This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Simone Solazzo, 31, a former tech worker from Italy, and Anne Leijdekkers, 32, a Dutch arts entrepreneur. In 2025, the couple built their house and transported it to the tiny-home village of Minitopia in Valkenswaard, the Netherlands. This piece has been edited for length and clarity.
Anne: When we decided to build our tiny home in late 2024, we had no building experience whatsoever. Simone had never even painted a wall before.
Thankfully, ChatGPT had arrived at the perfect time.
We spent our evenings asking it about almost everything. While AI was genuinely helpful during the building process, we quickly learned we couldn’t rely on it alone.
In February 2026, Business Insider’s Joshua Nelken-Zitser visited three of the Netherlands’ Minitopia tiny home villages, and experienced tiny living first-hand by staying in a family’s self-built home.
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I dreamed of living differently
Anne: I’d known about tiny homes for a long time. One of my best friends is an architect, and he built one himself about 10 years ago. Back then, tiny homes were a new concept to me, but I’d always dreamed of living differently. I never saw myself moving into a traditional, and boring, Dutch house.
Simone: Tiny homes were a foreign concept to me until more recently. When I moved to the Netherlands from Germany with Anne three years ago, I was working in tech and earning a decent salary.
It felt like the world was pushing the narrative of “you should buy a house now,” but I never felt great about the idea of taking on a mortgage and working for 20 years to pay it off.
Joshua Nelken-Zitser/ BI
When we visited Anne’s friend’s tiny house, I found it quite small and wasn’t convinced by the idea. Then, we went to see a tiny house for sale in Rotterdam. It was big and bright, and I realized tiny homes didn’t have to be that tiny. I was sold.
Anne: We were outbid on that home, but it turned out to be a beautiful, defining moment. The disappointment of not getting it instantly shifted our mentality. We decided we were going to build one ourselves.
ChatGPT helped us work out what to buy and when, and how to split costs
Anne: After pitching the idea to our parents in late 2024, we spent the first two months of 2025 planning and designing the house. My architect friend helped with the drawings and the more conceptual side of things.
Once we started building in February 2025, we asked ChatGPT questions constantly, far more than we used YouTube, which we turned to for help with specific tasks, like how to build the roof.
Simone: We asked ChatGPT very specific questions and used it to think through what would happen if we went off plan and did things slightly differently. It mostly helped us clarify our thinking.
Courtesy of Anne Leijdekkers
Anne: Building a house involves a lot of headwork: sums, measurements, and counting. It helped that Simone had a background in tech, but ChatGPT was a helping hand with that as well.
Simone: We had to buy around 250 items to build the house. With so many materials to keep track of, ChatGPT helped us work out quantities and the order in which to buy them. It was also useful for managing the finances. We were splitting the costs, so we used it to help calculate that too.
ChatGPT would tell false information if it didn’t have an immediate answer
Courtesy of Anne Leijdekkers
Simone: Over the five months we were building, we had to make many decisions every day. It’s important to trust the guidance you’re following.
With ChatGPT, we often found ourselves questioning whether the guidance was accurate. After talking to our architect friend, we realized that the answers were frequently wrong. Sometimes, if it didn’t have an immediate answer, it would just tell us something that was false.
Courtesy of Anne Leijdekkers
It was helpful, but I wouldn’t have felt comfortable relying on it alone. Anne’s father also helped us with setting up the electricity and water. Thankfully, our architect friend helped us handle things like the ventilation and insulation. It was fundamental to have someone who could put everything into context for us.
The build would have taken longer if we just used ChatGPT
Joshua Nelken-Zitser/ BI
Anne: It would have been possible to build the house using only ChatGPT and with no outside help, but I don’t think our house would be as good as it is now. I also think it would have taken longer because my friend’s guidance saved us a lot of time.
Simone: I agree. It’s doable, but having someone there who can put things into context and who has built houses before gives you more confidence in what you’re doing. And that’s crucial when building a tiny home for the first time.
