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.