Updated Free House Plans Page
I spent a little time updating my free house plans page tonight. Mary, one of my readers had suggested that I come up with a better way for downloading the plans on slower internet connections. To solve this problem I published each page as a separate image. The images are smaller in size than the original PDF but still print fairly well. They also give you a great preview of what you’ll find in the larger PDF version. Thanks for the suggestion Mary!
If you have any other suggestions for my free plans page or the free plans in general please let me know. I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback so far and it’s really helped improve the quality of the plans. My next steps are to draw one more house plans, the 8×20 Solar House with Gables, then update the previous three plans with a few minor refinements, and finally turn my attention back to the Tiny Simple House, a book I’ve been trying to write for some time now.
8×16 Free Tiny House Plans
It’s 1:00 AM and I just put the finishing touches on the first version of the 8×16 free tiny house plans. This house is designed to be an inexpensively built passive solar tiny house on a trailer.
In the next few days I’ll draw up a few more interior layout variations that will include floor-to-ceiling shelves where the kitchen is now and a built in sofa that flips-out into an extra bed. The primary bed is in the loft above the bathroom and cabinets. I’ll also add a materials list to the next version but for now take a look and let me know what you think.
This is also ironically my 200th post on Tiny House Design. I guess I’ve been keeping busy; but I’ve also been having a ball drawing tiny houses and blogging on the stuff I find out on the web. Below are a few images from the plans but to see all the details just download the PDF version for easy printing.
Download Free House Plans – 8×16 Tiny Solar House v.1 ( Updated Version Here )
Bruce’s Maine Cabin
On TinyHouseForum Bruce from Maine posted a sketch of a floor plan of a 12′ by 22′ backyard shed he’s thinking of turning into a tiny house. He’s experimenting with several novel ideas like combining the bedroom & bathroom and having a cabinet suspented on rollers over the bathtub in order to better use that space. I love the out of the box thinking. Here’s his sketch:
I’ve been noodling over his idea for a few days and really thought long and hard about the bathroom/bedroom combo. Having repaired real water damage from poorly installed showers I really worry that long term water and moisture issues would eventually force Bruce to consider another solution, and an eventual remodel.
I love his cabinet hung on rollers idea. It’s like a big moving wall that slides one direction when the house is in one mode and in another when you switch modes. I couldn’t think of a way to adapt that idea in the concept below but it’s definitely an idea worth keeping in the back of the head for future designs. Good thinking Bruce!
I posted some suggestions and this drawing to help explain my ideas on TinyHouseForum, inviting Bruce to take it or leave it. For me it was just fun thinking through another tiny space. I’m not entirely happy with the layout, especially the kitchen, but I think it solves a few potential problems.
- I thought it was important to move all the plumbing to one interior wall. This should help prevent the pipes from freezing and will make it much easier to build. A tankless water heater could be hung over the toilet or in a cabinet.
- I left the bathroom to serve it’s single normal purpose simply because of the moisture issues.
- I added some floor to ceiling cabinets along the back wall because they provide a lot of storage and appear to take up less floor space then they do.
- Lastly I added a murphy bed to save space when the room was serving the living room function.
Not sure what Bruce thinks yet. Forums are great places for this kind of open discussion. Over time long threads of comments grow providing a good resource of information and a peek into how solutions were found. I’m looking forward to more design challenges and seeing more dialog on tiny houses under construction.
