Tiny House Design

If you get the Sheldon Designs email newsletter you probably noticed that they are having a big cabin and tiny house plan sale on this 4th of July weekend. Architect Andy Sheldon has been designing tiny houses and cabins for many years and offers a wide selection of house plans on their website.  To see all the designs and get the details of the sale visit the Sheldon Designs website.

To see their small and tiny house plans visit the Sheldon Designs website.

These tiny houses are vacation rentals designed to provide very comfortable accommodations for those who want to get-out while not giving up all the comforts of home. On their website they describe these cubes as being an excellent way for hotel operators to expand their business affordably while offering a completely different kind of accommodation. They are available in France (initially) and will probably be offered in other places across Europe in the near future.

I’ve always thought that tiny houses would make great rentals especially for people looking to explore a simpler life. I can actually imagine a small cluster of homes like these as a little bed and breakfast. In fact it would seem like a nice way to transition to a simplified life for the owner. The income from the B&B could theoretically offset the cost of the property, improvements, construction, and operation. Continue Reading »

You might recall that Alex at Shedworking recently moved and now needs a new garden office shed. Just for fun he’s running a little design competition and has received several proposals but this shed cluster caught my eye. It was designed by architect Joseph Sandy. You might also remember the shed Joseph built out of mostly reclaimed building materials that was featured a couple weeks ago on Tiny House Blog. Continue Reading »

Last night I published the latest issue of Tiny House Living which is my weekly online newsletter that covers the growing world of tiny houses. Here are a few snippets from this week’s issue:

Ryan also just launched a tiny house blog and forum in addition to setting up this very novel map that allows everyone in the greater simple living community to add themselves… Please add yourself to the map.

The sheddies in the UK are extremely serious about their sheds. Shed Week 2009 begins July 6, 2009 so be sure to keep any eye on the shedblog.co.uk… finalists for Shed of the Year have just been announced.

This week there were two posts on two different blogs about historic tiny houses that avoided the wrecking ball and lost the battle against urban development leaving only a shadow of the existence.

Architect Gregory Smith send this photo into Tiny House Blog for Kent’s regular Tiny House in a Landscape feature. It’s a historic weekend cabin near the edge of a river in Cisco Grove, California.

Take a look at this week’s edition of Tiny House Living.

Built as a showcase for Vodafone’s fixed phone and wireless internet services this tiny house is a wonderful example of how to create a lot of functionality in a tiny living space. The walls are white polyethylene panels and the most stunning design feature is the clear polycarbonate window wall. The house measures 19.7-feet long, 8.2-feet wide, and 12.6-feet tall and it has a staircase, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom loft, and living room. It’s amazing how much they packed into this tiny house.

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Peter King at Vermont Tiny Houses will be offering a tiny house building workshop on July 11th and 12th, 2009. He’ll be teaching tiny house design and basic construction skills; all experience levels are welcome. The class will build a 12′ by 16′ tiny house with a loft and a 12/12 gable roof. Most of the lumber will be pre-cut and ready for assembly so participants will get to see a complete tiny house go up in two days.

You’ll learn floor framing, wall raising, door and window installation, and exterior sheathing. Alternative design options will also be discussed including wall and roof sheathing, door and window selection, heating sources, water, septic, electric, garden, and greenhouse. Continue Reading »

A couple weeks ago Dee Williams mentioned to me that she and KT Anderson were going to host a one-day tiny house building workshop up in Portland, Oregon. It turns out the workshop was a big success and Tammy and Logan from RowdyKittens made the trip up to Portland and took these great photos. Dee also sent me a couple photos. When Dee and KT are ready to do it again I’ll be sure to announce it here on Tiny House Design.

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This is a bit off-topic but still somewhat relevant. I just think that independence from all unsustainable energy sources and reducing pollution are important elements to achieving our shared long term goals of increased prosperity, happiness, and freedom. If you agree please sign this petition at Repower America. Thanks!

I’d also like to mention briefly that I really try hard to leave all my personal political and social bias out of my posts here on Tiny House Design. I’d just rather see more of us unite under the common banner of simple living and freedom than see people continue to be divided by other issues.

I’ve also noticed that tiny houses seem to unite diverse groups of people that would normally never meet. It’s as if the common denominator of freedom, that tiny houses illustrate so well, shines so brightly it pushes all other dividing issues to the side. Well I hope so… I’d like think that we could all continue to come together under the spirit of freedom.

Now back to tiny house design… thanks for listening.

Steve Millar sent me a link recently to this amazing little creation. It’s a tubular tiny house available in the UK. They are 14-feet long and 8-feet in diameter and is constructed from pressure treated 2×4’s and tongue & groove weatherboard coated with Sadolin varnish. The roof is covered in Rubberoid hexagonal shingles. The front doors are 5′ 10″ tall by 2′ 6″ wide. These are designed to be simple lodging units but would make a great backyard shed office or even a novel tiny house. For more information visit microlodge.co.uk. Also see a video on Tiny House TV.

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I spent the better part of last week traveling to Los Angeles. Visiting that town always makes me think about sustainability and self-sufficiency because the whole place seems so dependent on outside natural resources; although you could probably say that about most big cities. As we drove up and down Interstate-5 past all the dried up farms I couldn’t help but think about how much rainwater my nine square foot concept house could actually capture.

I came up with this slight refinement to the previous design which has a larger single roof surface that spans the interior space, porch, and bay windows. This roof is about 50 square feet and if my math is right this roof would collect about 425 gallons of water per year here in Sacramento, California. Continue Reading »