It’s taken them a couple of years to find their footing, but The Tiny House Company may finally have their breakout model in the newly re-branded Swallowtail. The Brisbane firm’s first house was the 2016 Portal, an airy place which featured a remote controlled bed and a huge detachable deck – and a rather unrealistic price tag stretching well into six figures. Their current set of modular designs (there’s a shell and a studio unit in addition to the fully-featured Swallowtail) wisely pays a little more attention to affordability, but doesn’t leave the original concept or the innovation behind entirely. There’s no deck, fewer windows, and the bed doesn’t go up and down, but you still get a ground-floor living/sleeping area and space for working, cooking and eating along the walls. In some ways, in fact, the Swallowtail offers more than the Portal; it’s got a more functional loft and more free space for later add-ons according to needs and budget. And with a base price of just $79,000 – about $61,000 in American money – we’re betting that a lot more people are going to take that offer.
The Swallowtail is affordable, flexible, and easy to expand
