Recycled materials in Tiny Homes

G'day everyone,

Welcome to the first post on the Currawong Homes blog! If you're here, you're probably dreaming of a smaller, smarter, more affordable way to live—maybe even a tiny home like the one that started it all for us. At Currawong Homes, we're big believers in building thoughtfully, and one of the best ways to do that is by giving new life to recycled and reclaimed materials.

Let's start with the obvious: the environmental upside is huge. Using recycled materials keeps perfectly good stuff out of landfill, cuts down on the demand for new timber, steel, and other resources, and reduces the carbon footprint of your build. In a tiny home—where you're already using far less material overall—that impact multiplies. It's a win for the planet, no question.

But the question that keeps coming up is: does it actually save money? The short answer? Sometimes. It can—sometimes a lot—but it depends on the material, how you source it, and how much sweat equity (or time) you're willing to put in. Let's break it down with real examples from our own tiny home, Currawong Cottage.

What Materials Are We Talking About?

We're not talking about scavenging random junk, like discarded pallets. We're talking smart reuse: excess stock from building sites, offcuts, or properly salvaged items from demolitions. Here's where the savings (and the effort) come in:

Cladding and Roofing — These are often the big wins. In Currawong Cottage, we used all second-hand corrugated iron for the roofing, and surplus iron for the cladding. intended to be cut and fit on site, it went up quickly with minimal waste and essentially zero extra time compared to installing new material. Huge cost saving compared to new Colorbond or similar. The patch work of colours would have been an issue, but we had always intended to paint over with heat reflective paint. So materials designed to be fitted on site make for terrific savings, as long as the lengths arent too short. THis includes weatherboards, corugated iron and other claddings, flooring boards, framing pieces, insulation and internal cladding like plaster.

Fixtures like Windows and Doors — These can be trickier. Custom new windows are expensive, so reusing existing ones makes sense—but its rare to have enough for a whole project that match perfectly. For our tiny home, I used all the salvaged windows I had from from various renovation jobs and designed the entire layout around the windows I already had. That saved a fortune on new joinery (estimated 5-6 grand). The trade-off? Added weight (especially with old wooden frames), plus hours stripping paint, sanding, and repainting. And because the sizes didn't match, we had to get creative with finicky interfaces and trims. It worked, but it wasn't quick.

Kitchen Fit-Out — Ours was a hybrid approach. Several cupboards slotted straight in from reclaimed pieces—no modifications needed. Others required trimming to fit the compact space. We skipped traditional cupboard doors entirely (open shelving instead), which avoided the headache and cost of custom-making or refitting doors. That kept things simple, functional, and budget-friendly, though we did miss the doors as our baby grew into a toddler.

The last major consideration is quantity. It is usually most economical to have enough of a material for one area, like all the cladding for one feature wall, or matching windows for one room, or side of the house. If you only have half a box of tiles, it can easily be more effort finding and matching a similar product than buying an extra box and getting things moving. On the other hand, if it is a mosaic look you want, re-use would be perfect.

Reclaimed Excess vs. Salvaged from Demolition

Here's a key distinction that affects the bottom line:

• Reclaimed excess material (never installed before—offcuts, surplus stock, builder's leftovers): These are usually straightforward to use. Clean, ready to go, minimal prep. Big savings if you can source them locally.

• Salvaged from demolition (pulled from old buildings): These can be gold—timber, bricks, iron—but they often need serious prep. Pulling nails, de-nailing, treating for pests, or cleaning takes time. If you're doing it yourself and have the patience, it's rewarding and cheap. But if you pay someone else to do the labour? The savings can vanish fast. In tiny home builds, where every dollar counts, DIY prep is usually the way to go.

So, Does It Save Money Overall?

Yes—when done right. The most economical recycled materials are those in standard sizes (like common doors, windows, or Cabinets that slot in with little fuss, or ones designed to be fitted on-site (cladding, irregular timber lengths, roofing iron, plasterboard/insulation/floorboards.) These minimise labour and waste.

Everything is possible to reuse if you're creative, but the biggest savings come when the material aligns with your design rather than forcing the design around it. In Currawong Cottage, the corrugated iron was a no-brainer win. The windows saved cash but cost us time and effort. The kitchen was cheap, no money up front, but cost us time, and affected the design.

At Currawong Homes, we bring this thinking to every custom build. Whether it's a tiny home or a full family house, we're always looking for ways to blend reclaimed materials where it makes sense—saving you money, reducing waste, and creating something unique.

What about you? Have you used recycled materials in a build? Drop a comment below—I'd love to hear your wins (and war stories!).

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more practical tips on affordable, custom homes.

Cheers, Lachlan

Founder, Currawong Homes