Tiny Simple House is off the Back Burner
If you’ve been reading Tiny House Design for a while you might remember one of the long term projects I have on a back mental burner is the Tiny Simple House. While simmering back there it’s been transforming from a modified shotgun house to a more flexible yet equally as simple housing solution. The Tiny Simple House will be a low cost and easy to build tiny house design that most amateur owner builders could tackle because of its scale and simplicity. It will also be flexible and customizable to meet a wide range of needs from those of an individual to a family.
In this latest iteration the house begins as a core 12x12x12 box with a gable roof. Inside this space would be a bathroom, kitchen, loft, stairs, and small living area. The owner-builder would then add shed and gable roofed units onto the house to meet the additional space needs. The house could range from a coupe hundred square feet to a several hundred square feet. Continue reading to see a few of the details and configurations. I’ll continue to work on this concept at a more rapid pace and when I’m finished I should be able to offer the complete concept documented in a book. In the mean time enjoy these previews and please let me know what you think. Thanks in advance!
Tiny Simple House Plans
You might have noticed I’ve been experimenting with different drawing programs looking for the right tool to draw the illustrations for the house plan book I’m trying to finish up. I don’t have a bunch of money to spend on a bunch of Adobe products and I don’t have a lot of experience with real CAD programs so I’m definitely bargain shopping in the isles of open source, freeware, and low-cost deals.
Tonight I think I found it; it’s called DoodleCAD. I even like the funky name. I also mapped out the contents of the book tonight which I’ll share with you all in a couple days. In the mean time below are some drawings that I whipped up tonight using DoodleCAD. They are still a bit rough, for example there are no doors and windows yet, but this will give you an idea of what I’m planning for these house plans.
The skids are there to keep the house above the wheel on a common flatbed trailer. 12 inches is a bit much and a 4×12 beam as a skid is probably overkill so you may see some changes there.
The reason I think raising the floor above the trailer bed and wheels is so the house can be detached from the trailer. This trailer optional approach adds flexibility and makes the house a little easier to build. The disadvantage is that the height of the house is shorter than it could be if the house floor were closer to the trailer bed.
I’ll keep at it and post more drawings as I finish them up. Feedback is warmly welcomed!
More Sketches of the Tiny Simple House
I’ve been playing with more drawing software in an attempt to find the right combination of tools to draw the illustrations for the Tiny Simple House plan book. Below are 3D images made with Google SketchUp and a short video. The floor plan was created using software called VectorDesigner which is an inexpensive ($70 ish) program similar to Adobe Illustrator, but far simpler. I haven’t bought VectorDesigner yet; I’m still using it in it’s 14-day trial mode, but so far I really like it.
I’ve posted a few other drawings of this design concept so you may be familiar with the idea already. Basically it’s a simple low-cost house shell most owner-builders could tackle themselves. Instead of interior walls, floor-to-ceiling cabinets would be used to separate spaces. The floor plan above is intended to show how the raw space could be filled. How the owner really fills the space would be entirely up to their needs. Future changes to the interior could also be made as their requirements changed. Additional small buildings could also be built if more space was needed, for example when the kids get a little older.
I’ll try drawing the cabinets in 3D this nect week. The 2D drawings really don’t tell the cabinet story well enough. I’m starting to think that 2D drawings are great for construction drawings but 3D is best for telling the story and communicating the design.
Another main feature of the concept is that the entire house could be loaded on a trailer for transportation. The main idea here is that flexibility and portability can be a real asset in lean and prosperous times. Since tiny houses are small by definition it seemed only logical to design this tiny house so that it could be moved. Tiny houses are very different from most portable small homes, like travel trailers, in that they are built like houses. Someone could even place this house on a permanent foundation once they found a place they wanted to stay for a long time.
The house in this drawing is 8′ by 20′ but I plan to include 8′-wide and 12′-wide plans in the book. The length of the house would be determined by the owner-builder’s need and length of the trailer. I’ll also include several different plans for the built-in cabinets to make it easy for someone to customize the interior space to fit their needs. I’ll post updates here as I work out the details.
The video below is simply a screen capture as I manipulated the 3D drawing on my screen. If you haven’t tried Google SketchUp yet and you like playing with drawing tools on your computer give it a try. Be sure to watch the training videos first though.
