Designing, Designing, Designing.

I have literally been going at this as hard as I can for the past two weeks. Finally getting everything together. I ordered two books from Amazon, Black and Decker for Plumbing and Black and Decker for Wiring. I have my budget completely made up and lists of everything that I need to get. I have my designs for the outside of the house, but am still unsure of the floor plan inside. I have been looking at Houzz to get ideas. In this small of a space, the inside of the house has to "flow" as much as it can to get maximum efficiency. I got myself a graph notebook and have just been playing around with the floor plan, and the layout of the kitchen, great room, and the bathroom. 

After much debate, I have decided to build a brick shower stall, and the door to the bathroom will be a barn door. This way, I can make the shower longer and narrower (just how I want it!) and I will not have to worry about having enough room for the door to swing open. Initally, we did think about building a built in sitting area in the great room, but have since decided that we wanted to go with a wooden futon instead. I love how the built ins look, and you can design them to have a trunk underneath the seat for extra storage but all of them look so rigid to sit on. I go to school online, and the couch is where I attend class and do homework, so the couch has to be super comfy. And, it can be turned into a bed if we have guests.

However, we have decided to have a built in table and benches that swing down when not in use. That way, it can be a nice dining room table for meals, and then it will neatly get out of the way during the day. This will enable us to have a small kitchen with a dining area, but not sacrifice space in the rest of the house. 

Aside from not having a built in sofa, I think that a lot of the house will be built ins. Built in tables, and shelves, and cabinets. I like that they look good but also allow for better use of the small space. The house will also feature 3 solar panels (not on the house, probably on the ground with wheels, so we can always wheel them around to get the best sun shine.) and a small wind generator, along with a composting toilet, a compact refrigerator, a washer and dryer combo, a counter top oven and a marine style cooktop. We chose the counter top oven and the marine style cook top over a traditional stove/oven combination because the counter top oven uses half of the energy that a traditional one does.

Over the next week I will be finalizing the designs and the floor plan. Building a tiny house does not have to cost $30k if you know where to look for the materials. 

Regards,

Mollie

Check out my website, http://www.teenytinyhome.org/