Tiny Houses: The Perfect Tiny House, With Tiny House Example Plans

50 Pages·2014·1.74 MB·English

T H L
INY OUSE IVING
B T P T H
UILD HE ERFECT INY OUSE
With Example Plans

Christopher Dillashaw
Copyright 2014 - All Rights Reserved – Christopher Dillashaw
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system
without express written, dated and signed permission from the author.
Table of Contents
Introduction: what is a tiny house?
1. Why would anyone want to live in a tiny house?
2. Thing to consider before going tiny
3. Building your tiny house
4. Designing a tiny house for tiny living
5. Common tiny house problems
Tiny House Plans
House Plan A - A Nest in the Loft
Tiny house plan B – The All-in-One
Tiny house plan C – Zig Zag
Tiny House Plane D – The Golf Club
Tiny House Plan E – The Cross
Tiny House Plan E – The Cross
Conclusion
Free Chapter
Shipping Container Homes for Beginners
Introduction:
Chapter 1: The History
I : ?
NTRODUCTION WHAT IS A TINY HOUSE
Small house, tiny house, minuscule house; whatever size adjective you want to
use there is a growing fascination in the world with fun size housing. Gone are
the days where economic living space was the source of shame and
embarrassment, instead it is the height of conscientious living, style, and
character. The fascination with monster living space, space far surpassing the
needs of shrinking families, is waning, paying to heat and maintain several spare
rooms that are used for nothing but storage is losing favor. Spending money on
too-much space is as close as you can come to spending your money on nothing
and the environment isn’t thanking us, and neither are those facing the brunt of a
housing crisis in big Western cities. So what is a tiny house?
A tiny house is simply a building between 100 – 400 square feet that was
purpose-built to be lived in like a home. There is not a steadfast rule for the size
and they can come in any form: shipping container, shed-like wooden structure,
demountable building, or small tin shack. Some people call it a movement, and
there is certainly a move and a trend towards these smaller living spaces,
however this movement is primarily a disconnected cultural one. Nevertheless,
there is a growing online community that is interested in tiny housing and they
are more than happy to provide support and advice to newcomers. People are
drawn to the ability to live minimally, to save lots of money, and to have
complete control over their living space and how it is run.
There is a feeling though, that a tiny house might be more effort than it is worth,
perhaps a false economy, and that it might not be practical or a long term living
space. There’s no guarantee that you won’t face these issues, but there are many
reasonably wealthy and sane people living comfortably in them, and even if you
do not opt to go for a more extreme off-the-grid style house there is still a lot to
learn from the philosophy of the tiny house. You can save a lot of money on a
smaller home, not a tiny one, and use the ideas here to make that practical. In
this book you will be taken through this exciting world of tiny houses; firstly the
advantages will be discussed in depth, and then we will turn to getting a tiny
house of your own and solutions for living with restricted space without any
restrictions on living.
1. W
HY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO LIVE IN
?
A TINY HOUSE
Living in a smaller space isn’t new. There have always been people that lived in
small homes, whether that was in small apartment space in cities, those that
preferred to live in trailers, or retirees looking to downsize. Often those choices
came out of a financial necessity; with tiny houses there is an intentional
decision to live in a small space that will suit all of your needs for a long time to
come. With only 300 or so foot to play with often a tiny home will have
everything you need in just one room.
Traditionally smaller houses that put nearly everything in one room, the
infamous studio apartment, have been made cynically. It is a small space an
investor saw could be turned into a living space for a reasonably high rent. The
conversion is done cheaply and what was a lounge room and hallway is now a
bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and lounge. Rather than having storage space that
is built cleverly into walls, a bed that works well as a couch during the day, and
a dining table that folds out; instead the creators would throw typical, and cheap,
furniture into a small space and tell tenants to grin and bear it because they were
getting slightly better rent than average for the area.
The problem with these smaller spaces is not that they are small, but they are
poorly designed: both structurally and in terms of decoration. The space is used
only in a horizontal way when there are many ways to give yourself more
breathing space if you simply used the walls to store and hold things. No thought
is given to using furniture to create mini-compartments in the space, and lighting
is limited to a dingy light bulb. Compromises must be made in a tiny house, for
example a huge wardrobe full of coats is going to be difficult to accommodate
especially when some under bed storage and a simple coat hook could
accommodate nearly all of your clothing with almost no space used.
So this comes to one of the biggest reasons that tiny houses are becoming
popular with average people and not just Spartan hermits. Advances in
technology and innovations in design mean that using a smaller space is now
much easier. Just consider something such as the humble television, where it
used to require an entire room of its own to reasonably fit in an area; it can now
be tastefully fitted directly on to the wall. There has also been a lot of work in
making smaller spaces, especially in densely populated cities like Tokyo, so that
now you can easily find plans for entire kitchen units that can be folded away
when you’re not using them. We have also gotten much better at making
kitchens and bathrooms that can work in small spaces without needing an
outhouse.
Lastly, fashions and tastes have changed over the last 20 years, influenced
heavily by Scandinavian countries, to start having a minimalist look. People are
actively choosing to have a cleaner and less cluttered look around them. Bulky
wooden cabinets and four-posters are seen as gauche and the naturally smaller
furniture is taking its place. Once you reduce clutter and excess furniture you
naturally require less space.
Just because there is the option for a small house doesn’t mean people are
necessarily going to want smaller space, or compromise when they don’t need it.
Why have fold-out corners of office space when you can just have an office in
its own room? Lower cost might seem like an obvious reason, but the cheap cost
should not be overstated initially. Compared to building a two-bedroom house
yourself building a tiny house is going to be much cheaper, but you do still have
to pay to build the tiny house and unless you are going to do every element
yourself it is certainly not going to be cheap.
In fact certain elements of the designs of a tiny house are going to be slightly
more than your standard big empty rooms that you fill up with furniture. It is
difficult to later rebuild a small space to fit your new needs, so a tiny house
needs to have space for a sofa bed built into it, and you need to consider how
shelving will fit in. In addition, you might struggle to build a tiny house in some
locations because it’s not fitting in with the image the area is cultivating.
Yet there is still ample money to be saved. As much as you may lose flexibility
in terms of re-shaping your home later, it does not cost that much to build such a
small building and the more hands on you are, the more you can save. Estimates
say that if you build the home yourself it can cost as little as $23,000. It might
not be entirely realistic to do it all yourself and that cost is not taking into
account everything you might want to do to the property and the huge variation
in the cost of land, but any way you look at it, that is far less than the $200,000
plus you might pay for another home and it will come with much less interest.
The big savings you can count on though are in the maintenance of your home.
When you heat, or cool, a tiny house you are effectively heating or cooling just
one room. You also only need to insulate one room and you don’t need to clean
twenty sets of windows, curtains, carpets, or whatever upholstery you decide to
have. It’s also far simpler to heat up that space by just using an appliance like an
oven for a while. Certain land taxes may also be reduced because of the
relatively low-value of the house. One of the most exciting things about the
house is the new options you have for giving energy and heat to your home.
For some people less space actually equals more freedom. A tiny house can be
built and shipped elsewhere with relative ease and for some people the biggest
draw is the ability to live off-the-grid. Living off-the-grid means you are not
supplied electricity, water or gas from a main source and so you are in complete
control of how your lifestyle is catered. Since the house is so small and you are
designing it, you can improve the energy efficiency enough that solar power and
a small generator could be enough power to see you through the year. Pick the
correct location and use the power of the sun in other ways and you may find
you are only rarely turning to the heater. You can also equip your home with
water storage devices that will again use the sun to power them.
Getting water is often more expensive than getting a small amount of power, as
it getting rid of your waste. It is entirely doable and you won’t have to wander
out twice daily with a pail to wind-up well, but you may end up spending as
much as $15,000 to have a workable water storage system. In many part of the
world getting a yearly supply of water would work out much cheaper than this
for many years. There are, however, many trailer parks or even tiny house
settlements that will help you with this problem. You can build relatively
cheaply on this land, you’ll have the support of your neighbors and you can use
their water supplies relatively cheaply.
Whether you have concerns about the environment or you wish to be less reliant
on big society, there is a lot of appeal to being entirely self-sufficient. You will
be in a position to do as please without any repercussions and you can live
ethically and encourage others to do the same. There are some more practical
gains as well, if you’ve ever had to deal with an energy company and things
weren’t 100% smooth then you know why being in control yourself would be a
relief for many people. You might also find with your own land and being off-
the-grid that you would choose to become even more self-sufficient, growing
your own food and turning to greener transport. Of course, you can also have a
tiny house that runs and works cheaply while being very much on-the-grid. It is
not a movement purely for environmental radicals and you can move away from
an over-the-top consumerist lifestyle while still relying on the grid for many of
your daily needs.