Family's Well-Rounded Off-Grid Tiny Home Sits In The Swiss Alps

The intertwined movements of minimalism and tiny living have gone truly global in the last several years. While we hear a lot of stories about tiny houses in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, there are also more and more stories coming from European countries like France, Italy, and Austria — showing that the tiny house phenomenon is more than just a passing fad, and is indeed catching on with people from all walks of life.

And indeed, tiny houses can go almost anywhere — even in the Swiss Alps. Minimalist advocates Lea Biege and Pierre Biege of Hallo Holger have been living in their uniquely styled tiny house for the last year, along with their young daughter. It's quite a beautiful little home that busts out of the typical tiny house envelope, thanks to its extra bump out, and smart built-in furniture and accessories.

Here's a look at the home's attractive interior, via Alternative House:

The family's 344-square-foot, solar-powered tiny house — nicknamed "Holger" — was built by Austrian tiny house builder Wohnwagon, which features sleeker, rounded corners, and a flat roof.

According to the family, the process of finally moving into a tiny house began a few years ago, when the young couple was living in a larger, 861-square-foot apartment. Inspired by the documentary Minimalism, the couple then started radically decluttering and moving into progressively smaller and smaller living spaces, experimenting with different living configurations and use patterns along the way.

As Pierre Biege explains, this was a time of experimentation, to test out what would work for them in a tiny space:

"We had a system where every time we tried something new. In one [apartment] we just had a futon bed, which we had to roll it up every morning and [roll it out] every evening. In one [apartment] we had no table to eat, so we just ate on the floor for more than a year. With this system, we found how we would like to have things in the tiny house -- so we now know we need a table, a bed, and who stays the whole day in one place."

The couple's rigorous experimentation has allowed them to figure out the tiny house layout that best suited them, and a week-long test run of living in a Wohnwagon-built tiny house sealed the deal for them.

Inside the 32-foot-long and 8-foot-wide Holger, they have a large bed where they co-sleep with their daughter.

Underneath this huge and comfortable bed is an impressive set of long drawers that function as the family's storage for clothes and camping gear.

The view out of the bedroom window is simply amazing.

The dining area is located in the additional room that is attached to the tiny house. As Lea Biege explains, this extra bit of brightly lit space helps to make the small living quarters feel larger and provides a dedicated space for their daughter to play and do some Montessori-based educational activities, right beside the dining area.

The dining table was chosen by the family for its small size, which can flip open and expand to seat six people.

The unique round porthole-style windows offer a bit of flair to the space and can be covered with cloth-covered embroidery hoops — a clever idea to avoid having to hang curtains.

Besides the small, hidden refrigerator and dishwasher, the kitchen has some interesting built-in and space-saving furniture. For example, there's a flat pack step stool that Lea Biege can pull out and deploy so she can reach the cabinets higher up.

Lea Biege is a big fan of the efficient cutting board system called Frankfurter Brett, which features retractable metal wire holders for portable containers — perfect for chopping up ingredients and transferring them over to their gas-powered stove.

Past the kitchen, we see the family's bathroom, which has a curved shower stall (tiled with handmade mosaics), a Separett composting toilet, and a natural stone sink.

The family so far loves living in their tiny house, and have these three tips for those who are thinking of doing the same: do some extreme decluttering, then test out living in a tiny house rental, and finally, to "just do it" — which are wise words indeed.

To see more, visit Hallo Holger, and on Instagram.