Tiny but mighty

Renovating and living in a mobile home for more than a year left this family questioning whether they’d want to live in a regular house ever again

Climbing up through the hills of the Santa Rosa Valley, just south of the coastal city of Ventura, California, it’s easy to miss the turn off for Ashley and Dino Petrone’s building lot. Surrounded by well-kept Spanish-style homes and sprawling California ranches with meticulously landscaped lawns, their 2003 Keystone Cougar trailer parked on a dirt patch is a blip that hardly registers.

After falling in love with their two-acre lot-with-a-view and selling their first home to buy it, the couple purchased a tired-looking 9.4-metre trailer as a short-term housing solution, intending to build on the land later on. Ashley, who has a knack for decorating on a budget, got to work transforming the place to make it liveable for themselves and their three children for the few months they would be there.