Preliminary floor plan and layout

I'm starting to plan out the interior of my tiny house, prior to applying for a building permit. The exterior dimensions I'm currently looking at are 12' x 32'. My wall studs need to be 6" due to insulation requirements. This leaves me with an inside area of approximately 11' x 31' or 341 sf. The combined living room and dining area in my existing house are about this size, so I can walk through these 2 rooms and accurately visualize the spaces.
(I am also considering building 14' x 32' to get a little extra width; that is the largest I would go so I could still build it by myself. Nothing is finalized at this point.)
I've sketched out a preliminary floor plan below and would like some input from fellow tiny house enthusiasts regarding my thoughts below.

I had originally planned on building on concrete piers. I am now considering subcontracting out a full basement for the house since I understand the price is very reasonable in my area. This would double my inside space and give me lots of storage for out of season items in the basement. It also opens the possibility of having a root cellar for vegetable storage. If I go ahead with this, I will need a trap door in my floor for inside access to the basement. I will need to know where to put the opening prior to framing the floor platform. I am thinking of putting the opening at the side of the house, between the kitchen and the front door. I am thinking of a 4' x 2' opening.

Windows and where to put them? The front door and deck will face north and what little view I have. In good weather, I expect the front door to be open most of the time, letting in light. I was thinking of putting 2 windows on the south wall for access to sunlight. The south wall faces the forest. The kitchen area will need 1 or 2 windows and the bedroom will need one. The bathroom will probably have a small horizontal casement window near the ceiling. Any thoughts on window placement?

I will have a bed on the main floor. This may end up being a retirement house, so at some point people will no longer be able to climb a ladder and will need to be able to sleep on the main floor. I have placed the full sized bed at one end of the house in the corner. I had originally thought of having an interior wall between the bedroom and main living area, but I think the house will feel more spacious with an open floor plan. I can hang heavy shades from tracks on the ceiling, to provide privacy when someone is sleeping.

We need closets, but where do we put them? In the interest of keeping things open, I have drawn the closet in the corner opposite the bed. This would give me space for a good size closet and still be out of the way.

I will have 2 lofts, one over the bedroom area and the other over the kitchen / bathroom area. Both could be used for sleeping if needed. The one over the kitchen may also contain a water tank, if I decide to go with a gravity water system for wash water. The open ceiling over the central living area will be about 13 feet high.

I'm not sure that a Dickinson boat heater would be able to heat a 340 sf area. I may need a small wood stove. If so, I need to position the stove so there is sufficient space from the walls.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, this house is intended to be off grid, using a 12V DC system powered by solar panels and a rain water catchment system. My lot is close to a large fresh water lake, so I can always bring in lake water for washing purposes if there is a shortage in rainfall. When I wire the house for 12V DC, I may also add 120 V AC wiring with blank outlet boxes at the same time. I wouldn't have to connect anything, but if someone wanted to connect to the grid in the future, it would be easy to do. I was thinking of putting in an empty fuse box inside the bedroom closet and routing the 120 V wiring to the box. I plan to have a battery box outside the house on the south wall. This would contain my batteries, charge controller and fuses for the 12 V DC system.

All comments on my layout are welcome.

I purchased my land !

I have spent the past year looking at various properties in NH on which to build my tiny house. I finally found a lot that I liked and was reasonably priced. It is in a small town and 10 minutes away from a fresh water lake. Town residents have lake access. I want to thank tiny house dweller Victoria Whitcher for pointing me in the right area to look for land.

My lot is a wooded 2.3 acres. The previous owner cleared an area for a house site and put in a dirt driveway, with a culvert installed at the street. The previous owner also had performed a percolation test and had a septic plan designed. These improvements will save me a lot of money and allow me to get started sooner. My first job is getting the septic design updated, since it was originally done 10 years ago. A septic permit is required by the state of NH for all new building.

This is going to be a long term project, most likely taking the next 5 years to complete, since I will be doing most of the work by myself (except for septic system). Since this will be a permanent home, I am thinking of building a 12' x 32' tiny house.  My current plan is: 2014 - install septic system and concrete pier foundation, 2015 - frame and enclose tiny house, 2016 - install 12 Volt electrical, plumbing, and insulation, 2017 - finish interior walls, 2018 - build exterior screened deck.

Looking up driveway

Site of future tiny house. Top of driveway is to the left of this picture.

Minim House

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:

Northeast tiny house meet up

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.

Barn shed tiny house

This ties into my last post about a tiny house disguised as a shed.

The door is disguised as a barn door and there are windows on only 2 sides. You can see additional pictures of this tiny house at this link.

Floor plan for tiny house disguised as a shed

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.

Nemo pictures and thoughts on a 'stealth' tiny house

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.

What do people think?