Shadowing Practice: This Tiny House Design Changes Everything! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Downsizing is becoming a big thing, especially for retirees who are looking for a way of freeing up money

and resources to enjoy a greater quality of life in their retirement.

And this next exceptional tiny house has been perfectly designed to do just that.

hi Sheila how are you hi Bryce lovely to see you again it's lovely to see you again

and this beautiful home of yours this place is absolutely gorgeous

we love it love every minute of living here it's wonderful

and you live here together with your husband Noel I do

but he's a little bit camera shy so he's run away to work

which he tends to do when he gets nervous

so he'll be back later fantastic

and you are shay's mum i am shay's mum very proud mum of shay

and i actually am employed by shay as well

so is no of course building tiny homes that's it yeah

and so this is your tiny home now can you talk to me about your journey into tiny house living

and how you came to be here well you saw lucy with shay her first tiny home she built

that in our backyard

and i said you are crazy no one is going to

want to live in these tiny little spaces my parents did

exactly the same thing yeah anyway then she left lucy

and came and lived with us for a while

and we designed hazel

and i said the one thing i don't like about tiny homes is crawling in the lofts at my age

so we designed walkways around the lofts and she built hazel

and i thought maybe people could live in these tiny little things

because they were now visited them a lot

and after about four months Nolan and I thought the house was

so lonely and quiet and big and we never went downstairs anymore where Hazel

and Shea used to live

and we started thinking well maybe we should think about this tiny house idea

which we did and here we are yeah

and this is such a beautiful design now there's

so much to talk about with the house

but first let's talk about your gardens these are exquisite well

i've been relegated to the garden i say i feed the soul

and noel feeds the body

because i am banned from growing vegetables after i grew very phallic carrots i put worm wee on them

and they grew legs and arms and other parts

and i made a video and put it up on facebook

and he was really embarrassed about the video right you can't put

that kind of carrot on video

so he does all the vegetables he said it was a waste of money

and i do the garden

so he feeds our bodies i feed our soul what a great balance

and this is just so beautifully landscaped and i love the way

that you've combined some of the edibles into the ornamental gardens as well that's just

so nicely done that was his idea

and they sort of took over half my ornamental garden

but i'm willing to accept that

because we do get a lot of vegetables from it

and this is such an ideal tiny house parking space

that you found as well how did you come to be

on this property well shay's partner worked for the company

that len our landlord worked for and he used to come

and visit the tiny homes because he loves tiny homes

and then he said why doesn't shay's mom and dad come

and live on my land i mean he's got 25 acres

here with a beautiful lake down there it used to be a persimmon farm

and we came and looked and i straight away thought yes this could be very nice

and they're lovely lovely landlords they come over and have drinks with us fairly frequently

and you're completely off the grid in this tiny home as well aren't you we are it's been

so easy i can't believe it we've just put another tank in

because it's been so dry yeah

but we've never run out of water we've only got 10

000 liters we've got a really good solar system it's got two batteries a generator 12 panels

but don't ask me voltage don't ask me any blue questions

right it's quite pretty in the background i don't know how it works

but on my phone i can turn it on

if we on holiday and i look

and i see oh it's looking a bit late

and i don't want the generator to run in the middle

of the night i can just turn it on from my phone it's really cool

that is really cool now one of the things

that i love about the way

that you've designed this home is the indoor outdoor flow we are standing right now on your porch

which has also been designed as your living room yes what

we did with this house is any leftovers we used to make it any leftovers from work

so the porch was actually used for a end of year party

and i said well i'll buy it off you at cost of course

so i got it at cost that's why it's got all the ropes

but i actually like them a lot now i like them too yeah

but yeah it's all bits and pieces it's got

so many different timbers here because it's what's left over what people didn't want to be adopted including the lounge suite

i love that as well though and

that is one of the things with timber is

that you can just celebrate all of these different flavours of timber and they still work so beautifully together.

Yeah, I think they work well together.

They certainly do.

And can you tell me about the design of the home?

the exterior of the home i liked what she did with her hazel with the iron sand

and the timber features yeah i love lots of windows i love being able to look out

and see the sky and i like it to blend in with the environment

which i think the timber does really well it does

and what size is the tiny house the main house the

tiny house is 10 .5 meters our bedroom is 5 .5 meters

and the deck is six meters this was left over from after all the floods

and things there were bits

and pieces left over from people who didn't want their houses anymore

so we adopted a shed and a pod

and made them into a house

100

so it's evolved with whatever's happened in life that's right

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because your workshop was really badly affected by the floods wasn't it twice right up to our hips

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and water luckily the houses were raised

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but it was a terrible time we've had to really downsize for the recession

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so we've given up the workshops two workshops we've given up

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and we only run one which is good

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because shay now has time to try new ideas

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and make spec houses and things like that

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so it's all worked out well in the end it always does

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and this porch area has just been

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so beautifully designed i really like the way

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that it almost feels like another indoor space it definitely does

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especially with the screens we can close it all off with the screens

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and we've got our funny little flap door that

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if you want a bit of air to come through

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if it gets too hot you won't believe it in winter it actually gets too hot in here

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and you've got the lovely fireplace here as well and it's

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so great the way that you've positioned it yeah that's a new addition

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because we had a gas fireplace

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and my children all thought we were going to gas ourselves

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and got into panic they bought that well she bought it

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and said you will have a fireplace not a gas heater this winter

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and it just makes for such a lovely feature here as well

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and it is a lot safer than gas

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and you're an artist as well I am I used to

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be a professional artist in my other life in Africa

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and then I sort of teaching art when I came here

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and when you're teaching you give it all out I haven't painted for 20 years

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but now I've got time to paint which is wonderful

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so that's my art area that's why I've left a gap between the fireplace

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and the back bench because that gets very messy when I paint

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and it's lovely it's a perfect area for art so yeah

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and I have my grandkids painting on the bench here

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which is lovely they've all done beautiful artworks as well

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so lovely well what you've created here from the outside is just so beautiful

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and I cannot wait to see inside the home can we

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take a look yeah let's go all right am I going

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first yes please okay I'll lead the way into the mansion don't get lost this is just gorgeous

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and immediately I love the way that the kitchen is

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so wonderfully connected to the outdoor lounge yes um noel's the chef in the family he does all the cooking

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and um he wants to be part of it

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when we've got guests and that and it works beautifully

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because he's cooking here and he's still part of all of what's going out on the deck

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so it was important to have the kitchen being part of the living area as well

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so it works very well absolutely

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and this looks like a very full -featured kitchen it is

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it is it's got everything you could possibly need we've got

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a nice big pantry in fact we've got two pantries we've got dishwasher there's nothing in this kitchen

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that i don't have in another kitchen we've even got nicer

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features than we had in our big house we've got an

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oil drawer in here we've got pull out shelves we've got places for our spices

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and then we bumped out the front bit

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because he's going to be doing the cooking you know we didn't want any bumping the heads on here whereas

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if you line it up it can be a little bit in the way

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and you've got the compact dining table here as well yes it's compact

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when noel and i are together but when we have friends it opens up

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and sits six people easily around here oh wow

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so four people more easily than six but we have had six people before

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so it opens up into a nice size table well especially

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when you've got such a big family as well it's lovely

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to be able to accommodate more people yeah i will say

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that we normally eat outside on our laps

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because it's warm even in winter we spend most of our time outside

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and we have the brazier and everything going

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so we don't often eat in the kitchen but

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if it's really miserable then we will eat in the kitchen yeah fair enough too

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and then over here we've got your lounge can we take a look at

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that yeah let's have a look at the lounge all right i love this it's

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so nice how

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when you walk through from the kitchen it just completely expands into the full height yes

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because it's a slightly smaller space I wanted to feel more grand by making the lounge much higher

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and putting in the wallpaper and a couple of the other things

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and that's why I like the opening into the kitchen as well

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because when Noel's cooking I can say how's the cooking going darling

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and yes I'll have a glass of wine thank you

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so it's still part of the kitchen it's sort of open plan

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but not fully open plan yeah so it makes it feel bigger which I like it certainly does.

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And I just love the style of this room as well.

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You've got this wonderful, very textured wallpaper and these fabulous light fittings.

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Yes, the light fittings took a long time to put together, but I was very pleased with them when they were finished.

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I love my light yeah absolutely

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and this just looks like such a comfortable space as well

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that is quite a chair you've got there yes we had to have the lazy boy to watch the cricket

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and the golf and the tiddly winks and the hopscotch

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and whatever else we watch on tv so it's got to be comfortable

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so we both lie in the lazy boy

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and it's very comfortable i must say excellent

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and i really like the way

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that you've incorporated the office into this area as well yes

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i do a lot of work from home now i go into workshop maybe once a week

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and it's getting less and less as i like home more

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and more and it's perfect all my work is online it's absolutely perfect space i work here

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and sometimes i work upstairs our international builders might laugh

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when they see where i work from

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but anyway this is my office welcome to my office it's

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all you need it is it's all i need it

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and there is a loft in this home as well yes

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there are actually two lofts upstairs is for the grandchildren's area

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and when we have guests the playroom turns into a very smart little guest room

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so we've got two lofts upstairs which is very useful.

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That is such a great design and as you say it's

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so nice that you've been able to incorporate a space for your grandkids into your home as well.

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They are very very important in my life

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and I would hate to think that they wouldn't come

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and have sleepovers with granny because the house was too small

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so I had to make it special for them

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and they absolutely absolutely love it they love playing in the loft in their playroom

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and they love their little cozy loft sleeping area

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and it's really nice the way

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that you've also set it up to be a fantastic guest

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accommodation too yes we do have a lot of friends overseas

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you know moving from Zimbabwe our friends just went some in London some in Australia

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and we've had guests from Australia for a week

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and we've had my bestest friend from England for a week

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which was lovely and she had to use our bedroom downstairs

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because she's having problems with her hips so nolan

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and i lived in the guest room upstairs for a week

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it's used quite a lot as a guest room as well it is just

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so nice being able to have

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that functionality in a home as well yeah versatile yeah

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and right down the other end of the tiny house is your bathroom can we go take a look at

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that yes let's go

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and have a look all right this is a really tidy design i really like the way

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that you have thought about the flow of this house as

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you move from the kitchen with the stairs this little walkway

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that goes through to the back door the washer dryer

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and then access to your bathroom

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and your bedroom this has been done in a very tidy way thank you bryce it was my own design

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because i wanted a bathroom on suite but i needed something

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that the guests could use as well

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and it's really only two steps away from my bedroom

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so it's like a bathroom on suite it works very well i also didn't want to compromise our bathroom

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which we do sometimes in our designs by having walkways i

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figured that's upstairs it's the kids they supple they can have the full loft upstairs

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so there's no walkway into our bathroom

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but it's a lovely sized bathroom we have a full size shower

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and of course our dehydrating toilet

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and yeah we're very happy with the bathroom really beautiful tile

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work in here as well thank you i wanted it to look like the sea

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so sea colors rocks i love the sea which is why i've got

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that massive sea painting in the lounge as well

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that came from ukraine by the way lovely great artists in ukraine

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so i want to see sort of feeling we can hear the waves at night time sometimes

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and the winds blowing in the right direction

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so i feel a bit as though i'm at the sea

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when i'm in the bathroom yeah that's so nice and it's great

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that you've got the back entrance as well

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because having another entrance into the house is

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so important isn't it yes for safety as well i've always

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when we've designed thought well it's good for fire

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if you've got more than one entrance and exit but also

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because our washing machine is over there and it's nice

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and easy for me to get the washing out to the washing line at the back

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so it works really well unfortunately most people use

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that as our front entrance which isn't great because

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if i redesigned the house again we'd make

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that passage a little bit wider right being a tiny house designer you would know

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that everything is experimentation isn't it and it's so great

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that working on a project like this for yourself you get to try out

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and test these ideas and see what works

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and what doesn't yes there are a few tweaks that i'd make

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but i don't think there's much

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that i'd change at all in this design yeah i really like

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that and then we've got the bedroom pod yeah let's go

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and have a look let's take a look this is such a lovely room

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and what immediately jumps out to me about this room is

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just how wonderfully connected to the outdoors it is it is i used to think

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that i'd want to go and sit on the deck

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and have my tea in the morning but i actually sit in my bed

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and look out the window sometimes i find i've been here for a very long time

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but it's just so beautiful looking out through the window yeah

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and you are surrounded by your family in this room with all of these wonderful photos i am family is

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so important to me i've got my three girls and my grandchildren

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and my son -in -laws and it's a lovely space for me just to sit

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and look at them yeah that is so nice

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and i love the way

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that you've decorated this room as well it's just a very nice soft space yes we had to find

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a between girl and boys idea that I couldn't have too many flowers

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but Noel was quite happy with what I did here

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so yeah really happy with it

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and you've got quite a special wardrobe in this room as

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well don't you we do I wanted a walk -in wardrobe

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because Noel even at his age gets up really early to go to work

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but he can get changed in the dressing room he can quietly sneak up

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and go to work while I am a lady of leisure

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and go to sleep that's a nice feature to have I like

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that I like that and of course you've designed now

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so many tiny homes for

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so many people it must have been such a joy to

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design something for yourself it was this is actually tiny home

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for us mark three the Sophie design was the first one

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that I thought we might live in so Shay

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and I sat down and designed that

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and then I thought maybe we can even do better than

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that so yeah there have been about three designs

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that got us to this place I think in the end we got it exactly as we wanted it yeah

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and when it came to you designing your own home what were the things

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that were most important to you yeah and i would advise

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that everyone does what i used to teach my students at school a pmip pluses minus interesting

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and possibilities so things

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that you have to have are your pluses minuses things you definitely don't want interesting things

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that you would like and your possibilities

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and how you would get those interesting things

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and i think we tick the boxes on on everything

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that we wanted

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and now you yourself have gone through this downsizing journey how

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are you finding tiny house life Bryce I honestly wouldn't change

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it for anything I actually said to Shay the other day

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if I won lotto I would still live like this I might buy this little paddock

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so I didn't have to rent it

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but I would carry on living I love it it's

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so peaceful calm no stress it really is the best move we've ever made one of the things

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that that has surprised me about tiny house living is

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that i can actually fit all my family in it we even watched world cup rugby

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and we had all the kids we were probably sitting on each other's heads

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or something but we were all in this tiny little lounge space watching world cup rugby with the grandkids

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and my children and everyone we found space to sit you don't need a massive lounge to be together so

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that has made me feel very happy

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that i can have my whole family in my tiny space

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and can we talk about the cost

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that was involved in building this home probably about three hundred thousand

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so and then the solar power maybe on top of that 350.

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people tend to think that going tiny is going cheap

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but it's a real house it's built in the same way

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as you build houses in fact your biggest cost in a house is your kitchen

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and your bathroom and the whole tiny house as you can see is mainly kitchen

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and bathroom and it's really just a real house

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so you're well settled into your home you've been living here

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for just over a year now what does the future hold for you

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i would like to think we're going to be here for the next 10 years

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and we'll go out in our boxes

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but you know you never know what life's going to throw at you but

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if we had it the way we wanted to we would

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live here until we couldn't live here anymore well sheila this is just such a beautiful home

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that you've created here i love this design

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and just how well it fits you thank you

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so much for sharing it with me it's a pleasure bryson it's been lovely having you here this tiny house is exquisite.

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They've thought of everything in this place.

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Great indoor outdoor living, amazing entertaining areas,

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room for the grandkids, but what really strikes me about this place is just how wonderfully family orientated it is.

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Sheila and Noel have a home which is perfect for them

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but that can also beautifully expand when needed so

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that the whole family can come together and And

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that really is just one of the things that really makes this place work.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “This Tiny House Design Changes Everything!”. This video has 343 sentences and 3945 words to shadow. The speech runs for 18:46. The speaker talks fast, about 210 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
lounge noun	/ˈlaʊ̯nd͡ʒ/	The act of someone who lounges; idle reclining.
loft noun	/lɔft/	An attic or similar space (often used for storage) in the roof of a house or other building.
upstairs adverb	/ˌʌpˈstɛɹz/	Up the stairs; on or to a higher floor or level.
noel noun	/nəʊˈɛl/	A kind of hymn, or canticle, of mediaeval origin, sung in honor of the birth of Christ; a Christmas carol.
bedroom noun	/ˈbɛdˌɹum/	A room in a house, apartment, hotel, or other dwelling where a bed is kept for sleeping.
timber noun	/ˈtɪmbɚ/	Trees in a forest regarded as a source of wood.
beautifully adverb	/ˈbju.tɪ.fə.li/	In a beautiful manner.
entrance noun	/ˈɛn.tɹəns/	The action of entering, or going in.
outdoor adjective	/aʊtˈdɔː/	Situated in, designed to be used in, or carried on in the open air.
workshop noun	/ˈwɝk.ʃɑp/	A room, especially one which is not particularly large, used for manufacturing or other light industrial work.
fireplace noun	/ˈfaɪɹpleɪs/	An open hearth for holding a fire at the base of a chimney.
hazel noun	/ˈheɪzəl/	A tree or shrub of the genus Corylus, bearing edible nuts called hazelnuts or filberts.
wash verb	/wɑʃ/	To clean with water.
deck noun	/ˈdɛk/	Any raised flat surface that can be walked on: a balcony; a porch; a raised patio; a flat rooftop.
suite noun	/swiːt/	A group or train of attendants, servants etc.; a retinue.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
look out verb		To be vigilant and aware often as an imperative to alert a person to danger.
give up verb		To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone).
come over verb		To affect in a sudden, unprecedented or surprising manner; to overwhelm a person's ordinarily contrary impulse.
come through verb		To come into a room or other space through a door or passageway.
come together verb	/ˈkʌm tʊˈɡɛðɚ/	To assemble; to congregate; to combine.
get up verb		To move in an upward direction; to ascend or climb.
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
open up verb		To open.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
“Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true	used to live · used to come · used to be
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if it gets too hot you won't believe · if it's really miserable then we will eat · if i redesigned the house again we'd make
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has been · i've been relegated · you've combined
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were now visited · i've been relegated · been designed

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 102 contractions and reduced forms, such as we've, you've, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: workshop /ˈwɝk.ʃɑp/, wash /wɑʃ/, chef /ʃɛf/, accommodation /əˌkɒm.əˈdeɪ.ʃən/, exceptional /ɪkˈsɛpʃənəl/
Long words — get the stress right: beautifully /ˈbju.tɪ.fə.li/, generator /ˈdʒɛnəɹeɪtə(ɹ)/, incorporate /ɪŋˈkɔɹ.pɚ.eɪt/, oriented /ˈɔː.ɹɪˌɛn.tɪd/, miserable /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹəbəl/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like lounge, loft, upstairs.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: This Tiny House Design Changes Everything! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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