About
The true value of a home should be measured by the happiness and security it brings rather than by its size and cost.
Welcome to Tiny House Design – it’s about tiny houses and living light. We hope more people will catch onto this new/old way of thinking, see how much sense it makes and begin to adopt some if not all of the ideas.
In a nutshell, tiny houses give you back freedom in the form of time, money, and peace of mind. Why? How? Simply because they cost less to own, clean, heat, cool, etc. The less money you spend on your home the less you have to earn or the more you keep in the bank. The less time you spend cleaning and maintaining your house the more time you have to for the things you like to do.
It is a hard transition for more people to downsize though. Our ego’s get tied up in our homes, cars, and possessions. In fact the idea of voluntary poverty (so to speak) is so foreign to most American’s that it’s no wonder most of us live and work most of our lives to have more stuff. We’re just incredibly focused on obtaining and having more stuff it’s hard to break free.
I spend my time doing the exact same thing: drawing very small livable house plans and wondering if I will ever get to see some of them built! I believe in what you are writing and doing. Thanks for posting your ideas!
Thanks. Yeah it’s fun to dream and visualize these tiny house… and even better to blog about it. Nice to be able to share and so many people post great feedback and ideas.
These little homes are great. They would be awesome if zone commercial residential and were built to code where I live. I think you could make flower shops trinket stores and other ticket vendor type booth storefronts.
My boyfriend and I currently live in Victoria BC and are hoping that by next year we will have some property with a tiny home on it. We would be open to letting one other, maybe two, put their tiny homes on the land as well to help us cover the land cost….or maybe we will put a second home there to rent out like an air BnB
If you ever do get land i am currently working on a few different tiny homes all the way in texas. I would love to bring them to canada if you would still be interested in acccesory dwelling units on your land.
Stephanie Reed, I would be interested in seeing some of your designs. I currently build tiny houses for someone and am looking to break away and start a company myself along with a couple of my co-workers. We have been featured on tiny house hunters and tiny house nation. We feel out boss is not as invested in this as we are. Please contact me via email [email protected] I would be interested in seeing your designs and if possible be willing to build.
This is a very cool site. I have 5 acres of land out in the desert and have been trying to design a small house/cabin I can build cheaply to put out there.
There are other reasons to build tiny houses other than living light and it’s hard to find many plans or ideas for them.
Keep it up, it’s a great site.
I have been obsessively researching tiny homes for the past six months of so. I love finding new sites, looking forward to exploring your site more.
Marvelous small footprint homebuilding website! These tiny homes are an escape pod from the corporate gulag. If your soul is dying in your cubicle, then maybe you should think small and create your way to real freedom.
Cool houses, totally cool concept…I’m wondering if it is possible to contact Potluck Community in North Carolina?? Do they do any open houses, tours, talks…anything?? They are not listed on the ic.org website (Intentional Communities…COMMUNITIES Magazine). I’d really like to see what they’ve accomplished and talk with them since I live only about 45 minutes away. Thanks. mike
Hi Mike,
I just discovered your comment. Don’t know if you’re still interested, but as a resident of Potluck Farm, I’m willing to fill you in on all the details. If you are, let me know, and since you’re fairly close we could arrange a visit.
Mike Moore
Great website. I stumbled on this today and can’t stop reading. I’m interested in building a few less than 120 sq ft “houses” on my property in the Sierra foothills in No. California. Are there any of your building designs up in the Sacramento, Chico, Nevada City vicinity that folks might be willing to allow me to see?
Thanks for the great designs.
Thanks Jana,
None of mine. One fellow is building one (8×16 solar house) down near Modesto.
Jay Shafer lives over in Sonoma County and has a regular open house just about every month. Jay’s houses (Tumbleweed Tiny House Company) is the most well known homes and very very nice. You’ll also Tortoiseshell Homes and Little house on a Trailer over in Sonoma County. So it might be worth a drive over to their neck of the woods to get a close-up look.
http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/
http://tortoiseshellhome.com/
http://littlehouseonthetrailer.com/
-Michael
Fantastic blog, many amusing details. I think 6 of days ago, I have viewed a similar post.
For anyone interested in purchasing sketch ideas for buildings to add to their design portfolio and develop further themselves
They can find details on the following website.
http://home.freeuk.com/iankwhittaker/architect/
Ian K Whittaker.
I dream of this. How liberating. Love it. Look how much time and money we spend maintaining our yards, homes, and then have barely and time and money to do much of anything after we finish work.
Absolutely… why do we farm grass? I mean we can’t even eat it. LOL
I can see how tiny houses would work great for myself.I have always thought we have house that are to big with led lighting very easy to go off grid and still have all conveniences. I live out side most of the time. By spring time hope to have one built.Once I get started I will start posting on build. I have 25 plus year in remodels and building homes A project that I am looking forward to doing Very nice site
what program are you using to do your floorplans and designs? for a total novice what would you recommend? a free progrm would be great 🙂
I’ve been using Omnigraffle – which is actually kind of like visio for Mac. You can also use sketchup by drawing in #D and then viewing the drawing from the top in parallel view.
Hello, tiny house folks! I see that other people are also interested in the idea that I’ve been mulling: finding or forming a “tiny house village” in Northern California. Does anyone know of an individual, or group, that is moving forward with this idea?
I have been interested in tiny houses for a while. Saw the Shackelton cabin on the website and thought that I would share the Sheldon cabin. http://alaskaphotographics.blogspot.com/2008/05/don-sheldon-mountain-house-details.html
Love it! Thanks for this awesome resource – love all the inspiration!
Our little family downsized to a 178 square foot vintage Airstream. We absolutely LOVE our small intentional space! Now we ironically have more, “space” for what truly matters!
Cheers!
-NICK
Hi Michael,
I live in County of/City of Sacramento and I’m trying to find out what code enforcement might apply to a tiny house on wheels. 24 ft trailer parked in a SFR side yard viewable to the street or even street parking. Do you have the 411 on this? =)
Hey Michael,
Thanks for all the great information! I noticed none of your designs have a flat roof. Are there any downsides to this type of roof?
Flat roofs are trickier over time, but if done right can last many years.
I do have some shed roof designs in the works, but no flat roofs.
Michael, do you have any experience with approvals/roadblocks in Mendocino county? I started seeing the names of your designs and realized you were in the same neck of the woods as my ranch.
I was born in Ukiah, lived there for a time, and want to move back – but currently near Sacramento. Sorry… I don’t have any fresh info on getting tiny houses approved in Mendocino County.
Sherwood Ranch road model. Max length 20′ so to be shure it can navigate logging road switch backs and and be able turn around on old abandoned log decks. Natural light roof, bunks for six on one side. 2′ wide bench table running the length of trailer. Room beneath bench for seating and sealable storage containers. Storable grid of string lines above bench table, for easy ergonomic reach. And of course potable water storage. Absolutely no mirorrs. And a roll out conopy that is camo, and IR resistant for low observability. O
Almost forgot, axels need to articulate for traversal over water bars on the abanded logging roads .
Yes, I have lived in mendo, comptche, Albion, Navarro, orrsprings, little river, Caspar, Manchester, elk, point arena, anchor bay, but Never in Fort Bragg.
Love that you’ve named all your plans after the tiny towns and villages on the Mendo Coast. I’ve spent a lot of time there and coincidentally found this site while planning my own tiny home in Canada. How cool. Thanks for the good work!!!
So now my phone decided to let me see where to leave a comment! LOL! I sent an email but feel free to post it to the comments! Thanks!
We built our own tiny house it’s 12×32! And at that time we were a family of 6 but now we are a family of 8! So we have had to make more modifications! But we love our Tiny House!!
WOW! Have you considered entering it in the Tiny House of the Year Competition? http://www.tinyhouseoftheyear.com
Hi. Could I ask if you could please make a plan for a tiny house that has 3 bedrooms? My kids need separate spaces. Thanks!
I do plan to draw more larger tiny homes in 2017 – for families.
wonderful to hear. You wouldn’t be able to have a plan ready for say end of February by any chance lol. Am needing something fairly quickly as I plan to sell my house soon.
Hi Michael,
I’m after a Chapel on wheels plan can you suggest any?
Eric Hansen
Australia
I’ve not designed a chapel myself. I’ve seen a few online over the years, but they all seem based on a gable roofed house. I think I’d start there and add on as you like.
Hello, I love your designs. I’m looking at the little river 24 design. Could you please tell me if there’s room in the design to house the furnace and other utilities? Where is that located in the design. And does the design come with basic instructions for the plumbing, electrical or anything? Thank you and great job on your designs!
Michael,
Your plans are great! I am guessing that since you don’t mention electric or plumbing they are not included in the plans, am I correct or did I overlook it?
That’s correct, plumbing and electrical are not included.
I’m looking for a way to find those looking to have a tiny house built. Is there a list? I’m a builder,have built one. Thanks chuck
I’ve not seen a list. Do you have a website and sample homes you’ve built? I’m always looking to help builders promote their work.
How is it work? I do not want to sound like I haven’t heard or seen any of these tiny homes, but the truth I never actually seen nor lived in one, and I ‘ve always imagine what its like to live in one them Tiny homes. I just want to know is the plans I’ve seen are true, that you can build them when or even IF I buy one, is that the actual price for one? Thanks!!!
I’m not sure I understand the questions. My plans are inexpensive. To build a tiny house typically costs between $10,000 and $50,000 USD. Some have done it for much less, for example Jay Shafer just finished one for $5,000.
Thanks Michael for the great content and design videos.
We’re looking to do some rough drawings in Sketchup and hope that we can send these off to a tiny house designer/architect to clean things up, make sure everything is structurally sound, and talk through design elements and things that may/may not work etc. Do you know of anyone that we can work with in this way?
Mike
I’m looking into building a full size caboose or larger. I have the land and a large concrete pad. do you know of any plans available to do this. any suggestions would be great
Sorry, I’ve seen no plans for caboose homes.
Hello Michael,
I would love to see a design with two detachable 12′ x 8’6″ sections. For a total length not including trailer of 24′. The rear section could be detached and parked next to and secured to the front section. This would make for a “double wide” Tiny House 12′ x 17′. I suppose you could do more than 12′ length (maybe 15′ for a total length of 30′ not including trailer).