lipadier's house designs

lipadier · February 01, 2009, 03:05:32 AM

I placed my first project in the "Buildings under 200 sf" -thread http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=641.msg81326#new, but for the rest of my ideas and designs, I will use this thread here.

My second project: There are a lot of unused little barns in the lower swiss alps near were I live. This could be one of them. After renovation. It's my own little favourite of all my house designs to date. A tiny and simple shell. I could actually live in this all year round.

Having a normal spaced staircase even in a tiny house like this is important to me. I never liked the "ladder to the attic" solutions. For a weekend retreat yes, but for permanent residence, no. You should be able to walk safely to the upper floor with a tray in your hands full of breakfast for the yet sleeping mississ, without falling to your death during the process.

The furniture seen here is part of the actual furniture I have at my home.

Bring critique and suggestions.
More to come. Stay tuned.
Greetings, lipadier

glenn kangiser · February 01, 2009, 12:01:02 PM

Do they have handrail requirements there on the stairways, lipadier?

I have a spiral with the steps unsupported except at the inboard side like your other design although we have the extension of the pivot pole to hang on to.

February 01, 2009, 03:26:03 PM

You spotted the biggest flaw in this plan right away.

The swiss building laws are very strict, there is no way around a handrail. And so here goes the dilemma:
My home cinema layout as it looks today in my home and as it should look in this house. Nice.

The same layout with the required hand rail. Oh dear.

High-tech-solution-idea provided by my younger brother (he's an electrician): Electric motor out of an old hospital bed, connected to weight sensors under the bed. - Person on bed, visible part of handrail folds down flat, free view on the screen. - Person off bed, handrail folds up, safe passage downstairs. - Manual override buttons in case two persons are in the bed and only one steps out and goes down.

lipadier · February 01, 2009, 08:13:00 PM

The real and much easier solution: Drawing the stairs much more in to direction of the kitchen in the ground floor, and making the stairs a tad steeper, eliminating the screen blocking view of the handrail in the upper floor.

soomb · February 02, 2009, 08:30:27 PM

What program did you use for the renderings?

February 03, 2009, 12:36:27 AM

It's the "Arcon" CAD Software. Bought it 11 years ago. At that time rendering or raytracing one image with a lot of visible and mirroring glass would take my old computer to it's knees and every time you clicked on the raytracing button the world time came to a standstill. But with my PC of today one picture is rendered in seconds.

The program has a lot of limits from today's view, there is no Anti-Aliasing hence the hard and pixeled lines, and difficult construction details are sometimes only possible with crafting, chaeating or lots of visible compromises.

Why I still use it? Because I designed a lot with it, and knowing every feature, I'm very very quick now, a new idea or project is drawn in no time. And thanks to the internet it's easy to update the furniture- and texture library for free.

glenn kangiser · February 03, 2009, 12:42:14 AM

I thought you were supposed to have some kind of a problem with English, lipadier. You are no worse than the rest of us - and especially Homey... She's an English teacher and has fallen back into saying y'all.

Bishopknight · February 03, 2009, 10:58:31 AM

I like it. Good luck getting around the handrail regulation. Great CAD drawings, you're very talented.

Jens · February 03, 2009, 12:15:15 PM

Why would y'all find a problem with that? Ain't nothing wrong with y'all, it's when you git to sayin you'ns that it becomes a problem.

February 03, 2009, 12:22:42 PM

Hi Lipadier,

These pictures and the layout are just AMAZING! Thanks for sharing

lipadier · February 03, 2009, 02:03:59 PM

Glenn, I don't understand what y'all are saying.

Seriously: I learned english for myself in the last two years, watching movies, reading books and communicating in the net in this language. Beeing here on contryplans.com and not on a comparable german speaking "Swiss sheds and other vertical disasters" -board is part of my learning. I still need a dictionary on the side to look up some words, and there are still a lot of faults, but it comes better every day. But I still have to warn the english speaking folk after registering on a board like this to prevent the classic "Who's this? He can't even spell right. What an idiot!" -problem.

Todd: Thanks for the compliment. There is a lot more to come. The two projects shown here so far are at the "this is the today" situation. Meaning: I live alone, but have a weekend girfriend who comes up at Saturday and I still can kick her out after two days playing married couple. From the viewpoint of a man that's a very good way of life. But: My further projects shown here will be the next step: A home for two. And after that according to my girlfriend not far in the future a home for three. Or four. Or five.

$:-\$

glenn kangiser · February 03, 2009, 02:24:34 PM

Redoverfarm · February 03, 2009, 02:50:25 PM

Quote from: Jens on February 03, 2009, 12:15:15 PM
Why would y'all find a problem with that? Ain't nothing wrong with y'all, it's when you git to sayin you'ns that it becomes a problem.

Sounds like you have spent some time in the great state of PA. I had a guy I had worked with. It was just second nature for him to say it but of course he was born in PA.

lipadier If your speech is anything like your written words you would have no problem in fitting in the mainstream of the states. Maybe not do you speak Mexican?

glenn kangiser · February 03, 2009, 11:46:18 PM

I would have a hard time learning a language like that - you are doing great. I took some computer language training for France and refreshed an Spanish when going to Mexico. Yo habla un poco espanol o mexicano.

February 04, 2009, 07:35:28 PM

My third project: A little cosy house for the two of us. The space under the stairs could be a storage room for garden tools or firewood, accessible from the outside.

lipadier · February 16, 2009, 09:07:41 AM

Another tiny house, this time something different, because the design is not mine, but ~~straightforward stolen~~ ahem remotly inspired from the "bolt together cabin" I saw in this thread two days ago: http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=6331.msg82879#msg82879

The orginal:

I've taken the basic ground floorplan of that house, enlarged it a bit and mixed it with my usual personal requirements for a tiny house: All year round habitable, staircase and kitchen and bathroom have to be decent sized. No crawl spaces allowed.

Meter:Foot - 1:3

Ground floor

Upper floor

West facade

South facade

Kitchen/Living room

View from the kitchen

Upper floor bedroom

ScottA · February 16, 2009, 01:05:14 PM

Very cool designs.

considerations · February 18, 2009, 10:39:08 AM

Wow, I really enjoy your designs. I have lots of books though, and would have to push the walls out a little to get floor to ceiling bookshelves incorporated. The wood stoves you use are fascinating, do they resemble or illustrate stove that are available to you?

soomb · February 18, 2009, 01:21:29 PM

stove looks like a Rais

John Raabe · February 18, 2009, 01:22:47 PM

Very nice work Lipadier

You have some very usable small cabins there. The second one is my personal favorite. Using this layout for the 14x24 Little House plans (but going two story) would seem positively spacious. Easy to build too (which can't be said for the Bolt House I'm afraid).

John

February 18, 2009, 01:30:47 PM

John, do you have information on bolt houses that have been built? You mention that they are not easy to build amd I am surprised as I hoped they were. Any and all information would be appreciated.

lipadier · February 22, 2009, 09:56:10 AM

What!? Those bolt together houses are not easy to build?
"B... but...but... it looked soo easy in the brochure." $:-\$

Anyway, still clinging to my bathtub, normal sized stairs, no bang-your-head-on-the-rafters-1.5-story and all the other stuff seen in this thread, I came up with another tiny house I could live with. And in. It's around "12x16" in your currency.

I used some plaster textures on the walls this time for variation, hence the somewhat more modern look of this house compared to my other designs. And I got quite carried away with expensive furniture, but hey it costs nothing... ahem... at least in the CAD-world.

Ground floor with kitchen and living room

Upper floor with bathroom and bedroom

South and west facade

South and east facade

Tiny and somewhat cute kitchen, but still with enough storage space for a man and his tools.

Living room, I included the consideration of a big bookshelf for considerations... and my own books.

John Raabe · February 22, 2009, 12:02:24 PM

The Bolt Together house does not use standard building techniques but relies on you being able to construct precision stress skin structural panels at home and then transport and assemble them on site to close tolerances. It is really a factory level design that has not been tested or engineered for the critical interactions between the panels and the framing system. I'm sure there are careful very experienced builders who could use the system in the plans to build a safe and sturdy house.

However, this is not for low skill owner-builders. Also, you would face a huge engineering challenge if this were built in a code area with a careful building inspector. Not only would the structural system have to be engineered, you would have to bring the panels up to energy code standards.

It would probably be easier to build a version of it with SIPS panels if you could find a company willing to take on the engineering.

While this was a popular idea from the 1970's and thousands of copies of the Family Circle plans were sold, it would be interesting to see how many were actually built and how they have survived. I do not have that information.

A Google search on "bolt together house or cabin" only comes up with articles from CountryPlans or PlanHelp, plus someone who copied my PDF and used it on their own adwords page.

Where are all those old cabins?

lipadier · February 22, 2009, 03:21:40 PM

Thanks for the information, John. So the bolt house goes into the same 1970's corner as the Bede BD5-Jet: Wow-factor very high, but even more higher was the requirement of skills to build the thing into the real world.

I can see the local building inspector looking at the bolt house plans: "That's not a house. It's not even a shed. It's only a cute tent with frozen walls."

MountainDon · February 22, 2009, 03:49:42 PM

Quote from: John Raabe on February 22, 2009, 12:02:24 PM
A Google search on "bolt together house or cabin" only comes up with articles from CountryPlans or PlanHelp, plus someone who copied my PDF and used it on their own adwords page.

More disturbing than the copying of info is that those other guys have used a direct link to countryplans download site. Every time someone clicks the bandwidth is yours. If that's a concern changing the link would defeat them. $:-\$