lipadier's house designs

[lipadier]

Update of the same house as above, but now with the classic DIY looks and real world windows layout. And I can't get away from my favourite wood texture. 

[considerations]

"I included the consideration of a big bookshelf for considerations... and my own books. Grin"

Now you're smokin!     

I'd love to have a whole library, but I don't allow myself to think that far ahead.   

[soomb]

Despite the issues pointed out with the bolt-together, I still like it and look forward to NMShooter hopefully getting a hold of more photos of the one built in his community in NM.  I can't help myself, so I may just have to buy the plans and try it out someday.  Based on the posts I will know to be very precise when the time comes and do what my dad calls "view".. that is what he tells mom anytime he is caught just standing there during a project.  "view" does work and I have seen it keep the "oh sh!t" moments to a minimum.  Thanks for all the input on the bolt-together.

[lipadier]

Another one: This tiny 1-person-home has only the same footprint as a single car parking space, that's around 7.5 x 15, the whole house has only 225 sq ft. As usual in my designs, storage space comes in form of drawers underneath most of the stair treads.

Ground floor with entrance, kitchen and dining room


Lower floor with bathroom and bedroom


South and east facades


North and west facades


Bathroom and bedroom downstairs


Dining room


Kitchen

[lipadier]

Update: The same tiny house layout as above, but I made some changes to it:

The entrance door is now on the west side. The lower half of the house (concrete) and the earth moving stuff could/should be done by professionals, but after that the upper part and the monopitch roof could be build up by the owner himself.

Mounting the solar panels under the windows and not on the roof makes it much more easy for cleaning them and keeping them snowfree.

South and west facades


South and east facades


And the updated interiour in the living room: Much better now, I think.

[Redoverfarm]

lipadier just a casual obersavtion of your plans.  It would appear to me that a shower (36") stall would make more use of the space rather than a tub.  There is even the combination tub/shower versons that are a little shorter than the standard 5' tub. 

[lipadier]

Only a shower? Or one of these short sit-in tubs? Me? No way. Even If I would only build a 10x10 cabin made out of old cardboard boxes, you would see a 6' long bathtub built in there.

[lipadier]

Simple solution: Bathtub halfway under the stairs. Voila, more space in the bathroom:

[lipadier]

And finally, after moving in... 

[lipadier]

The next step:
Still the same house layout as above, but now I made it a bit larger, the house has now more storage space in the living room and a larger bedroom. There is now a small service room for the house technics above the stairs and a small non-insulated storage shed attached outside for garden tools and the bicycle:

South facade


South and west facades


Ground floor


Basement


Bathroom


Bedroom


Kitchen


Living room
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[lipadier]

For Dan Parker

Here are the floor plans from my first project from the ""under 200 sq. ft." -thread posted but now a bit larger. That's all my old CAD programm can manage. The measurement are in centimeters and meters. You have to to your own calculations from that on.

Dan, bare in mind that my projects are only simple I-have-an-idea-for-a-small-house drawings without any consideration for building regulations and statics.

But If you actually build something that's loosely based on one of my drawings, I will be very pleased.





Greetings, lipadier

[lipadier]

Had another go today at the "how much space do you really need?" question, and came up with another design.
It's a simple and tiny little home, with the outside measurements of around 12x15 ft:


(the car is there for size comparison)


Ground floor layout


Upper floor layout


Fireplace in the center of the stairs, the door on the left is the toilet door:


Dining:


Bedroom with shower cubicle and wardrobes:


Work in progress...
Greetings, lipadier

[IronRanger]

Thanks, lipadier.  I always look forward to your new floorplans.

Did you play with the idea of the shower on the first floor and move the toilet/sink upstairs?

We live a similar lifestyle- my bedroom's where I spend most of my time.  I leave it to use the bathroom, cook and visit with company.

I've been wavering between plans for a small two-story and an earth-sheltered home.  Budget and permitting will dictate which route I take and it's still 3-5 years before I'll begin my project, but I like to play around with the floorplans anyways.

[lipadier]

That's an interesting idea with the exchange between toilet stall and shower in this particular house. Sure enough placing the shower on the ground floor (where it could simply be hidden behind a courtain) would free up more space for another kitchen part, or the possibility of building the entrance door in the other side, leaving space for a longer table or some shelf furniture.

I think I will play with this on the plans. Thanks for the idea.  

[IronRanger]

It's too bad there isn't a shower with swing-out shelving.  Maybe an RV site would have something like this.  The idea of it might disgust some people though.  

Thanks for the idea.

I don't know how much you should thank me, you've been doing all the work.   

[lipadier]

Here we go:

Shower on the ground floor, entrance on the other side, kitchen not so cramped anymore. A lot better.


Toilet cubicle on the upper floor, doesn't interfere, it even makes the bedroom more cosy.


Win-Win, thanks.

[cmkavala]

it is possible to narrow the width of stairs to 2 ft and still meet code

[soomb]

Do you think 2 people would be the maximum for comfort in this design?

[MountainDon]

it is possible to narrow the width of stairs to 2 ft and still meet code

In a word, No.   Code usually calls for 36" wide stairways, with a maximum rise of 7 3/4 and a minimum tread depth of 10 inches. There are other details to be concerned with as well. Check section R311.5 of the IRC.

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=6224.msg81129#msg81129

Also this topic    http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=904.0

[psammy]

Obviously a 2 ft. wide stair does not meet code in the strictest interpretation, but neither do the winders as shown.  A better question would be how flexible is the local code enforcement on the issue of stairs for such a low occupancy structure? 

BTW, lipadier, I REALLY like your design THREE!  It really seems to strike a balance on size.  It has a nice sitting area with the stove, a place for a 4 person table, and a decent kitchen prep area.  Upstairs, a nice-sized BR and full-functioned bath.....really a home run!  Built over a basement or a high crawl for any mechanicals and some storage would make this very livable for one or even a couple.

psammy

[lipadier]

Do you think 2 people would be the maximum for comfort in this design?

No. This is a one man house, atleast in this size. But as with most of my small home designs I first draw the layout as tiny as possible and then later I make a larger version of the same house too. I will upload some renderings of the design above in enlarged size soon. 

Greetings, lip
BTW, thanks for the compliments.

[Onkeludo2]

lipadier:  Wow, I love the designs.  Where are you in Switzerland?  I did a Practicum in Schaan (I know it is not Switzerland) and spent a lot of time in towns around the Liechtenstein border.

Two things I find amazing beyond the design:

Someone from Switzerland who is obviously not a builder by trade (I am assuming) considering building their own house.  Granted, I worked in the engineering department but I found almost all Germans, Swiss and Austrians that I worked with and socialized with the be EXTREME specialist.  The idea of a computer nerd repairing his car or an Engineer doing interior carpentry was insane.  I realize most of the folks on this website have had coworkers or friends say they were crazy to build house but over there, they truly would have wondered if you were stable!  They always loved calling the Americans "cowboys" because we would do first and think after.

I still remember the reaction of one of my coworkers when I fixed his 6-day-old BMW in the parking lot at the local pub.  It was nothing more than a loose battery cable and the BMW came with the tools right there in the trunk, but you would have thought I had turned water into wine.

The second thing is that it appears you are considering wood construction.  I do not know how many jokes I had to hear from the boys in the pub about the inferiority of wood construction in America.  Granted, simple homes in the valleys were built with the concrete block, insulation and then concrete panel construction that was truly bullet-proof but everything took forever to build at a cost that would stagger most Americans.  4" thick concrete floors were nice with the hydronic slabs.

So I guess my hat is off to you for being a free-thinker in a land of rigid specialization.  I look forward to you having great success!

Mike

PS: I do not intend to insult any of the German speaking people of the world with my above comments.  Some of my most memorable times where during my year as an exchange student in Arnsberg, Germany, my three months in Cologne and my year in Schaan, Liechtenstein.  Many Germans/Swiss/Austrians are slow to warm up, but would do anything for you once you are taken into the fold.  A round or two of beer usually breaks the ice!

[lipadier]

Mike:
I live at the swiss side of Lake Constance, but I actually work in Buchs, Switzerland, which as you probably know is next to Schaan, Liechtenstein. - It's a small world. 

Now, about what you said the swiss beiing boring regulation freaks. - Well, that's true, for sure.

And about those jokes about flimsy US houses. - That one comes because the only time when we see US homes in the news it's mostly after some midwest hurricane has reduced some of them to heaps of splinters. Mix that with the usual generalisation, (and the lack of knowledge about how strong these hurricanes really are) and voila, for most europeans it looks like all US houses are only made out of white-painted tinker-wood. - But hey, we love our tunnel-sighted prejudices as much as everyone else.

Greetings

[Onkeludo2]

lipadier:  Good old Buchs.  I did most of my shopping there and had friends who lived in the tiny towns around it.

Out of curiousity, will you be allowed to purchase land or do you end up with a 99-year lease like an "Auslander" is given?  How many hundreds of documents will you have to take to dozens of offices to get thousands of stamps if you choose to build?  Love those stamps...and the bureaucrats that use them.

How difficult will it be to purchase building supplies that are more complicated or specialized than those in the DIY stores?  As an example, we had difficulty buying some of the propane and electrical supplies we needed to build a small home brewery in Austria because we did not have gas-fitters license or an electricians license.  It was easier for me to order them from the 'States.

Regarding the tunnel vision and prejudices, you are spot on!  I was guilty of them even though I had lived in Germany in the past.  I thought, how different can Switzerland be?  They are less than 7 hours away from my old home and they share a language.  Oh, how wrong I was.  The Swiss my share a written language (almost) with the Germans and Austrians but your spoken language is from another planet!

Keep up the great work and let me know if you need labor help building one of these designs.  It would be a great excuse to visit old friends in Feldkirch, Austria when I have one of my R&R's.

Mike

[tinysteve]

Lipadier, do you still visit this forum?