I am so excited to share the design for our tiny house! If you have never designed a tiny house before, let me tell you, it is no easy feat. My husband and I spent countless hours discussing our priorities for the space and then doing paper sketches and using free online models to figure out how to fit everything we wanted into 240 square feet! Just when we thought we had it figured out, we realized there was something we hadn’t considered. For me, it was important to have a Iarger kitchen and a space to sit down at a table and eat together (can you tell I love food?). Alonso really wanted a comfortable living room area for lounging and TV watching. We both knew we needed an additional bedroom/guestroom/lounge/study zone. If you’re interested in hearing more, you can read my previous post about the preliminary design process.

When it came down to it, doing the design ourselves as far as the floor plan was manageable but still didn’t feel quite right. And of course, doing the actual structural design is very complicated for the building to be sound and built correctly. Some people do this themselves or purchase plans that other people have already made, but we didn’t want to risk it ourselves and didn’t see any plans that were exactly what we wanted. Neither of us has any experience with architecture or interior design, so we decided it was worth it to purchase a custom design from Minimaliste Houses, our builder. We are so glad we did, because what they came up with is so cool, and we can’t wait to see it in person! I would highly recommend sketching out some floor plans yourself, even if you are planning to use someone else’s plans or hire someone to do them for you. The process forces you to consider what is really the most important because you begin to realize that fitting everything you want in a small space is not always possible, and it often requires some creativity. This will help you clarify your priorities and make your expectations realistic.

So now, what you’ve all been waiting for! These are some of the plans. Here you can see the overhead and two side view layouts of our tiny casita. The house will be 28 feet long, 8’6” wide, and around 13’ tall and on a 3 axle trailer. These parameters fit the guidelines for road worthiness and towing. As you can see, our tiny house will have one entry door in the middle of the long side of the trailer. As you walk in, you see the dining area. To the left is the living room with a loveseat (yes, an actual sofa in a tiny house- not a bench), and at the far end is the bathroom with a shower, small sink, composting toilet, and washer/dryer combo unit. As much as we (ok, I should say “I”) would love a bathtub, we decided to skip it in order to have more space for living, dining, and kitchen. Above the bathroom is our guest loft, which will be small but can sleep one person, or maybe two if they don’t mind being real cozy! To the right of the entry door at the other end of the trailer is our large kitchen, which will be a in u-shape under the master loft.

side-view-layout-tiny-houseentrance-layout-tiny-house

Some highlights of the Tiny Casita:

  • A programmable doggie door at the front door so our pup Harley can go outside.
  • Closet storage under the stairs going to the master loft. This will be primarily for clothing and shoe storage, but I imagine there are a few other things we’ll end up squeezing in there. This staircase also has pull out drawer steps for the bottom two steps which means they can be tucked out of the way when not in use and take up less floor space.
  • A pull-out pantry next to the refrigerator to store dry goods and cans out of site but easily accessible.
  • Open shelving as well as cabinets for kitchen storage.
  • A custom ottoman/pouf for the living room that turns into two stools (excited to see how this turns out, this was a great suggestion of our builder).
  • A small dresser in the master loft (yeah, we have a lot of clothes…working on that still!)
  • Custom shelves in the living room for electronics, books, and display items.
  • Large windows to let in lots of light! I originally wanted a ton of windows, but we ended up going with fewer, larger windows that look nice with the design.

 

So, what do you think? If you were designing your own tiny home (or if you already have), what would you do differently? Any feature of the Tiny Casita that you would include?

Keep your eye out for a future post on the appliances and solar set-up we’ll have!