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Tiny home living in a food forest comes with perk of colourful converted caravan
A Wairoa tiny home and food forest transformed with a colourful caravan mural adds creativity to simple living.
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In Wairoa, Vicky White has created a unique living space featuring a tiny house and a thriving food forest on a small plot of land.
To enhance her property, she commissioned local artist Rebecca Stone to paint a vibrant mural on an old caravan used for storage. The artwork, featuring pīwakawaka and sunflowers, has transformed the caravan into a cheerful focal point, earning it a runner-up spot in the Resene Shed of the Year competition.
Wairoa’s Vicky White used the old caravan for storage and as a shed, but it was looking ‘a little rundown’. So she talked to a local artist.
When Vicky White returned to New Zealand from Canada, where she had been living for several years, she wasn’t sure where in the country she wanted to base herself.
“So I bought a bus,” she says, “and I was living in my bus and travelling around. And I landed in Wairoa.”
She managed to buy a small piece of land with a friend; her share was a smidge over 400 square metres. Then she picked up an old caravan to use for storage and as a shed. Eventually she built a tiny house on the site too, just 5m x 2.5m.“But the land was plain grass over clay and every time it rained, even a bit, the place flooded. So I started planting trees.”
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Wairoa’s Vicky White used the old caravan for storage and as a shed, but it was looking ‘a little rundown’. So she talked to a local artist. Photo: FLORENCE CHARVIN
Now, about five years later, she has a full food forest on the section, including persimmons, figs, apples, feijoas, grapes, peaches, cape gooseberries, raspberries, bananas and more.
She was still using the caravan, but it was starting to look a little run down. A friend suggested a mural, “and as soon as she said it I thought it was a brilliant idea.”
She contacted local Wairoa artist Rebecca Stone who asked White to compile a list of her favourite things – White suggested pīwakawaka (“my favourite”), sunflowers, tūī, tree dahlias, banana fronds, mushrooms and echinaceas, all of which were included in Stone’s design. The door has been painted on both sides so the pattern continues whether the door is open or closed.
“I love driving in to see it,” White says. “And it’s the view from my tiny house and my deck. Even on a wet day it’s so bright and cheerful.”The caravan is a runner-up in NZ Gardener’s Resene Shed of the Year 2026 competition. Vicky White received a $500 Resene ColorShop voucher and a year’s subscription to NZ Gardener.
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