Shanti has access to drafting software, and more importantly, the skills to use them, since he uses them for work.

Here’s what we have so far. (The rectangular things in the living room are a couch and a chair.)

We’ve looked at lots of designs of tiny homes and even visited several. However, none of them quite hit every criteria of ours (one of them being price). So we started drawing our own designs. We started out making a list of everything we saw that we liked, and everything we want.

Our goal is to build a house that is a wonderful mountain vacation retreat. It should be versatile enough that we can rent it out if we don’t use it, tow it to a new location if we want, and live in it full time eventually, if that is how we choose to retire.

Here are some of our design decisions.

General, exterior

We want a 24′ trailer because there’s enough space for one, and there is enough space in it for the layout we want (more on that later). We want a custom designed trailer where we can use the the metal trailer body as floor joists, so that we can build the floor right on top of it and gain some extra height. The trailer will be 8’6″ wide, since that’s the widest allowed by regulation.

We will use a metal roof. Metal roofs are cheaper, easier to install, and come in pretty colors. Warm metal roofs are also considered “slippery” and can take larger snow loads easier. We will be in an area where a house is required to take 251 psf of snow load. And even though we don’t have to do the same for a licensed RV, it’d be nice not to have the roof fall in.

We like cedar siding, and many tiny houses use it. But we won’t do anything fancy like double lapped.

We’d like many large windows, double pane, for heat retention reasons. I’m not sure yet if we’ll go with vinyl or wood. We will probably go with something affordable, like Jeldwen in standard sizes.

We will have a small lockable enclosure outside for two propane tanks, and the infrastructure to hook them up.

There will be detachable steps to lead up to the front door. We plan to have a small landing there, probably a small covered porch. However, the covered part depends on if it’s possible to make one that can stand the snow load and still be detachable.

General, interior

For walls, we want the interior to be nice, cheap, and light. We also want thin walls, because of limited space. So we will likely not be using Sheetrock. We saw Sharon’s pre-finished plywood and neither of us liked it. So I think we’ll probably go with Brittany’s tongue and groove. The alternative is painted wood or wood panels, perhaps in Cloud White.

The floors will be either hardwood floor or cork. I’m not very fond of the cork look, but it is a very good insulator and is lighter. I personally prefer the look of a dark hardwood much better, so we will probably go with that.

We plan to have electric radiant floor heating, for all areas that we would walk on, and under the bathtub. There will be a thermostat to control it. Probably a Nest Thermostat if there’s internet, since that is what I have in both houses so far. We may also either add a propane heater on the wall, or use a space heater if we need additional heat.

The water heater will be an on demand water heater. I don’t know what energy source yet, but either propane or electric.

To save space on doors, both the bathroom and bedroom doors will be pocket doors. Shanti says they are finicky and expensive, but I’ve always wanted one. (And now I get two!) The closet will probably be a folding or sliding door.

In order to deal with the high snow load, we will probably do something fancy for the roof. I have no idea what this is yet.

The Great Room (aka Living Room and Kitchen)

Our plan includes an open kitchen, since Shanti likes to cook. The living room will have enough space for a couch (probably built in, with storage) and a chair or two. Instead of a dining table, we will have the bar at the kitchen, with a couple of stools. There will be a generous number of electric outlets for kitchen appliances, and for working on a laptop at the kitchen counter. As mentioned earlier, there will be lots of windows.

The kitchen will be a real kitchen. We plan to have a 2 or 3 burner propane stove, an electric or propane or electric oven, and enough space for a full sized (2 foot wide) fridge. We will add in hookups for both propane and electric, in case we change fuel sources later. The sink will be deep, and under a window. I’d like to have a cabinet to the side of the sink be installed with dish drying rack that would drain into the sink.

We will build at least one skylight into the living room, given that we can find an affordable one that has the proper snow load ratings. (I have found one company that claims to have some over 500 psf rating, with a special form.)

The Bathroom

The bathroom will be at one end of the trailer, opposite of the kitchen. I am set on having a bathtub, and we plan to use Jay Schafer’s $20 plan to build a deep 30″ x 30″ tub that will double as a sink. It will have have a surround and also be usable as a shower.

I’m still trying to figure out if we want a compost toilet or a flush toilet. Compost requires it be taken out, and we’d have the toilet against an outside wall, and a door on the outside of the tiny house so that you don’t have to take the bucket through the house. This might be the choice if sewer is too expensive. (It needs to be pulled from across the highway, and that alone would cost $100/ft to drill.) If we get sewer, I think we should do a flush toilet.

There will need a fan in the bathroom for venting. There would also be a plug or two for an electric toothbrush and for a low-wattage hair dryer.

The mirror will probably go on the only remaining wall (door, shower, toilet, wall). I think we should have the same type in our old houses, which sit inside the wall so you can keep some toiletries behind the mirror.

The other storage will be the space behind the hall closet. We will probably build shelving in there accessible from the bathroom to store things like towels.

Bedroom

The bedroom will be on the main floor, because I dislike having to climb to the loft. The bedroom will be through the kitchen, and just wide enough for a full size bed (56″ wide). The bed would be built in. There will be drawers at the end of the bed, for clothing. The bed can also be lifted up to access the more storage space. It leaves us about 18″ at the foot of the bed to walk and to access the drawers.

The bedroom will have two windows, so we can look out and enjoy the view. It will also have blackout blinds so that we can sleep in.

There will be a shelf built into the inside wall by the bed, where the head goes, so that we can use the space in lieu of nightstands. For the outside wall, the shelf will just be part of the windowsill. They will have electric outlets (probably with USB plugs built in) so we can charge our phones, ebook readers, etc. And I will put my glasses there.

Loft

The loft will go over the bedroom and part of the kitchen. It will be additional storage, or guest crashing place, if we ever have guests. I think we should build a skylight in there just to make it nicer, and in case we want to use it permanently as a sleeping space for some reason. But if we need to put a beam up there for snow load, we may lose too much head room to make a real sleeping loft, in which case, we wouldn’t put a skylight in there either. Initially calculations say the beam in the middle might need to be 20″ tall for the snow load, so the loft will probably be storage only, or we will keep the whole thing open and skip the loft. (My concern with this is that the bedroom would feel strangely narrow and tall.)

The ladder will either not be permanent, or will be a folding ladder kept in the back of the closet.