Building for Cold Winters

[love2teach7]

Hi everybody,

I'm new here and I began moving towards a more sustainable, self sufficient lifestyle after I watched my debt grow and grow as a University student. My plan is to buy my own land, hopefully a few acres in the countryside and slowly build my own home. I want to be able to go off grid and will heat my home with a wood stove.
I am interested in a plan that I saw in the book "Tiny Homes Simple Shelter" by Lloyd Kahn. It sites the plans from the countryplans.com website 14' x 24' cottage with options for a sunroom and extra bedroom, it also has a sleeping loft. My question is that before I go through with purchasing the plans, I want to know a few things regarding the differences of living in Canada with our cold, snowy winters. I want the south side of my cabin to be entirely windows, and a few other windows on the East and West sides such as over the kitchen sink, in the bathroom and over the reading nook near the front porch. I want to avoid having windows on the north because I heard that this is a natural way to keep your home cool in the summer and warm in the winter. This is one of the changes I want to make to the plans available. I also want to know if anyone recommends changing the width of the framing or if any other changes should be made to the plans because of the cold climate I am building in. Any advice is welcomed. Thank you very much.

Dawn