When you have only so little space to work with, do you still have room for innovation? Tiny houses are great examples of how a compact, constricting footprint actually fuels creativity and innovation, and tiny houses from builders like Decathlon Tiny Homes even more so.
Tiny living has been at the forefront of many conversations in recent years due to the promised benefits of affordable housing, a certain degree of mobility (dependent on the size of the house), and a more uncluttered, sustainable, and stress-free lifestyle. Socioeconomic changes, including the work from home phenomenon, wanderlust, and the financial and housing crisis, have all played their part in bringing tiny houses into the spotlight.
If tiny living is just a fad, as some believe, it's not going anywhere soon. Builders like Texas-based Decathlon Tiny Homes are working hard to ensure its durability, offering mobile homes that are year-round livable, durable, and appealing to the eye. As much as we all like to believe appearances don't matter, deep down, we know they do.
The latest addition to the lineup of Decathlon Tiny Homes is a showcase of the kind of work they do: a semi-custom unit based on a popular base model, with capacity to sleep as many as four people, and some neat features you won't expect to find in a house on wheels. This is the Mini Messenia, an elegant tiny that aims to offer all the creature comforts of a brick-and-mortar home and then some.
Photo: Decathlon Tiny Homes
Decathlon Tiny Homes offers a handful of standard models of various sizes. Each unit can then be customized either by choosing from a long list of options or with your own ideas because the family-run business employs a designer specifically for that. This adds to the final cost but it also results in a home that feels like a proper home, personalizable and suited to every need of the residents.
The Mini Messenia shows how that's done. Based on the standard – and very popular – Poseidon model, which stands on a triple-axle, 32-foot (9.7-meter) bumper pull trailer. The builder says you can easily tow this tiny with a one-ton truck, but the reality is that neither the standard Poseidon nor any other variation on it is made to move around frequently.
The tiny has a width of 8.6 feet (2.6 meters), which means it qualifies as a park model. You can still move it around if you need to, but you can only do so with special permits in most territories. This isn't a home meant to roam the country but one that's meant to stay put in a single parking spot.
Photo: Decathlon Tiny Homes
The Mini Messenia has the standard layout of the Poseidon but with touches that make it stand out. You get a ground-floor bedroom and a loft upstairs, a bathroom that doubles as space divider between the private areas and the common daytime areas, a compact but full kitchen, and plenty of storage. But you also get an entertainment room, which is a first for this builder, and sleek, gorgeous styling that would do any minimalist proud.
The former living room slash dining area in the Poseidon model is replaced here by an entertainment room. The picture window at the end of the trailer can be covered by an automatic projector screen, while a ceiling-mounted projector and surround audio system are guaranteed to bring that cinema-going experience into the home. There's no seating available here and the media rack is actually a shoe rack, which seem like odd choices but, then again, odd choices are what makes tiny living great.
The centrally-located kitchen is done in monochrome black and white, with the occasional black for accents. Appliances are all black – and premium: a Furrion 3-burner gas stove and oven, a large microwave, a residential-size black fridge and freezer. They're offset by white quartz countertops and made to stand out even more thanks to a gorgeous charcoal glass tile backsplash.
Photo: Decathlon Tiny Homes
The bathroom is also made to feel like a residential one, with a standard flushing toilet, a glass encased shower, a sink with vanity, and stacked washer and dryer laundry station. The bathroom doubles as buffer area between the bedroom and the other part of the house thanks to pocket doors on either side. If you're not new to tiny living, you know that bedrooms with doors remain a rarity in this niche of the market.
The bedroom comes with a platform bed and double wardrobes with large mirror doors and three oversize drawers underneath. Even the loft over the bedroom has wardrobe space, even though it doesn't offer standing height. Floating shelves are integrated throughout the home for even more storage options.
Photo: Decathlon Tiny Homes
Like the Poseidon, the Mini Messina offers 272 square feet (25.3 square meters) of living space with 68 square feet (6.3 square meters) in the loft. The builder doesn't put a figure on this semi-custom build, which is to be expected, but a standard Poseidon model starts at a little over $112,000. Tiny houses may be a lot of great things, but pricing for them continues to be prohibitive even now, at their peak of popularity.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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