If you have read my last few posts, you know I am thinking of building my NH tiny house with a 10' width, since I will be building it on concrete piers instead of on a trailer. The 10' width gives a more specious feel to the house and I should still be able to handle all the lumber and building by myself. I recently came across the Minim House which is slightly wider at 11'. The picture below gives an idea of the increased space. Although the many windows open up the space, I won't be installing as many, due to my cold climate.
The Minim House looks to have a roof pitch of 3/12. I plan to go with a bit steeper pitch of 9/12 for more headroom, but still safer to work on than what seems to be the standard 12/12 roof pitch for tiny houses. The Minim House does not have lofts due to the shallow roof pitch. I am thinking of building 10' high walls in my tiny house. With a loft at 7' high, this would give me about 6' of height at the peak of the loft. The picture below shows the Minim House roof pitch and the rainwater collection system. I also have rainwater collection on my list of requirements.
With a 10' width, I will need to rethink where I put the bathroom. I was originally planning to put it across the back end of the house. A 10' long bathroom would waste valuable space in a tiny house. I am now thinking of putting the bathroom across from the galley kitchen, something like this:
A cross country tiny house meet up was held today under the shadow of the Big Idaho Potato Tour giant spud. Kristie Wolfe of Tiny House on the Prairie and Dave Raftery of Sonoma Shanty attended the event. Discussions included looking for undeveloped land in NH, off grid power, installing septic systems, insulating exterior cladding for tiny houses and the logistics of building a tiny house in Hawaii.
As many of you know, Kristie has been touring the country for the past 6 months as part of the Big Idaho Potato Tour. The tour is raising awareness and funds for the Meals on Wheels organization to feed seniors, as well as reminding everyone that the best potatoes in the world come from Idaho! Kristie gave me a tour of the inside of the giant potato. At about 30 feet long and 12 feet in diameter, this giant spud is larger than many tiny houses! There is a lot of room inside there. It is built on a steel frame, covered with foam and then a finish coat of concrete which makes up the exterior. There is a round door in the end of the potato which opens for access. I felt like I was going into a submarine!
The event was held at a senior center and a 3 piece band played for the occasion. Everyone had a great time and the weather was a beautiful early fall day in New England. And 2 tiny house enthusiasts, living 2000 miles away from each other, are now friends thanks to a big potato. It was a good day.
In many rural places, sheds up to 200 sq ft do not require building permits. This is my current thinking of a floor plan for a 10' x 20' tiny house disguised as a shed or small barn.
All windows would have lockable shutters. The window behind the couch would be covered by 2 barn doors on the outside. A wooden ramp would placed below the barn doors to suggest that a trailer, lawn tractor or boat could be driven up and stored inside. No waste piping would protrude from underneath the tiny house, indicating that it is not being used to live in.
A couple of weeks ago, winter storm Nemo came through with high winds and dumped 30 inches of snow on my town. At least I know that my Sonoma Shanty is pretty solid, having survived both Sandy and Nemo! Here are a few pictures of my Sonoma Shanty under a blanket of snow.
I've been thinking of how to disguise a tiny house into looking like a small barn or shed. So here is my scenario: buy some land in a fairly isolated area of the country (NH for me), no utilities, forested with only a dirt road onto the property. The tiny house would only be used for about 6 weeks of the year, a month in the summer and a week each in the spring and fall. The design would have to offer some security in the form of shutters when it is not occupied. Since most towns allow storage buildings up to a certain square footage to be built without a permit, that would be the design goal. If the tiny house looked like a small barn and had no outward signs that it was occupied, there would be less likelihood of problems with the local town. So how to make the tiny house look like a small barn / shed? Maybe have a fake 2 piece barn door that slides on tracks on the short end of the house or just opens out with hinges on the top and bottom of the outside of the doors. When the barn door is open, a picture window is exposed on that end; when the door is closed, it just looks like a small barn. Make a ramp that runs up to the fake door so it looks like you can move a tractor or boat inside. You could even have a beam with block and tackle at the roof line like old barns have to raise hay. To top it off, have a cupola on top of the roof with a weather vane! Figure out how to make best use of the fewest number of windows. (1 in kitchen, 1 small horizontal casement in bathroom, 2 in main living area, 1 upstairs in loft). All windows on ground floor would need removable, lockable shutters. The windows should let in enough light, while still not looking like a house. Don't have any pipes coming out of bottom of the house (or hide / disguise
them); or just use a bucket under sink and come up with some way to drain shower. Propane line would go through the side of the house,
directly to kitchen stove from outside tank. Since the tiny house / barn would be permanent, the dimensions could be 10' x 20' or 12' x 20' in size for more space than the standard 8' width for trailers. Might have to forgo the small deck off the entry door; that would make it look too much like a house.
My plan would be to spend 3 to 4 weeks on site to build the tiny house and get it weather tight. Camp out in the beginning with a tent and canopy. Move inside when the roof goes on. Get a small generator to run power tools. Build on pier blocks, with 2 or 3 main support beams. Put 6 inches of gravel under the blocks to reduce frost heaving. Build the platform and insulate underneath with 12" fiberglass. Put screening on bottom of the platform to keep out critters and maybe ply scraps around the perimeter for rain splash. Would need to cover the platform with a tarp in rainy weather until roof is on. Build the wall sections about 8 feet long so they are easy to raise. Sheath the wall sections while on the deck, so everything is square when it goes up. The entry door, with deadbolt lock, would be along one of the 20' walls. Use Sonoma Shanty framing for the top plates and the roof. Build scaffold on each side with 2x4s for roofing work. Finish inside at my leisure. Rig up solar panel and batteries for power; store them inside house when not occupied.
One of the reasons I built my SS shed was to get a feel for the amount of space inside when used as a tiny house. Today I made a mock-up of the inside using various pieces of furniture and scrap wood. All in all, I was surprised with the amount of room inside. I think this would be liveable for one person. (My SS is 8' x 14', and I reduced the wall height by 1' from the plans.)
To the right of the entry door is room for 2 chairs and a small table. A drop down table attached to the wall would make better use of the space.
At the rear on the same side, I put a 6' x 2.5' table to represent the kitchen area, complete with sink and range. There appears to be enough counter space to make meals. The plywood wall on the right side represents the bathroom wall.
To the left of the entry door, there is room for a couch. This is just a cushion from a piece of patio furniture. The plywood it is resting on is 8' long. If this were an actual tiny house, I would move the door to the long wall, about were the table and chairs are in the previous picture. I would put a big window where the door currently is, and put a pull out couch for sleeping against that 8' wall. That way if the couch was pulled out for someone sleeping, the door on the side would not be blocked for egress.
Between the couch and the bathroom wall I placed a cooler for visualization. I would use this space for a closet or storage area. It could also be part of the bathroom area, as a shower. For a tiny house, I would build a top loading, super insulated cooler into the kitchen cabinets. The top of the cooler would form part of the counter top.
I tacked up a couple of pieces of scrap plywood to represent the bathroom wall. The bathroom area is about 3' x 3'. If a shower is needed, the room could be designed as a wet bath.
Another view of the 'kitchen' from the bathroom area.
I also made a video of what the inside of my SS looks like.
In the future I plan to rig up some 12V LED lights, connected to my deep cycle marine battery. I will update this blog when that happens. I also want to purchase a solar panel and hook it up to charge my marine battery, as an experiment and learning experience.
I may also purchase a little Dickinson Newport wood stove to experiment with heating my shed.
I've been busy with life and haven't had the chance to post for awhile. The following occurred over the past few weeks. Now that the weather is getting colder, I didn't want to have to keep the door open to get the power cord into the shed. I found this neat weatherproof box at HD and installed it on the front of the shed. I am using a power strip on the inside with multiple outlets and store the male plug inside the box. I still need to close up that hole to reduce drafts.
My wife has started decorating! She has already added a star to the front door and had me install a flag pole holder over the door. She has a flag for every season. Eventually I'll have to do a collage of all the flags hanging from the shed.
I continue to look for light when I am inside the shed, to find areas that need to be caulked. There are a number of small gaps where the roof panels meet the top plates on the sides and on the ends. These are areas where the 2x4 ends of the roof panels rest against the 2x6 top plates. I have been caulking from the outside surface to stop potential leaks and drafts.
Up until now, my loft consisted of two pieces of 8' long plywood, one 4' wide and the other 2' wide. This is a picture of what it looked like from sitting in a a chair next to the door. Since this structure will be used as a shed and not as a tiny house, this loft is too deep for easily storing and retrieving items.
So I cut the 8 foot lengths, so they would fit sideways in the shed. The 4' wide piece is now up against the rear wall as shown in the next picture, and the 2' wide piece will be in the middle of the shed, so I can have access to it from either side. (Please disregard the weed whacker hanging on the wall.)
The following picture was taken sitting in a chair under the rear loft and looking up at the roof. It gives an idea of the high ceilings that are possible with the SS design for a tiny house. (Disregard as well that horizontal 2x4. That will be one of the supports for my middle loft. I didn't feel like removing it just for this picture.)
