Inspiration

I'm starting to compile some information on the Tiny Houses that I find most inspiring, so I can see what things they all have in common. At the moment I'm completely enchanted with Anita's Lilypad. I think my favorite part of the design is that it has so many individual spaces, and it includes a big closet!

I'm starting to like curved roofs more and more, which is a bit unfortunate as they are much more labor intensive and costly than an average roof. I'm also having trouble visualizing how the roof is vented and sheathed (does the plywood just bend? Wouldn't it break?) and there is a surprising lack of resources on these topics that I can find online.

So far it looks like the best resource will be PAD's Don Vardo plans. These plans are only for a 12' long vardo, and the height is only 7.5'. My house will be 24x13.5', so I'll have a lot of altering to do in Sketchup. Normally I'd try to muddle through it myself with the things I already have available, but the curved roof is intimidating and I'd feel better working from a pre-built plan.

Almost every curved Tiny House I've seen has exposed rafters, which I'm not a fan of. I like the aesthetics of them, but I have had many an awful experience with spiders falling on my head and it's kind of turned me off having them in my own house. I think that would be a good thing, though? Probably less work involved, and more space for insulation.

Of course another inspiration is the Lucky Penny. I've been looking through the blog posts on thisisthelittlelife.com to see if I can answer some questions (for instance, 1" rigid insulation bends), which has been pretty helpful.

Non-curved inspiration includes the Tiny Tack House, Mini Motives, and the Sol Haus. These houses are all very different, and it's making it increasingly difficult for me to decide what I want my house to be. I wish I could set up a tour of a Tiny House, but I am very far away from Portland. I'm considering hopping on a bus one day and checking out the building site in my city, though the community here is very different from the house I want. They only have very small houses with no plumbing, so I'm not sure if the experience would be what I'm looking for. (I'll eventually volunteer to get building experience, but for right now I'm not sure it would be helpful.)

I did buy a very discounted bundle of Tiny House stuff, which included 12 of Michael Janzen's plans. None of which have a curved roof, unfortunately. And, because money is an issue for me and my Tiny House, I'll probably end up using one of his plans as a base and altering it to fit my needs. This means no curved roof, but I can dream...

One last piece of inspiration comes from this Tiny House, which was featured on Tiny House Nation. I'm not fond of the interior setup, but the exterior is something I like a lot.

Some Things I Need

Since I'm in the very beginning of designing my Tiny House, I'm focusing a lot on what things I need my house to have. This means evaluating my life and seeing what I can stand to get rid of and what I absolutely need to keep, as well as thinking about what I want out of life in general. Here's a condensed list of things:

• Solar power
• Rainwater catchment system (with pressure pumps)
• A large closet
• A place to sew
• Rabbit-proof

That doesn't seem like an awful lot, but I feel a bit self-conscious with my decision about the closet when every other blog I've seen about going tiny includes getting rid of a lot of your clothes. But I'm very involved with an alternative fashion, and I can't see myself ever giving it up. The sewing place goes hand-in-hand with that. I make most of my clothes, and I'm starting to sell them online, so sewing (and crafting) needs to have a dedicated space of its own.

Because of my determination not to have to downsize my closet, I've found myself abandoning things I originally wanted included in my house. These things include: a front porch (I can just build an extension that isn't on the trailer), a large kitchen (I don't cook much anyway), and tansu stairs.

Tansu Stairs

I really do love the idea of storage stairs, and I don't particularly want to use a ladder every time I need to pee at night, so I found this sketchup file of a tiny spiral(ish) storage staircase. I'll be altering my own staircase to be even smaller than the 3x3 included in the plan, though.

Click for source

Rabbit proofing is sort of self-explanatory, I think. I have a rabbit and I want her to be able to run around the house freely. Her bedding box will be accessible to her either from the bathroom or the cleaning closet, I haven't decided yet.

Also, because I want to be powered entirely by solar (I'm thinking a 1kw system to start with, then I can add more if I need to) I can't have the electric stove, heating, and water heating that I've been used to my whole life. This has required some research, but I think I've come up with acceptable alternatives.

I'm pretty dead-set on having a wood stove to heat my house. I don't want to use propane because it isn't a renewable resource. Having a wood stove means having more storage space to put wood (I'm not really worried about this) and having to do maintenance and clean up once in awhile, but I don't mind that.

For the stove I've decided to go with an alcohol stove; probably a two burner, so I can make tea and cook at the same time, if the mood strikes me. In the place of the oven I'll have a toaster oven and a microwave (both will remain unplugged until I need to use them).

As for the water heater... well, I kind of came to a compromise. I'll still be using an electric water heater, but I'll be turning it on when it's time to take a shower, and off when I'm finished. I don't take too many showers anyway, so having a 15-ish minute time limit doesn't mean much to me. At the moment I'm considering a Japanese soaking tub as an alternative to a bathtub, for those times when I have enough water and feel like relaxing with a bath. I haven't decided on that yet, though.

Japanese soaking tub

There really is a lot of give and take when figuring out your tiny house. That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. It's not even really that surprising.

I'm working on learning sketchup and I plan to post some pictures of my house concepts (even if it's just on gridded paper) eventually. All in all, I think I've got a pretty good floor plan mapped out, and I've managed to fit most everything I want.

The Why...

I discovered the Tiny House movement about three years ago when I found a link to tumbleweedhouses.com on Facebook. I went through the process of choosing what I want my house to look like. what amenities it should have, what color it should be, etc., and when I got to the end I found out they wanted a whopping $60k for it. And thus the tiny dream died.

Tumbleweed model: Destroyer of Dreams

But about a week ago I found another link, this time to a tiny house that had been built for only 10k! And, the best part, they had links to various sites. Turns out the Tiny House movement has a lot of DIYers, which is fantastic! There's even a Tiny House village being built in my city for the homeless. They're always in need of volunteers, apparently, so I can even go and get some experience before building my own house!

Since discovering this I've been doing so much research my best friend is starting to get annoyed with me. I've learned more about plumbing in the past three days than I have in my entire life. But I'm so excited! A Tiny House is perfect for me. I can customize it however I want, and I've never had a problem with keeping useless things. I can move it, which means I can travel if I want, and the best part is that after the initial investment, I won't have bills! No rent, no electricity, no water bills. It's perfect.

Another thing is that I'm always happier with things I've made myself. I always keep my handmade clothes and accessories around longer, and use them more frequently. They're just better, in my opinion, because they were made specifically for me. How can you beat something like that?

My best friend is less enthused. We live together and have been friends for 8 years now. We're pretty much inseparable. She doesn't have a problem with having a Tiny House, but she says she won't do any labor on it and if I want it so bad I have to do it myself.

I'm designing my house for two people (myself and my friend) to comfortably live in. One big issue I've encountered in designing within the space confines is that we have a lot of clothes. We're both involved in an alternative fashion, so things accumulate. Not a crazy amount, but between the two of us we use a closet, a dresser, and a wall-mounted closet. A lot of this can be fixed by getting rid of lesser-used clothes (mostly by my friend), and with extra hidden storage spaces.

The big problem with my personal Tiny House dream is that I have no way to finance it. I don't have a steady job (I do various online work because of personal reasons and it doesn't pay well) and I have student loan bills to pay off before I can do anything else. Being able to live debt-free, without any bills is what I'm aiming for.

So why am I starting a blog? This is something I really want, and I want to document my journey with it from the very beginning. Even if I probably won't have much to share beyond thoughts, lists, and findings for quite awhile.