When we first moved into this tiny house, I insisted on a fire. There's always been two things I believe a home should have - a bath, and a wood burner - it's just so cosy, especially in southern Victorian winter in Australia.

Some of you may recall where we started, opening up the wall into the old chimney where once there was a wall heater, likely gas. Jamie then put cement board at the back and plaster - dry wall - to create a neat alcove for it to sit and not eat into the small room space.

Although we could do most of it ourselves, and Jamie could have even installed it, regulations mean your insurance is voided unless you get a certified installer to do it, costing us $990 which we felt was an insane amount of money. Still, we had done the rest of it ourselves, including the bluestone hearth which was 3 pavers instead of one large slab, saving us around $800 on that alone.

Even the Charnwood oven, made on the Isle of Wight in the UK, was secondhand and cost us a third of the price. It has a ton of eco specs and is super efficient - we have already noticed how well it heats the house and it uses much less wood than our old burner to do so.

There's just something about a fire, don't you think?

We have raided skips and under the house for old bits of hardwood - and are using up last winters store of wood, what little we have. Hopefully we won't need to buy any as that's when the real costs start adding up. Whilst we do get cold southerly off the Antarctic, we don't get snow, so this little stove will be awesome.