Ikea has built a tiny home that’s living large. Refreshingly, the house doesn’t skimp on style or amenities, and it has been designed with sustainability at its core.
The tiny house movement—typically dwellings smaller than 500 square-feet—has surged in popularity for more than a decade, and increasingly so in the past year as travelers seek safe, remote, and compact havens during the pandemic. Consequently, Ikea is getting on board by designing and decorating a tiny house through the Ikea Tiny Home Project.
The Swedish retailer partnered with Vox Creative and American RV and tiny home builder Escape to design a space-saving house with eco-friendly features. Escape constructed the trailer, which is a customized version of its Vista Boho XL model. Notably, it includes solar panels, composting toilets, and an on-demand heated water supply, all powered by the trailer. Moreover, Vox created an online interactive experience, allowing audiences to explore the home while showcasing how to incorporate similar decor into their own tiny living spaces.
“It was a natural pairing,” says Escape founder Dan Dobrowolski, who completed the build in less than 60 days. “We feature many Ikea products in our various tiny home designs around the country as they mirror the renewable, reusable, and recycled materials we incorporate into the actual structures.”
Ikea’s senior interior design leader Abbey Stark designed the space as a show home, utilizing sustainable, multifunctional, space-saving, and energy-efficient products.
“How I started was really listing out all the needs for the space,” Stark explained. “How do you design around a wheel well and the mechanisms of the home? I aimed to source renewable, reusable, and recycled materials whenever possible to make the space functional as well as beautiful.”
The space is decorated in neutral tones with white-washed sustainably grown pine-panelled interiors. Kitchen cupboards feature design elements made with recycled bottle tops and built-in storage solutions. There’s even a collapsible desk and table that serves as a workspace, perfect for digital nomads.
If you’re interested in getting your own tiny home off the ground, the Ikea BOHO XL model from Escape starts from $47,550.
