Tiny House Living

Build The Perfect Tiny House

With Example Plans

Christopher Dillashaw

Copyright 2014 - All Rights Reserved – Christopher Dillashaw

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without express written, dated and signed permission from the author.

Table of Contents

Introduction: what is a tiny house?

1. Why would anyone want to live in a tiny house?

2. Thing to consider before going tiny

3. Building your tiny house

4. Designing a tiny house for tiny living

5. Common tiny house problems

Tiny House Plans

House Plan A - A Nest in the Loft

Tiny house plan B – The All-in-One

Tiny house plan C – Zig Zag

Tiny House Plane D – The Golf Club

Tiny House Plan E – The Cross

Tiny House Plan E – The Cross

Conclusion

Free Chapter

Shipping Container Homes for Beginners

Introduction:

Chapter 1: The History

Introduction: what is a tiny house?

Small house, tiny house, minuscule house; whatever size adjective you want to use there is a growing fascination in the world with fun size housing. Gone are the days where economic living space was the source of shame and embarrassment, instead it is the height of conscientious living, style, and character. The fascination with monster living space, space far surpassing the needs of shrinking families, is waning, paying to heat and maintain several spare rooms that are used for nothing but storage is losing favor. Spending money on too-much space is as close as you can come to spending your money on nothing and the environment isn’t thanking us, and neither are those facing the brunt of a housing crisis in big Western cities. So what is a tiny house?

A tiny house is simply a building between 100 – 400 square feet that was purpose-built to be lived in like a home. There is not a steadfast rule for the size and they can come in any form: shipping container, shed-like wooden structure, demountable building, or small tin shack. Some people call it a movement, and there is certainly a move and a trend towards these smaller living spaces, however this movement is primarily a disconnected cultural one. Nevertheless, there is a growing online community that is interested in tiny housing and they are more than happy to provide support and advice to newcomers. People are drawn to the ability to live minimally, to save lots of money, and to have complete control over their living space and how it is run.

There is a feeling though, that a tiny house might be more effort than it is worth, perhaps a false economy, and that it might not be practical or a long term living space. There’s no guarantee that you won’t face these issues, but there are many reasonably wealthy and sane people living comfortably in them, and even if you do not opt to go for a more extreme off-the-grid style house there is still a lot to learn from the philosophy of the tiny house. You can save a lot of money on a smaller home, not a tiny one, and use the ideas here to make that practical.  In this book you will be taken through this exciting world of tiny houses; firstly the advantages will be discussed in depth, and then we will turn to getting a tiny house of your own and solutions for living with restricted space without any restrictions on living.

1. Why would anyone want to live in a tiny house?

Living in a smaller space isn’t new. There have always been people that lived in small homes, whether that was in small apartment space in cities, those that preferred to live in trailers, or retirees looking to downsize. Often those choices came out of a financial necessity; with tiny houses there is an intentional decision to live in a small space that will suit all of your needs for a long time to come. With only 300 or so foot to play with often a tiny home will have everything you need in just one room.

Traditionally smaller houses that put nearly everything in one room, the infamous studio apartment, have been made cynically. It is a small space an investor saw could be turned into a living space for a reasonably high rent. The conversion is done cheaply and what was a lounge room and hallway is now a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and lounge. Rather than having storage space that is built cleverly into walls, a bed that works well as a couch during the day, and a dining table that folds out; instead the creators would throw typical, and cheap, furniture into a small space and tell tenants to grin and bear it because they were getting slightly better rent than average for the area.

The problem with these smaller spaces is not that they are small, but they are poorly designed: both structurally and in terms of decoration. The space is used only in a horizontal way when there are many ways to give yourself more breathing space if you simply used the walls to store and hold things. No thought is given to using furniture to create mini-compartments in the space, and lighting is limited to a dingy light bulb. Compromises must be made in a tiny house, for example a huge wardrobe full of coats is going to be difficult to accommodate especially when some under bed storage and a simple coat hook could accommodate nearly all of your clothing with almost no space used.

So this comes to one of the biggest reasons that tiny houses are becoming popular with average people and not just Spartan hermits. Advances in technology and innovations in design mean that using a smaller space is now much easier. Just consider something such as the humble television, where it used to require an entire room of its own to reasonably fit in an area; it can now be tastefully fitted directly on to the wall. There has also been a lot of work in making smaller spaces, especially in densely populated cities like Tokyo, so that now you can easily find plans for entire kitchen units that can be folded away when you’re not using them. We have also gotten much better at making kitchens and bathrooms that can work in small spaces without needing an outhouse.

Lastly, fashions and tastes have changed over the last 20 years, influenced heavily by Scandinavian countries, to start having a minimalist look. People are actively choosing to have a cleaner and less cluttered look around them. Bulky wooden cabinets and four-posters are seen as gauche and the naturally smaller furniture is taking its place. Once you reduce clutter and excess furniture you naturally require less space.

Just because there is the option for a small house doesn’t mean people are necessarily going to want smaller space, or compromise when they don’t need it. Why have fold-out corners of office space when you can just have an office in its own room? Lower cost might seem like an obvious reason, but the cheap cost should not be overstated initially. Compared to building a two-bedroom house yourself building a tiny house is going to be much cheaper, but you do still have to pay to build the tiny house and unless you are going to do every element yourself it is certainly not going to be cheap.

In fact certain elements of the designs of a tiny house are going to be slightly more than your standard big empty rooms that you fill up with furniture. It is difficult to later rebuild a small space to fit your new needs, so a tiny house needs to have space for a sofa bed built into it, and you need to consider how shelving will fit in. In addition, you might struggle to build a tiny house in some locations because it’s not fitting in with the image the area is cultivating.

Yet there is still ample money to be saved. As much as you may lose flexibility in terms of re-shaping your home later, it does not cost that much to build such a small building and the more hands on you are, the more you can save. Estimates say that if you build the home yourself it can cost as little as $23,000. It might not be entirely realistic to do it all yourself and that cost is not taking into account everything you might want to do to the property and the huge variation in the cost of land, but any way you look at it, that is far less than the $200,000 plus you might pay for another home and it will come with much less interest. The big savings you can count on though are in the maintenance of your home.

When you heat, or cool, a tiny house you are effectively heating or cooling just one room. You also only need to insulate one room and you don’t need to clean twenty sets of windows, curtains, carpets, or whatever upholstery you decide to have. It’s also far simpler to heat up that space by just using an appliance like an oven for a while. Certain land taxes may also be reduced because of the relatively low-value of the house. One of the most exciting things about the house is the new options you have for giving energy and heat to your home.

For some people less space actually equals more freedom. A tiny house can be built and shipped elsewhere with relative ease and for some people the biggest draw is the ability to live off-the-grid. Living off-the-grid means you are not supplied electricity, water or gas from a main source and so you are in complete control of how your lifestyle is catered. Since the house is so small and you are designing it, you can improve the energy efficiency enough that solar power and a small generator could be enough power to see you through the year. Pick the correct location and use the power of the sun in other ways and you may find you are only rarely turning to the heater.  You can also equip your home with water storage devices that will again use the sun to power them.

Getting water is often more expensive than getting a small amount of power, as it getting rid of your waste. It is entirely doable and you won’t have to wander out twice daily with a pail to wind-up well, but you may end up spending as much as $15,000 to have a workable water storage system. In many part of the world getting a yearly supply of water would work out much cheaper than this for many years. There are, however, many trailer parks or even tiny house settlements that will help you with this problem. You can build relatively cheaply on this land, you’ll have the support of your neighbors and you can use their water supplies relatively cheaply.

Whether you have concerns about the environment or you wish to be less reliant on big society, there is a lot of appeal to being entirely self-sufficient. You will be in a position to do as please without any repercussions and you can live ethically and encourage others to do the same. There are some more practical gains as well, if you’ve ever had to deal with an energy company and things weren’t 100% smooth then you know why being in control yourself would be a relief for many people. You might also find with your own land and being off-the-grid that you would choose to become even more self-sufficient, growing your own food and turning to greener transport. Of course, you can also have a tiny house that runs and works cheaply while being very much on-the-grid. It is not a movement purely for environmental radicals and you can move away from an over-the-top consumerist lifestyle while still relying on the grid for many of your daily needs.

For some people there is also just a joy in being able to live small, in being able to surround yourself only with the things you really want and need, and in being able to make a small bit of space really your own. Many bigger houses of some space that is undesirable, a spare room that goes moldy or a closet you only use for brooms and clean supplies. With a tiny house you can make a small space entirely luxurious with only minimal cost.

Whether or not the tiny house has been sold to you, you should at least consider the value of living smaller.

2. Thing to consider before going tiny

Before actually making the leap to a tiny house there are some things to consider, even whether you can make that leap. There is a big question about whether you can get the funding and planning to build a house of this type. Firstly, land is expensive and when you are looking for clay to buy up for your own you might see why popular locations are so expensive: because you want to live there and other locations are impractical. If you get to a point where you are paying more for a tiny house than you would for a standard size house you might have to question what exactly your motivation is.

There is also difficulty in getting planning permission because a small house might not fit certain neighborhoods and various zoning laws may just not allow a house of smaller size, often for safety and taxation purposes.  A lot of local governments aren’t going to want you to have an off-the-grid house, because what if you, for example, can’t dispose of your sewerage correctly? There is less accountability when you are on your own, which means in the event you are in trouble you will be costing the tax payer more money without paying back. It is also often the intention of that government to have the land used in the best possible way for the area. A solid two bedroom house could be used by many people for the next 100 years if built well. Is the same true for a one-person tiny house that built its own sewerage system underneath it?

This leads to the issue of getting funding to build the house. If you can find cheap enough land and you are downsizing or have large savings then you shouldn’t face an issue paying for it yourself with perhaps a small personal loan. If you need a bigger mortgage or loan you might face a problem because many people do not believe that the tiny house has much financial value to others and they are looking to make money back on their investment. You may also have to question whether or not it would be an issue if you couldn’t make anything back from the house if you ever wanted to sell it. While there will always be people that want a tiny house, they may not have any desire to live where you are, so you may find that you have a very small market because there are quite big restrictions on the kind of people that can cope with such a small space.

A solution to these problems is to find somewhere you can build very cheaply; perhaps you have a friend with a lot of land that would be happy to let you use their space relatively cheaply. You can also try to find intentional tiny house communities or try some existing trailer or cabin parks that would allow you to build your desired structure. You have to decide whether that is what you intend for your kind of property though. If you try to go further out, where laws are less restrictive, you may find things start becoming more expensive and you completely lose any potential for a return on your investment.

A good alternative is a conversion. You might be able to buy an existing property and turn part of it into a tiny home then rent or sell the rest on. You might be able to build the tiny house on a part of that property and then rent out or even sell the main house you bought on the property. It will be easier to rent a tiny home in the future as a holiday location or let it out temporarily to people that don’t want to commit to a tiny house forever. If you go this route however you might find that just buying a small house in the first place is a much cheaper option for you and you can simply convert it to your needs and purposes without a lot of the same hassle. You don’t necessarily have to buy a house in the first place, a garage might be the sort of project that could easily be extended and converted.

Figuring out the logistics and commitment level of a tiny house is just one part of the project. You also need to decide if a tiny house would be fit for your purposes. Obviously if you want to live in a enormous metropolis like New York City you are going to struggle, but even if you are happy being in a more rural location there are things to consider. Are you going to be able to be comfortable with just your small living space? Many people in tiny houses find they need to rely on the wider community more to be happy because when they leave their home they need somewhere to go, and if they have nowhere to go they can’t leave, and it can become quite restrictive in such a small space.

Often a tiny living space requires more from your outside space, however sometimes you have to question if you really want a tiny house if you start setting up too many structures outsides. You could after all just have a bigger house. Isolation is also a real problem for many people that are not used to living like that. You will have to find solutions to a lot of problems on your own: how to get your mail, how to get an internet connection, how to affordably get your groceries on time.

More important than your needs and demands are the needs and demands of those around you because living in a tiny house requires a lot of restrictions. Often it is not advisable for more than one or two people to live in a tiny house for a long period of time. While the savings you make at that point become quite incredible it also becomes a much more difficult task to live amicably. If you cooking in the kitchen means you are blocking space for sitting on the couch you might find you create conflict. There are many small spaces you can rent as a holiday home first to test how you find that style of living, try staying in a smaller boat or caravan and try to see yourself there for possibly years at a time. You should also consider different eventualities, if you have a bed in the loft area and you break your leg how are you going to climb the ladder to bed on your own? If you get food poisoning is it going to become extremely unpleasant for another person in there?

For most people a tiny house is not appropriate for children, they will require their own space and privacy as they get older and it is also often impractical to house more than one bed and to have so many lives lived in such a restricted space. You might also want to consider if having guests around is important and how it might impact your life in terms of the community you are in. If you have lots of outside space and live in a warmer part of the world then it might not matter so much, to others it might seem a bigger ordeal or struggle, especially if there are people who rely on your stability and hospitality on a regular basis. Tiny houses are very good for shorter term living, you might want one just for the summer or as a holiday home, or in combination with another home you have. You can also have extra space by building a studio or having some kind of portable housing you can use for extra space or privacy.

Another big consideration is the time it takes you to build the house, it’s easy to look at costs and forget some of the hidden ones such as the money you lose not working, or the time you could have spent doing something you really enjoy. Many people get great pleasure out of building their own home and see it as a worth project, but especially if you are doing it on your own, you might find it takes much longer than you think to see your project through to the end. This might also create further problems, is the house going to be in a state to be unfinished safely during winter months? Are you sure you will be able to deal with all the problems yourself and within your budget?

The last question you need to ask yourself is whether a tiny house will fit your needs and whether you are ready to give up your space and possessions. If you find that you spend nearly all of your life in one room and the idea of going to a separate kitchen seems like a chore than a luxury then a tiny home sounds like a good prospect for you. If you find it important to have separated spaces however, if you need a studio, workspace or an office, and you like to have a bedroom that is reserved just for sleeping, then you might not want a tiny house in the end.

You might also struggle with downsizing to such an extreme, it might feel like you have nothing , or nothing of value that you want to keep, but things take up much more space than it might appear when storage it is at a big premium. Clothes, books, and kitchenware are unlikely to have too much place in a tiny house apart from the essentials: don’t expect a walk in wardrobe, a hundred plus book library or a different pan for every occasion. Also keep in mind that essentials take up a lot of space, a vacuum cleaner needs to be stored somewhere, a box of candles needs to be stored somewhere, and spare bed sheets need to be stored.

If you are struggling with this a lot you might also have to ask why you are doing this. For some people a tiny house is absolutely the right choice and it will give them what they need and help them decompress and then grow. There is nothing wrong or bad about having a slightly larger home, and if you just feel the need to be more minimalist there are other avenues for achieving this besides building a tiny house to live.

3. Building your tiny house

You should now have a good picture about whether or not a tiny house is for you. We are now going to look at how to build your house, not the business of putting planks of wood together, but how to get the stage of starting and the things you need to consider before getting there.

The first thing to consider is the land. Many of the issues with finding the right land were laid out earlier, but when actually approaching the build there are lots of things to consider. If you feel as though moving around is a possibility in the future then it might be best to build a home that is easily portable, one of the pluses of a tiny house, and to then just rent some land. There are many advantages to this, such as not being committed to the land and possibly getting a more convenient location than you would get buying. Make sure you can get planning permission, and consider making the house more conventional looking to ensure that neighbors will be happy with your presence.

The next step is planning the house, although some vary as to whether they find the land or the house first. You will need to begin by considering what you need form a home. Does it need to be near a town center? Will there be space for you in a specific city? Will you have parking space, if not are you in walking or cycling distance of all the things you need? Then you need to consider the needs of your home. Are you going to be in the kitchen a lot? Will you need workspace? Will you want to entertain guests indoors? Will you need at least some storage space?

Make a list of your regular week, or how you picture a week will be and write down all the activities you do and make note of the frequency. If it turns out you almost never do any work at home, and you never eat at a dining table, then it might be that you don’t need an office or a dining room. You should then start drawing out a floor plan with rough estimates of the size of the furniture, take into account the average size of space and what you can realistically get a hold of. Try to learn how to use things like Google sketch up for more sophistication with your plans.

If you are already living in a larger home take out a measuring tape and work out how much space that would actually be in your home. If you can try to live in only that space for a while and see how it feels. You can then go back and alter the design and plan of the building. You want what is called a subtractive design: a design where you keep taking things away until you are just left with functionality.

Once you have done these things you might then start wanting to look if there are other plans available that meet your requirements. It’s possible you will struggling to make plans of your own without some more experience as a builder because you will just not be sure what is possible and what isn’t, if you want a good house to live in don’t flake out on the planning stage.

Next you will need to work out the building materials you want and the logistics of having it all work. If you want to move the house then wood is generally the best answer and if you can spare the extra money it will cost a metal roof is ideal.  You will need to decide other things such as how high off the ground the house will be, if you want to buy decking for it and what it will be made of. You will also need to consider the number and size of windows, and woods or board that will be required for building walls or space within the house itself.

It is a good idea to check the plan thoroughly and figure out how much it will all cost first. If you want to use reclaimed materials you will have to start sourcing things now, you can try sites like craigslist or look around for different building sites that might be able to sell you their extra. Get a quote from any lumber yard or building supplier that you will be get materials from and find out how long it will take to have everything delivered. It can take several weeks and everything needs to be planned perfectly because with a small amount of space you do not have the luxury of lots of storage space to keep everything at.

You will then have to plan who is going to build the house. It might be the case that it is best to have a mixture of you building certain parts (particularly the interior) and receiving help from others for the decking or roofing. It is a good idea now to start telling friends that might be skilled in construction or used to building so you can invite them over on weekends to help. When it comes to tools you will need to determine how to get them most cost effectively. Some nail guns, saws, drills and hand tools are fairly inexpensive and can be gotten second hand or even borrowed from friends. Bigger machinery like an air compressor or bigger saw may require quite a big financial investment, you could instead rent them and plan a few days when you need to use them, or in the case of a table saw you might be able to use one at a local construction yard for a small fee.

You will need to consider how to access your land with different materials, how they can be stored, whether you have the space to process them, whether there are restrictions on noise in that area, and whether the ground is ready to be built. In addition you will have to figure out where you will live while it is being built, do you have a house you can stay at already or a trailer you can stay in? Do you have storage for the few things you will have left to bring to the house?

Usually with a tiny house you will build it on some sort of frame, a big sturdy metal trailer frame is ideal. This frame will need to be weatherproofed and treated ready for building if it is in a worn condition. On top of this frame you can then build a floor out of the wood of your choice and then cover it with a type of thinner wood or plywood that you can use for the rest of the build. Next you will need to build a skeleton of a frame with your choice of wood with space kept for windows and door, then the framing for the roof. If you wish to move the house you will need to try and make it as light as possible. Consider with the roof the kind of weather and load it will need to hold.

After the framing you need to add siding, usually a level of plywood followed by some stronger and prettier siding for the exterior. You then will add the insulation; there are many options for this, and then the interior siding of the house is added. Windows and doors are added at this point and the house begins to really take shape. The roof is then strengthened and finished and you are ready to then start building the interior and decorating. 

4. Designing a tiny house for tiny living 

Building a tiny house is not the most important element of the tiny house, the real excitement and project is making that tiny space an area you can live in. In this section we will discuss various techniques and idea you can use for getting the most out of your tiny living space so you can live your full life at in only half the space. Many of these ideas can be used for general purpose smaller spaces, and some of them may not work if you have an extremely small house which will require a great deal of sacrifice and doubling up furniture.

Vertical Space

The best thing you can do to really use tiny space well is to starting go up. There is a basic visual trick here because when you are looking up you are not looking down, so you are much less likely to notice the amount of space. One of the most obvious things you can do is to install a bedroom loft, a small platform accessed by a ladder that has your bed in it. If your tiny space is high enough then you can easily fit this in and you will have made a lot of extra space for yourself and you’ll have a cool feature when you come into the room.

You can use pegs and hooks around the home to have new places to store things; simply a line of coats can draw attention away from the floor. It’s also a simple solution for storing a lot of kitchenware without a cupboard. You can also build shelving units higher up towards the ceiling to keep any clutter out of the way. You are trying to have complete functionality with as much floor space as possible.  Making larger window sills and built-in alcoves is excellent for creating more storage space without it imposing on you.

Floor to ceiling shelving on at least a few of the walls is an excellent idea because it is such an attractive feature while also removing the need for a great deal of your furniture. It will be best to try and go paperless and have as little clutter as possible, but if the clutter you do have is laid out here it makes you appreciate what you need and can help you reduce your load even more when you find certain things have been untouched since you moved in.

Hidden Storage

Vertical storage is good for using the space you have, but even better is to use the space that doesn’t look like space. Nearly all furniture can be home to some type of storage. Have a couch or a table? They should have some kind of storage underneath them, have a headboard? It can have shelves or fold-out storage placed behind it. Sometimes even the very walls can have built in drawers, and the inside of cupboard doors or even built into any stairs you might have is a good way of creating extra storage space that you might never notice.

Windows

Having lots of windows in a small space is vital to creating an airy feeling and bringing in light. With enough light you won’t notice quite how small an area is and you’ll feel more comfortable in general and you can even save money on some bills. The best type of window is a longer and wider one, rather than lots of smaller windows simply because it will open up the side of your house so it doesn’t feel as though there is even a wall there.

You can make the most of the value of openness by having reflecting or even translucent furniture. The less furniture imposes on you, the more it will seem like you have space to run around in. You might even consider making some cupboards or storage space having translucent doors or sides to get rid of any barriers or clutter.

Alternative Space

If you are going to start living an alternative lifestyle in a small house then you might also want to start considering alternative types of furniture. For example instead of having a desk and a dining table, you could instead have a breakfast bar that could double up and be used for both. You might also want to consider having a standing desk to remove the need of any chairs.

In terms of beds you might want to consider having a hammock, these are comfy accessories to have and although it might not work long-term as a replacement bed you can certainly use it in combination with a chair to get rid of the need for a couch just for lounging on. For the storage of clothes you might consider not having any kind of wardrobe and instead you could store bigger items and coats in storage covers in drawers.

Double Up

There is a lot of very good multipurpose furniture. One way to combine nearly all of your rooms into one is to have a bed that can also be used as a sofa that is then build on top of storage units and built into the wall. You then simply use cushions during the day to make it into a comfy sitting space and then remove at night and take out a blanket.

Anything that is boxed shaped can be used as a table, a stool, and storage space, and often you can build small ones inside of each other to make the most of your space. We often treat certain counter tops and tables like they have to used for only one purpose by as long as it is not going to be wet all of the time, as with kitchen furniture, then it can easily double up as space to used for eating, typing, writing, or any table needs. Never forget that you can always put something on top of a piece of furniture.

Make mini rooms

One of the most important things you can do is make it so that each bit of space within what is essentially one room is used to make it feel as though there are separate rooms and compartments. You can do this with something as simply as a little bar or wall, that doubles up as a table or storage, or you can try to break up the space with other creative means.

The use of rugs or carpet is good for showing that you have entered a different space, and the color can make things pop and feel friendlier. In addition you can use curtains cleverly; they can be used to create a diving wall or just to match with the carpet theme. Painting the walls is a fairly obvious and easy way to make different space appear different. Using bright and bold colors will really make a smaller space feel vibrant and different. You don’t necessarily have to paint the entire wall in electric pink, but you can make perhaps the cupboards or a door very exciting.

5. Common tiny house problems

Any type of house will come with its own unique challenges and the tiny house is no different. Here we will go over some of the most important things to consider when building or deciding to live in a tiny house.

Condensation

If your home is not that well insulated and you have put it in a rural location with no buildings around it then it’s likely you will struggle with some kind of moisture. It’s inevitable when you live in such a tiny space. This means you will require a lot of good ventilation and to ensure that there are escapes for the moisture that will occur in your home.

Maintenance and mess

One of the things you might not have considered before is just how much maintenance and daily routine might be involved in a smaller house. You are going to need to be constantly on top of everything to make sure no part of your home is going to go into disrepair and bring the rest of it down with it.

More importantly though is the way that you are going to have to get used to moving furniture around daily so that you can use all of your rooms and space to its full potential. There is the risk that you will get lazy and suddenly you just start sleeping on the couch and using the kitchen counter for everything because it’s too much effort to pull out all of this different storage and re-arrange things. This can also lead to mess.

You won’t truly know mess until you live entirely in a smaller space because everything you do will leave a trail that will be seen until you deal with it. It’s simple to think you will always be cleaning and tidy, but it’s quite another to know that you can’t just leave your office for the day with papers everywhere, because where are you going to eat now? If you leave some dirty clothes on the bedroom floor, you’ve left dirty clothes on all your floors. You may soon miss being able to make a mess as you please once you’ve started living small.

Isolation

If you decide to go to a rural location or further out of a city then you might start to experience isolation. This is both a mental and a very real problem. You might start to experience loneliness and frustration from not seeing or hearing any other people. More importantly though you will struggle to get hold of amenities and if there is a problem, if you need supplies to repair a leaking roof, or you forgot to buy the milk then it could take you a long time to fix these minor issues.

This doesn’t have to be a big problem though, as you can use the extra space to host social gatherings, you can have a more pro-active life, and you can of course be extra prepared for any trouble you might face.

Insurance

Getting insurance on a small house should seem simple but you may find that since it is a mobile home and it might not be supplied with energy and water via conventional means that you may struggle to get conventional or cheap insurance. It is likely you will be able to get some kind of insurance but keep in mind that it may take you more time and require more nuance than a standard home.

Tiny House Plans

In the following sections we will look over five different house plans and how they are designed to maximize a small amount of space and to make tiny living as comfortable as possible without compromising on life essentials. You can use these for inspiration in creating your own designs or in working out what it is you are looking for in your house. Or, if you are really taken with the plans, you can even adapt them directly for use in your own tiny house.

The plans here work as simple visual guides to the kind of space you would get in a tiny house, and will start you thinking about where doors or windows should be located, how to double up on storage, how to make sure the house has a nice level of circulation and the kind of structure you will need to build it. We will only be looking at the inside but this will have to work with the space you’ve got, the materials you have access to, and how you want the house to look. If you were thinking about using old shipping containers then a single level house that uses rectangular space might be best, if you are going for a more traditional cabin style house perhaps working with an extra floor might appeal to you.

When you start to build a home you will need a more detailed plan that will have notes of the dimension and size of the rooms and house and also the materials you will need to the build them. Many of these more detailed plans are available online or you can have them custom made by an architect. For the braver you can create them yourself with programs like Sketchup, but do not undervalue the cost of making mistakes or being able to plan effectively. If you are certain of what you are doing and you know your plan will work then every minute you work on your house is energy directed towards finishing it.

When looking through these plans try to think about how much space you need and what would suit you best. Sometimes the prospect of being minimal is more appealing than actually have to take apart your bed to get to some clever hidden storage every day. You should also ask whether you are happy to have multi-purpose rooms. Some people are happy to have a studio apartment type of lifestyle where more-or-less everything can be done in the one room, often at the same table. Others find having different compartments for everything to be very important: they don’t want to sleep in the work or play space, and they don’t want to always be sat in the kitchen.

Make sure to keep in mind the furniture you already own and what would easily be available to you and what you would end up having to buy. Some design features such as having lots of big wide windows can see very exciting, until you take into account as much as 40% of heat can be lost through windows and always being on display to your neighbors is not the best way to live for many of us. Before buying or getting too invested with a plan make sure you know the specifications of the land you want to buy first, or if you are looking at the plan first, make sure you don’t get too set in having the house perfectly to plan if you are limited in choices for the land you can buy.

Lastly, be certain that you have the planning permission ready to build these houses. None of the plans are wacky but you can never be sure which shapes a specific neighborhood will be comfortable with, or how a direct neighbor will feel if you build a home that is directly facing into their garden. Build the home that will make everyone around you happy since you will have to live alongside them.

House Plan A - A Nest in the Loft

This plan is named the Nest in the Loft because its key feature among all the plans is that your sleeping space is created like a little nest that is almost hidden away from your daytime activities. This is achieved by building a small platform; think of it as a mini-loft, which has enough space for a bed and if you like clothes storage and a bedside table. However, generally the smaller the space the better so you should consider why exactly you need your clothes stored next to your bed rather than cleverly hidden away elsewhere.

We often feel that having a large bedroom is important, but in truth it is one of the least used spaces in many homes and even the ceiling height is unimportant when you spend most of your time there lying down. With that in mind having this smaller space, usually for a low lying bed, is a great option for any tiny homes that don’t have flat roofs. These platforms are usually simple to put up since they really are platforms rather than additional rooms.

The house in the plan is much larger than many tiny homes will be but the space used is feasible for much smaller homes. The real winning aspect of this plan is how it can retain the feel of a typical home, you’ve got the lounge room and kitchen separate and you can then retire to the bedroom. To save space many people choose to use a ladder instead of stairs, but stairs are also a fantastic place for hidden storage and they can often be built in quite easily over bookshelves or kitchen storage units. A great bonus of this kind of house is that the bedroom will heat up quite nicely throughout the day and won’t require much, if any, heating of its own in many climates.

There are downsides to this type of home; contrary to the plan many tiny space bedroom lofts will not have room for a desk or a full window. If you did decide to have so much storage and furniture in the loft bedroom you might then find that your ceiling space has been eaten up, in practical terms this is not so important, but psychologically having the feeling of space above you could help alleviate any feelings of being cramped in.  It would also be important in this kind of house to let lots of light in or you could risk having a dingy feeling. Smaller loft spaces might struggle to get much light near the bed without having a light fitting dangling inches away from you, however, you could put in a smaller velux windows with strong blinds in to help fix this.

The nest in the loft plan is an excellent choice for those merely looking to downsize rather than to live tiny and it allows you to have all the conveniences of a larger home without having to rely too much on multi-purpose furniture or hidden storage.

Tiny house plan B – The All-in-One

This plan is called the All-in-One because it manages to have everything you need on one floor within one square box. This is perhaps one of the most basic designs you can go for and is something you might be used to seeing in the average bungalow only the kitchen and utility room are fitted into a space you might otherwise have as a hallway. If pulled off well you can have nearly separate spaces for all of your living areas and you will never truly feel like you are living in just one space. Unlike the nest in the loft plan here you can have all of your ceiling height to yourself but you will require more horizontal space.

As shown in the plan the size of the building would be quite large, a double bed is just over four foot wide and some stage containers are themselves only eight foot wide. However it does show how easily you can create separate rooms without needing lots of walls connected together with hallways which might end up feeling like superfluous space. Simply putting the kitchen off to one side creates an illusion of compartmentalized space.

There is a lot of room for reducing the space in a plan such as this while keeping the clever design feature of having the kitchen separate. You could get rid of the utility section completely and instead have the washing machine included in the kitchen and the bedroom can be shrunk considerably by simply using some clever storage including in-built wardrobe or pull-out under bed storage. If you felt comfortable enough you could opt to get rid of the bedroom as a completely separate room and instead have a few smaller dividing walls between it and the lounge room and kitchen.

One of the downsides of a house like this is that in practice it can end up feeling cramped or you will have to build a not-so-tiny house. In general with a tiny house you will need to accept you can’t always have a separate space for an office, a dining room, and a utility room. For many this is not always an issue because often those spaces go unused in favor of working and eating on the couch and simply cleaning clothes in the kitchen.

In terms of cost though, this kind of house will often not be much more than a tiny house, but once you get too big you start losing the advantages of a tiny house. Namely that you can easily transport the home and it can fit into almost any space. If you find this plan the most appealing because you really do prefer having extra space and separate rooms then consider going for something between a tiny house and a conventional two bedroom.

Tiny house plan C – Zig Zag

The problem with square or block shaped houses, as with the previous two plans, is that once you starting filling them the rest of the space becomes tainted and no matter what you do the space will always feel like one really big room. Once the couches are put in everything must be placed around the couch. With the Zigzag plan, however, you use a similar amount of space but by placing the building in a zigzag shape you avoid having to sidestep through one room to get to another. This means the bedroom or lounge room really feel like rooms of their own that you can go to so as to retreat.  

The Zigzag also allows you to approach each new area with new storage ideas and ways to decorate the space. Each wall can store something else and you don’t have to artificially divide space up with rugs or leave lots of empty space to stop feeling too cramped. As can be seen in this plan playing around with the typical block shape also opens you up to the outside world. A more natural courtyard is opened up to the outside and the space can be used for eating outside in the summer and putting out plants and comforting features.

This is a space that can be achieved quite well by using something like a storage container because they can quite happily be placed side by side, but if you are using a more typical wooden or brick frame the space will require extra planning. The standard block might not have as many possibilities but it is far simpler to build in the first place as four walls are easier to build than eight even if the four are bigger. The space is also much more difficult to transport as it could be quite awkward if it is a larger building. You might also find that it does not fit as well into the land you have because it is not the most economical shape.

Once again there is a lot of room for making this plan smaller. The dining room is unnecessarily large, some would argue completely unnecessary, and once that is removed the zigzag shape can be replaced with more of an L while still retaining the feeling of different ends of the house to go to. If you do tighten up the plan though, you risk losing the feeling of length and you will lose all of the light it will offer your living space. The zigzag shape provides quite an attractive architectural feature: removing that might make the bedroom appear a tacked on addition to a small house. The other big advantage of the zigzag though is that it can easily be made bigger, you can make it longer for extra space, or wider, turning it into a rectangle, to add a few extra rooms, or if you like storage space to make your main rooms more maneuverable.

Tiny House Plane D – The Golf Club

This is named the Golf Club both because of its shape and also the huge amounts of green outside space it can open up for you. Outside space that you can easily use and, more importantly, you will want to use. You are presumably building a tiny house because you do not have too much space or you want a house you can easily move. This plan will be harder to move, so it’s likely not the plan for you in that scenario.

However, the real advantage versus a square design is that it has outside space built in to it, even on a smaller piece of land you can have a courtyard or somewhere to sit outside. If you are interested in putting a tiny house on a much larger property the Golf Club is well suited to this because you can let in the outside space with a large window or an entire glass wall. For many people tiny space living is really only possible because of how much space there is outside of the house that we never use. When a garden feels out of the way or lacks any privacy it can go unused, this plan is fantastic for creating an immediate space you will always want to be in.

The Gold Club maintains the same feeling of length and distance as the Zigzag but it is arguably even easier to put together and you can downsize the plan without losing the basic L shape it gives you. In this plan you could almost get rid of the hallway created besides the bathroom and either use the bathroom as an en suite to the left of the bedroom or walk through the bathroom on your way there.

Two of the big plusses to this design are the many opportunities it gives to let light into the building without any compromise. The other is the many walls for you to hide storage in without ever taking up the space you might want to use for furniture or to have around for extra comfort or room. This is another plan that lends itself well to reusing old structure like storage units, but it is also one that is relatively easy to build out of other materials without lots of additional work. One of the biggest obstacles to this plan is that it takes up quite a lot of extra space in terms of land without offering you anymore actual living space. The fact rooms can easily be built into it with actual walls though means that the space you do have feels very well used and compartmentalized.

This is a good plan to have for privacy as it allows you to be at one end of the house, perhaps in the office working, without being distracted by the noises of the lounge room, or the enticement of food from the kitchen. If you are planning to do any amount of work from home it is best to consider one of the plans that will have length and privacy built into it. Even if other people won’t distract you the mere fact of having potential distractions in the same room may be difficult and psychologically it can be hard to distance yourself from work if you only have one area for fun, play, rest, and work.

Tiny House Plan E – The Cross

The Cross plan has many of the same advantages as the Golf Club and nearly all of the same disadvantages except that it might be a bit more difficult to build depending on the material you are working with and your own skills. The shape is also a bit more awkward and might leave certain parts of your home exposed when they might not be otherwise.

What it does offer is the open and freeness of open plan living when you enter the lounge and dining room which you make can feel regal and captivating, while also opening it up to the outside if you wish. Then as you enter the home your work space can feel like a completely different world and the bathroom is also hidden enough for it not to intrude on your space and you won’t be forced to walk through it or have it attached to your bedroom to make it difficult to have guests around while also having privacy.

Again you could downsize and get rid of the laundry or utility room and have the bathroom almost attached to the kitchen. This is quite helpful with building as you then only need one water source for the entire house if you use the space well. Alternatively you could build the kitchen more into the cross with the bathroom so the main area feels like nothing but living space and you won’t feel that you are cramped in at all. The cross also opens up an extra area of outdoor space which gives you an extra area for free.

Conclusion

You have now read about what tiny houses are, who they work well for, the process of getting your house built, how to design the interior and common obstacles you will have to overcome. Hopefully you are filled with more excitement then trepidation and you are ready to downsize in at least some form.

The first step you can do is a little more research, find out if there are any tiny homes near you can go visit. Often sites like Airbnb are filled with novelty tiny houses and spaces you can stay in for as little as one night and that taster will tell you if it is the path for you.

Remember that there is no rush to get your tiny house; it is not a quick option even if the house can be built quickly. It is something that must be gone into with planning and forethought, and an acceptance of the difficulty of tiny house living and also embracing what the lifestyle has to offer and how you can re-energize how you see yourself and your possessions. If you do decide to go for the tiny house then you will discover the amount of customization and freedom that your new tiny home can give you, and how the biggest life can be lived in the smallest space. 

Free Chapter

Shipping Container Homes for Beginners

Everything you need to know and more

Christopher Dillashaw

Introduction:

If anyone goes to the customs area of a port or an airport they will see a myriad of shipping containers scattered all over the place and stacked one on top of the other. The same large metal boxes that get fitted on 18-wheeler trucks and transported all over the world filled with every kind of merchandise, from food to luxury goods, cars and spare parts.

Some of these containers are used and re-used and are parts of huge fleets. However, a great number of them are discarded and are either taken to a recycling plan, or used in quite a different manner than their original design specified. In fact some of these uses are not as temporary as someone would have thought. Shipping containers can find applications in:

           Bank vaults

           Radar stations

           Military and fire training stations

           Bathrooms and showers

           Emergency shelters

           School, apartment and office buildings

           Shopping malls and mobile stores

           Press boxes and concession stands

           RV Trucks

           Experimental labs

           Elevator shafts

           Recording studios

           Homes

The above applications are just the tip of the iceberg. There is no limit to how a shipping container can be used after its cargo transporting days are over, other than the human imagination. It is not even necessary to wait for the containers to get discarded from transporting cargo. Some people prefer to order the containers right off the manufacturing line in order to be used in these applications while still being brand new.

The scope of this book is the container usage as homes. How to put one, two, three, many containers together to make a livable space either as a primary home or as a vacation home for the summer or for any other use required.

Some of the shipping container home options available on the market include their setting up by professional crews at an extra cost which sometimes may be too high. Some other options allow for the buyer to set up the home on their own. There are other options that include prefabricated homes.

All these options may save a lot of money, however, there is quite a number of things that must become known and considered in advance, otherwise the attempt to cut down on the cost will boomerang and drain even more money than it would have cost if the original selection was for a traditionally built home.

Some of these issues are technical. How to do things at the construction phases and a few secrets attached to the “life support” parameters (livable temperature, permeation of light, air circulation) in particular. Some other refer to practical issues. Things to look for when choosing where to buy from and things to pay attention to in the quality of the containers.

Shipping container homes are a great choice for people who cannot really afford a regular home, for those who want something different to live in and for those that want to serve a specific purpose. However, a warning is in order before any consideration is given to buy a shipping container home.

If you are not a handy man with experience and expertise and most of all trust in what you can actually do on your own (not to mention the huge load of different tools that you will need), do not go for an option that it will be required of you to actually set things up.  It would be far preferable to go for either an already set up option or for an option that professional crews are going to set up for you.

If you are ready to consider a shipping container home to serve your purposes please feel free to immerse yourself into the upcoming chapters of this book.

Chapter 1: The History

The general consensus of opinion is that homes that come from shipping containers is a new concept that has been forced through the need to do something to protect the environment and especially the forests which are quickly getting decimated from the uncontrollable lumberjacking, despite the laws that are put in effect.

Other notions say that shipping container homes found first application in China, Brazil and India due to the lack of housing or due to many people losing their homes to evictions and bankruptcies. All these notions are actually incorrect.

The first shipping container was designed by Malcolm McLean as a means to rectify the loss of cargo that resulted from the process of using odd sized and designed wooden crates for transportation, as far back as 1956. The final design reached its current status in the 1970s and it was actually the military applications that induced the usage as homes.

Both the US Navy and the US Air force used shipping containers to house the sailors and airmen of the U.S. bases abroad until more solid traditional houses could be built. The initial concept was that containers could be modified and used as homes on a temporary basis only.

It wasn’t too long before the concept was converted to a permanent solution by people who saw the benefits by other uses like site construction headquarters or movable construction settlements that allowed for the homes to be moved along with the workers and sometimes their families from site to site.

It is not known who actually had the original idea of using shipping container for a permanent home for the first time. It is not even known if this idea was born out of necessity or out of another kind of need. At some point the use of shipping containers as homes begun gaining momentum after some very inspiring designs found their way to internet sites and in turn inspired other people to do the same thing.

After 2000, the concept of shipping container homes gained even more momentum with the concerns that were raised about protecting the environment and the ever increasing sensitivity on recycling and using less wood.

At about the same time, contractors started appearing that advertised their ability to construct homes from shipping containers as well as companies that started manufacturing prefabricated shipping container homes to be sold to the general public.

The demand for such homes is gradually increasing every year. Especially by people environmentally conscious. The growth increase may not be the one initially anticipated but it is expected that at some point in the future, the numbers of shipping container homes in comparison with the traditionally build houses will be balanced.

Especially since for the last 50 years elaborate studies were conducted that brought up the toxicity problems and their solutions that made the container homes absolutely safe for habitation, allaying the worries of even the most cautious and skeptical people about any possible safety issues.

It is certain that in the years to come more and more people will start getting interested in the concept of using shipping containers for homes. It is also certain that improvements will be made so that all the disadvantages attached to the concept are gradually diminished while the advantages are augmented with new ones.

If you are not a believer of the concept now, the third certainty is that in the future you too will look into the possibility of staying into a shipping container home. When that time comes it is much better to already be prepared on the intricacies of the issues involved, instead of running around trying to learn the details then. As always the learning process starts with the basics of the concept which are explored in the following chapter.

Shipping Container Homes: For Beginners

Shipping Container Homes: 51 Hacks, Ideas, Tips & Tricks to Organize and Decorate Your Tiny House or Shipping Container Home 

Shipping Container Homes: Box Set:Shipping Container Homes for Beginners & 51 Hacks, Ideas, Tips & Tricks to Organize and Decorate Your Tiny House

Shipping Container Homes: Box Set: Shipping Container Homes For Beginners, Shipping Container Homes 51 Hacks, Shipping Container Homes 101