. You can reach her entire home in ten steps, from living room to bedroom and toilet. “I really had to declutter when I moved here and I only kept the most important things. You simply have a lot less, but that also makes it very clear,” she says.
The open day attracted a lot of attention: dozens of people braved the rain to walk around the spot where the tiny houses have been located for a number of months. “I often cycle past here and then you see how it is being built,” says a woman from the village. “A mother from school invited me and I wanted to see what the site looked like.”
A man whose house overlooks the small residential area has even become a little enthusiastic about living in a tiny house one day. “We don’t live in a very big house, but if we wanted to live smaller, this would be really beautiful. Although they still have a lot of work to do,” he says.
The residential area is an experiment by the municipality of Aa en Hunze and the tiny houses can in principle be there for ten years. The residents already hope that they can stay there longer and therefore want to make their living space as beautiful as possible. Brunen: “It is still very sandy and muddy at the moment. We are going to plant some more and in the spring we want to sow grass, so that it will all be a bit greener. The houses and gardens still have to be finished, there will be a vegetable garden, we will make a walking path. So we still have plenty of things to do.”
Below you can see what the new residential area currently looks like