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Interior size is 7X12.
84 sq ft on main floor and 84 sq ft in loft - 168 total sq ft.
Kitchen/dining/home office is 8X7
Bath 7X4
Bedroom is 7X12
Main Floor. I've designed the house to be able to function off-grid but that doesn't mean it has to. The wood burning oven provides heat and cooking. The 2 burner cook-top is propane. The icebox is counter top height and is an old fashioned, actual icebox. The kitchen sink and the shower water are both heated by a portable propane heater in summer and by the wood burning oven in winter. The toilet is a self contained composting toilet - I've checked them out, they aren't gross and they don't stink, you can't tell they aren't a regualr toilet. The sinks and showr drain into a greywater area outside. The door between the bathroom and the main room is an accordian door. All over - open shelving so you have storage, but it still feels "open". The dining table is also a home office area.
Photos behind the cut to give you an idea...
Think along this for the dining table/home office. But a deeper and shorter table.
Bathroom sink
This is what an accordian door is like for the bathroom door. You could do a curtain - it would be cheaper. *shrug*
This is an icebox. Like back-in-the-day
Bed alcove - except not so awesome of a view and open underneath for storage to slide under. Oh...and add bookshelves.
Open shelving like this in Kitchen.
Main floor if you need more dining space if you have guests over. If the table, icebox, and burners are on wheels - they can be moved out of the way. Now, OF COURSE I would never recommend moving them in front of the doorway like I have shown. You can move them where you want. I'm just saying you could do something like this on ocassion.
And here is the loft bedroom. 7X12. Room for a queen size bed with rolling storage underneath and hanging and drawer space for your clothes on the opposite wall. There is a window seat on the south wall and you could have a small coffee table, but you would need to move it to opena nd close the trap door to go down to the main floor. Lots of book shelves lining the upper walls and windows on all sides except North. The room would be heated from the chimney.
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Building notes -
Strawbale and cob are both time consuming and hard labor, but cheap and well-insulated. Deciding to go another route instead. Post and beam plus straw packed wood pallets, 3 layers deep. That would go up really fast and have great insulation. Plus, the door, windows and corners would be easy compared to strawbale. Then cover it all with chicken wire stapled right onto the wood and cover the whole thing with a few inches of portland cemete (breathable). Portland, as opposed to cob, can be mixed in large batches in a mixer - saving soooo much time and effort. Spread it on like stucco. Still fairly cheap to do. The posts we can get cheap from up north, the portland we can order, the pallets and straw we can get for free. Foundation and roof are small so that limits the expence. What we put inside and how we finish it off is what will add to the costs. Do you have a finished wood floor in the loft or painted particle board? Discounted windows by using custom windows that people returned or didn't pick up - or make your own?
Talked this over with Tracy and should be able to build the structure for $3000 to $5000.
Comments
I love sitting side by side to eat rather than across. Tracy holds my hand when we do that. Plus, I prefer to not be facing people I'm talking to. I should say, people seem to prefer that I not sit facing them and it makes it more relaxing for all of us.
People say interesting things, my interest sharpens and I pay closer attention and ask questions and they start to clam up and fidget and get uncomfortable. And then I start to think "WTF is thier problem" and that shows right up on my face. If I ask the same questions while not looking at them they don't get so nervous or uncomfortable.
Keep me updated on your build.
So....I made the bathroom as big as I could and put a full size Japanese soaking tub in it.
The kitchen is small, but with open shelves it will feel bigger and I have 4 feet wide of open space.
The dining area is small, but it only needs to accomodate 2 people most of the time. But it was important that it could accomodate up to 6 people sometimes. You have to have a home office area even if you don't office out of your home. You have to have a place for your documents, your computer, mail, a place to pay bills, work on stuff. People used to do that at thier kitchen table, so I decided to go back to that.
You have to have an area to sit around, lounge, watch tv, play games, etc. In most homes that is the living room. But any kind of a living room put into a tiny home will have problems because it will be too small. So fuck it - no main floor living room. BUT! If you make the roof on the loft 5ft at the side and 7ft at the center and you make it so you can use the entire footprint - you can solve that problem. The bedroom can also be used for a living room. You can lounge on the bed or in the window seat. There is room for a rolling coffee table. You could mount a tv on one wall of the bed alcove or you could have it on the rolling coffee table. Put a curtain in front of the bed alcove and to enclose the hanging clothes and built-in shelves and it is tidy enough to have company over without it being awkward that you are in someone's bedroom. a few floor pillows combined with the window seat and you are set!
Winter - That's why the walls are 2 ft thick. Straw insulation with natural stucco on the outside has a MUCH better R rating than conventional built homes. Insulation plus mass.
In a test - a "regular" home, a cob, and a strawbale home of the same size were left unheated or cooled for 1 year. Daily temps were taken.
The "regular" home temps came close to matching outdoor temps except in summer when the home was much hotter than the outdoor temp.
Both the stawbale and the cob homes maintained fairly moderate temps, not going below freezing and not going above 70F in the summer. It's the combination of insulation and mass that does the trick. (plus understanding basic passive solar principles)
G