A tiny house on Carleton University’s campus will soon be Denyse Hayward’s home sweet home in Edmonton and she couldn’t be happier.
Her son Ben Hayward, an architecture student at the school, designed the home as part of a project.
But then he got a chance to build it and was featured on the HGTV show Tiny House Big Living.
Denyse said when her son started on the project, she didn’t imagine she would live in it.
“It just sort of evolved over time, that this could actually be a house for me,” she said.
Denyse Hayward she she helped with the construction of the house and was also able to add some design requirements to make it her own. (Hallie Cotnam/CBC)
She said she realized her Edmonton home had more space than she needed.
“I started paying attention to the rooms I actually spent time in,” she said.
Not a punishment
Denyse said she was amused by the response to the story about the house and assures everyone she is genuinely excited to move in.
“I noticed some of the comments online were treating it almost like elder abuse, but I think it’s a wonderful thing that he has done,” she said.
“I feel really privileged that he has built this house for me.”
She plans to live in Edmonton for a few more years, but said she could move the house when she retires to somewhere on the west coast.
She said she is also pleased to be able to contribute to his research on whether the home will live up to expectations when it comes to energy use and warmth.
The top of this seat can be flipped over, converting it into a table. (Hallie Cotnam/CBC)
Sweat equity
Hayward is a professor at the University of Alberta and even helped her son build the house during her summer vacation, which she said was rewarding.
“It is just a really lovely feeling to know that the things in the home were things I put my sweat equity into,” she said.
She said she also was able to weigh in on the design: a bed that came down from the ceiling instead of one she had to climb up to, for example.
“[Climbing] is more like camping than actually living,” she said.
Carleton University architecture student Ben Hayward poses outside the tiny house he’s building in Ottawa. Currently, the plan is to move it Edmonton for his mother Denyse, next year. (Hallie Cotnam/CBC)
She said they even measured her clothes and then came up with spots in the home where she could hang them.
Both of those features are not typically in tiny homes, but she said they make a difference.
“Those are the features that will make it a place I want to live, instead of a place I have to live,” she said.
The overall design of the house was also a real selling point.
“I really feel like when I am in there, that I am sitting in a piece of art.”