I shared our first design with you, which focused on no-compromises, including a bedroom on the first floor. Well, we rethought it and tried to figure out what is truly important to us and have done a redesign.

Please see the renders. I will try to post some of our design decisions:

Some questions you might have:

You don’t have a shower! Or a water heater.

Our tub is a soaking tub, so 32″ deep. In order to go for the “hot tub” effect, we decided to put windows by the tub. We will put in a “Roman tub” faucet, with a hand sprayer, but it would be a slightly different showering experience. We feel it is worth it for a vacation cabin, but if we were trying to do this for a full time living situation (where we work, and aren’t retired), it would be too much work.

For full time living, we’d switch it out for a 40″ shower stall, which are widely available and very comfortable.

We plan to put in an on-demand propane water heater to support the hot water we need. So it won’t be huge.

You don’t have a toilet.

We do. It’s that oddly rendered shape next to the tub.

You don’t have a closet.

We will have a closet, in the bathroom, next to the toilet. In addition, we will put in storage beside the bed. There is shoe storage on the little bench to the right of the entry door. And we plan to build a couch that will have storage underneath. The couch in the render is actually the one we already have in our current (not-tiny) house.

You don’t have a table or desk.

Our plan is to congregate around the kitchen/bar peninsular. The counter overhangs by 12″ on two sides to accommodate bar stools. At least 3 stools, if not 4. In addition, we will probably have some sort of coffee table in the living room, and I saw a really cool convertible coffee/dining table the other day that we hope to make.

You don’t have a kitchen faucet or range.

They’re not rendered. Specifically, we will have propane stove top, with an electric microwave oven on the counter top.

You got rid of the full size fridge.

We found a 6.3 cu ft under counter fridge. It was worth it for the extra space for the rest of the house and it does not cost anything more.

There is no heating!

We plan on using radiant floor heating. It would cost under 3 Amps.

EDIT: I was told that this would not work, especially in a colder area. So I’m in the middle of doing research on what kind of heating we would like to do.

There are too many windows.

You may be right, and that is a concern we have as well. But we like light so we put in the extra windows. Realistically, the round windows will depend on the price we can get, and what else is available on Craigslist and at salvage stores.

What software did you use to draw this?

SolidWorks. But that’s expensive, and requires training, so unless you already have access to it, I recommend using SketchUp.