I have joked to H that we could buy his & hers tiny homes and park them side by side.
In reality there is zero chance that I would ever want a tiny home even though I admire their clever design and think they’re usually adorable. I need my quiet alone time/space, H likes television far more than I do, and the whole tiny home bathroom thing is just a non-starter for me. Plus I’m already tired of stairs and am healthy and fit and only 42…I don’t plan to buy or rent any more homes with stairs let alone a lofted bedroom with the bathroom downstairs when I’m older and things start to hurt. We do want to downsize once S is established in college (maybe in 2019 sometime) but it will probably be to a smaller one-story house at first. We have two biggish dogs that exceed the weight limits for all the apartments in our current Houston suburb, and we want to stay in our area for the next 5-10 years if possible. We’d had plans to buy a house inside the 610 loop near downtown Houston but hurricane Harvey changed our mind about that; now we’d prefer to stay in our suburb that was high and dry and also much easier to evacuate if needed. Eventually when the big dogs are no longer with us we’ll go for an apartment.
For what it’s worth, I recently had conceptual plans drawn for a very, very, small (but not tiny) house. My requirements were:
One level, basic construction, preferably a perfect rectangle.
Three legal bedrooms, minimum 70 sf each, with windows and closets.
One bathroom with standard tub and shower.
Functional kitchen.
Living room plus dedicated dining area with room for table and chairs.
It came in at 600 square feet and I think it’s reasonably functional. The kitchen is certainly more generous than my kids’ in Boston and NYC. (Too be clear, more generous than my kids’ kitchens, not my kids themselves. Haha)
@sherpa, are you going to build your 600 sq ft home with these plans? If not, why get the plans? D’s bedroom is just a tad larger than 70’ and she finds it very small, even with a single bed.
Just FYI: I have used a composting toilet. A good friend has one in her barn in rural Maine. It’s not like a cat’s litter box. You don’t go in there to remove the solid waste. After you poop, you use some handle on the toilet to stir things up – and no, you never see it; it’s all covered up – so the poop gets buried by the “litter” in the toilet. It dissolves over time, and the “litter” absorbs the odors. You do have to empty the whole thing out from time to time but that’s only because the “litter” needs to be refreshed with new stuff so it continues to break down the poop and continues to absorb odors.
I must admit it freaked my kids out when we stayed in the barn, and they refused to poop in it!
Tiny homes come in all kinds. It’s more self sustainable since its needs are also tiny and can be fully off grid. It can also be connected to municipal utilities, Design aspect fascinates me. No wasted space. Unused space in a big house bothers me a lot. 5 places to eat a meal? I wouldn’t know how to function in a house like that. Do you move after each spoonful to utilize all possibilities? I’ve lived in a houseboat that’s not any larger than a tiny house. Small isn’t what I remember. It was mostly fun and my front porch in the lake was great. In a way you owned the lake since you are not in the house very much. You can be in nature while inside a tiny house. Not so much in a big house. You are in and you shut out outside.
@Iglooo my D moved from a 2 bedroom apartment to a studio with no laundry facilities. She loves her studio. She has too many clothes which she needs to pare down but for her this studio is perfect.
She found a laundry service, she drops it off and when she picks it up, it’s washed and folded. She’s finding less space is liberating.
She does have an alcove where her bed fits so it’s not in the open. It’s great for her in this time of her life to be near walkable places and I really get what you are saying.
To be free of “stuff” and be near where you want to be.
That’s not necessarily true. We had a pretty spacious lake house, and we spent a LOT of time on our big deck.
To each his own. I like having a lot of space. I would be completely out of sorts in a tiny house. I would feel very closed in, and being unable to find my own space apart from DH or other family members would be torture, even as I love them very much.
@HImom - We designed it as a possible solution for a young couple with two children who are living in an RV, and who currently have family renting a house from us on a lot that will accommodate another dwelling unit, but with the square footage limited to 40% of the size of the primary home, so, in this case, maximum 600 sf.
They would like us to build this house and I’m seriously considering it for two distinct reasons, 1) to help them stabilize their lives, and 2) as a housing experiment (I’ve built around 100 homes and townhouses but nothing under about 1500 sf).
And I agree that 70 sf is very small. I’m a little uncomfortable about not having at least one reasonably sized bedroom.
The State Sanitary Code in my state requires bedrooms be at least 50 sq ft per occupant, with a minimum of 70 sq ft.
In addition, the dwelling unit must be at least 150 sq ft in size plus an extra 100 sq ft per person. And all ceilings must by at least 7’ high.
So this building as spec’d would not be legally habitable in my state for 4 people. Many tiny homes would not be legal if they were permanently sited. If temporary in nature, the local Board of Health has control over what is legal or whether temporary housing is allowed at all.
Every locale has their own regulations, it’s something you need to look into before getting a tiny house.
In our state, there are accessory dwelling units, ADU that can be built with requirements I haven’t explored. 70 feet sounds really tiny for a bedroom for 2 people.
Tiny houses are a fad. They are the Smart Cars of the real estate world. And I predict they will follow a similar trajectory as the Smart Cars. They will be thought of as absurdly small by most people but will be embraced at first by a small subset of True Believers. As time goes by the novelty wears off and reality sets in, and their popularity, which was never big, will dwindle down to microscopic levels - far less than one tenth of one percent of the total market.
Interesting. We designed this to meet our local code, which seems similar to yours, except for the 50 sf per occupant bedroom requirement, which might exist here too and I may have missed.
Regardless of the code, I can’t in good conscience build a 70 sf bedroom for a couple. So it’s back to the drawing board.
We had a 10 x10 bedroom in our previously mentioned college apartment. Remember that the closet takes part of that footage. It held a double bed jammed up against one wall, jammed up against a tiny nightstand, jammed up against a 3’ closet. Yes, 3’. At the foot of the bed there was room for a small dresser. 10x10 is tiny. 7x10 might work for a kid, like a ship cabin but not for two.
My D has a 10x10 bedroom with a single bed, desk and dresser. It also has a small closet. If you put in a full size bed, likely would have to remove the desk.
S has a 120 sq ft bedroom with a full size bed and closet. It feels much larger than D’s bedroom.
We have a 120 sq ft bedroom with plus built in dresser and walk-in closet. One reason we keep our bed a full-size bed (rather than a larger bed) is we don’t want to give up any square footage from our bedroom. We only have room for a dresser and file cabinet.
I do admire what you are trying to do for this family, and it’s an interesting puzzle. The irony is that to make it really work would be very expensive because everything would have to be built in and custom.