Tiny Home On Foundations

I'm a tiny house fan. What can I say? I just don't want one on wheels I want it on a foundation. And after reading a book called The Very Small Home - Japanese Ideas For Living Well In A Small Space. I'm convinced it's the way to go for me. Many new Japanese homes sit on 80sqm blocks. Not a typo, that's the block size! And a family of 3 comfortably live in homes with less than 50sqm of living space. A normal couples home is as little as 27sqm. It flies in the face of Australian homes where people wring their hands and wonder if 35 squares will be enough. But I've always been one to buck the trend.

I've been wanting an a-typically small home for a while but am having trouble finding any registered builder interested. Maybe I should be telling them I'm building a granny flat... One of the prefab guys came back to me with the news that a completely stock standard 45sqm design would cost me $150k delivered, that's about $60k just for delivery. Works out at roughly $30k per sq.... So I've come back to the idea of a container home. My skills are extremely limited and my budget (without a house mortgage) even more so. I may have to go as small as a single 40ft container home. Oh well, it's a start. The good news is that council don't seem care about size of home or number of rooms. Phew! And it seems no-one here has had trouble getting the container idea approved. 30sqm of internal space is challenging but not impossible especially when you start looking at like it's a narrow boat or train carriage.

Royal Wolf have told me that their mining shack fitouts of a 40ft come in around $50k complete. I've no interest in their mining shacks but I may yet get them to do the skilled labour by putting in windows, doors, whirlybird, skylights, internal frame work and take it from there. I have no illusions that I will do it any cheaper but the hope is I will get a better design for living and nicer fittings than they provide. All up, if I can get it on the block, connected and council approved for $100k then it may be an option for me. Getting a mortgage for land only is fairly simple these days. Luckily I can most of the research before I even buy a block. Do up a floorplan, get it drafted, choose fixtures and fittings.

I'll post some floorplans once I have them complete.

In the meantime here's a 20fter looking glam. I especially love the rooftop idea on this one. Amazingly, it sleeps 4. The quality of this fitout would be what I'm trying to achieve.

http://smallhousebliss.com/2013/10/05/c ... iner-home/

That link is such a cute little place! I'm all for downsized living. And for container housing.

I lived quite happily in a studio flat in Potts Pt for 10 years that had the same floor area as one 40' container.

I've spent a lot of time justifying why I am settling for 150sq metres of living space - people keep saying "Why don't you add another couple of containers?". As it is I am using 4 x 40' containers and have often thought it is one too many!

One thing I might suggest - if you go for the one container idea - get a 40' - they are almost the same price as a 20' plus you ought to get the HC (high top - it has an extra 300mm or so of extra headroom - important when you put in an interior ceiling.)

Good luck.

I read your whole thread actually, linked to me by another member. It's what got my thinking about container homes all over again after I had once discarded the idea of making a tempoaray accomodation out of one. The fatal flaw in my last idea was not thinking about it as a permanent home. By the time you put all the bits and bobs in it, it gets quite expensive if it's only temporary. But as a permanent home, well....you can go to town on the finishes. Most of my apartments have been about 50sqm and to be honest I find furnishing them a pain and wish they were smaller. I spend so little time sitting in my house.

I plan to do a 40ft container as suggested, and maybe at a later date add another 40fter for a lockup garage and guest room, linked to the first one by an open air breezeway. I had some hobbies for which I need a proper workshop, and I only own a motor scooter, having discarded the car a decade ago. So a 20ft garage will be perfect.

Some idea's for my container home....

Japanese styled bathroom including ofuro (smaller and deeper than normal baths, fits better in a container home plus the water stays hot for deep soaking. I plan to have casement windows next to the ofuro so the garden outside can be appreciated while I soak. A bath is one thing I will not compromise on. If the budget goes to plan I may be able to splash out and purchase a cedar one, rather than an acrylic.

Using whirlybirds and openable skylights for better air circulation. The northern side will have a large span of glass while the southern side will have strip windows that run the length of the kitchen and some can be opened out. I really, really love the sundeck on the roof idea and if I can get council to approve that I will. It may be a problem depending upon the block and proximity to neighbours etc, overlooking backgardens and all that. You could always call it 'cladding' rather than a deck. But it would be a wonderful little entertaining space especially if you had some rural views.

Just from fiddling around with the basic elements (bath, toilet, kitchen, bed, laundry etc) all drawn to scale I can see there is actually a lot of space to play around with. So far I've got a modest bathroom that houses a laundry tub and bench for my front loader washing machine, ofuro with shower over and one of those skinny toilets. A full sized kitchen (4.5m of benchspace), my bed and I still have a sitting area roughly 4m long. Bang some sliding doors there and the living area is easily extended onto the deck. I'm thinking about covering the deck with a louvred pergola so it can be made weatherproof when needed but open air when not. Seems like the best use of it.

It's a lot of fun playing around with floor plans and checking out luxury yachts, motorhomes and some of the extremely narrow homes around the planet for ideas. I was really surprised by the apparent spaciousness of some of those tiny homes in Japan I looked at. Despite them being 35sqm or so, they looked really inviting and great. Last time I banged on about my tiny home project others also said I should increase the footprint for resale value etc. And yes I see the sense in that if your home is permanent and can never be moved. But as much as I am constrained by the dimensions of a container, I am also freed by it too. Because this home truly can be put on the back of a truck and taken anywhere for the cost of normal freight plus crane. Therefore, the resale value of the building itself is far less of a concern. If I love the home and move I will just sell the block. If I ever want to sell the home, it's suitable as a granny flat or weekender and I could sell as that too.

Love the tiny house idea Not sure if you've seen the Tiny House Aus group on FB - but it has loads of resources, and there is a fellow building a tiny out of a container, and another fellow living in one in Nth QLD I think.

We are looking for a 20ft high top for storage and have toyed around with converting it into temp accom, and then eventually using it as my office once we have built a small home. Not sure if I want to sink the money into it though since we would like to get the house moving along - we might caravan instead. What we had considered was taking out part of the roof, building an A frame roof on top, so half for sleeping, the other half open. Or having a fold down bed out of one wall.

Lots of great idea on the www though

Thanks. Unfortunately, getting someone to cut the sides open is all too expensive when you aren't doing it yourself. This country really knows how to profiteer from any ideas for affordable housing. Luckily I have come across some nice flatpack cabins for a similar price as a shipping container build and just as easy to transport, with better internal space and the company is willing to do a custom job in terms of doors and windows placement. Has real potential as the flatpack includes the internal lining as well with R3 walls. No welding required, just a screwdriver and someone to put some stumps in for me. The basic cabin is well....basic looking but the bones are good and the material it's lined with is very good quality for both insulation and noise control, much better than gyprock.

The big problem with shippping containers is that while yes they are a complete building envelop, you still have to put a roof on them and you have to find a way to deal with the fact they are a hot, metal box. And then once you've solved that problem you are then stuck with the dimensions of a shipping container which isn't the best use of a small space. The same sqm in one of these cabins is a much better use of space because you have a 3.6m width room instead of 2.3.

Shipping containers are worth it when they are used either in multiples or with a structure than spans between them. But as a standalone, you've got a caravan really. These cabins cost no more than a shipping container to transport because they fit inside of one as a flatpack and then all you need to do is get a kitchen and bathroom installed. They can also be demounted and flatpacked again later. Overall I think it's a better use of my time and money and I'll end up with something a bit more comfortable. So still tiny home orientated but now looking at using one of these and upgrading the specs to include nice guttering, hardwood decking and privacy screen, maybe even cedar windows to make it look schmick.

I've been told transport costs will be a few $k which is very reasonable considering how far I want to move it and what it is. My enquiry responses with this company have been extremely fast and very informative. It seems like they really want to sell the product and considering it costs about 1/3 the price of one of those fancy prefabs, delivered with the same rated walls it seems like a good option at the moment. Apparently two people can erect one to lockup stage inside a week. They could even deliver it finished but advised that the transport costs would be about $10k and I'd be better off just hiring a couple of locals to erect it for me.

http://www.ortech.com.au/projects-and-n ... form-cabin

Well, I finally nutted out a floorplan for a tiny home on foundations. It's a tad bigger than container size but overall about 50sqm in total. I've come full circle and am loving the idea (once again) of a strawbale build. So I did this floorplan with strawbale walls instead of standard, hence why they are so thick.



So I've tried to design some passive solar principles. The side full of glass is for the north side of the home, these would be either sliding or french doors leading onto a paved courtyard. The sun would completely fill this narrow home in winter giving good warmth to the home. There are no windows on the west side and the south facing windows are for cross ventilation. Forgive the amateur hour designing here...

I've placed my laundry in a cupboard so it can be hidden away and saves space. There is room also for a linen press there. I'm not a big fan of bed 'rooms' too much these days, it's a room I rarely use during the day. So I've kept it all open plan with the bed hidden behind a feature wall that keeps it out of sight of the living area but doesn't chop the space up too much. You still have line of sight all the way to the end of the house, giving the illusion of space. Of course there is a wall of storage on the west wall for clothes and other items as well. I wanted to keep the bedroom space as small as possible without being pokey.

I've got a nice combustion heater in the living area and I'd like to think that feature wall will be stacked stone or something nice like that. The bathroom's neither huge nor tiny. I've lived with a lot of small bathrooms and actually the layout, not the footprint seems to be what's important. So I've got a Japanese tub in there which is both deeper and shorter than a standard. It saves space but also retains heat better for soaking in. I can put a shower attachment over this bath. I've put some nice windows around the tub to overlook what will be a small private Japanese garden to admire while I soak.

Even though I've got the sliding/french doors I still want a proper front door so I've put it in next to the laundry cupboard, although I suppose that wont work depending on how it's orientated on the block. Maybe it's a backdoor then... The windows over the kitchen bench aren't full height. I really like the look of having a window where the splashback would normally be, I've seen it in a few magazines and love it. It makes the kitchen really open up and would be nice to look at the garden while I cook or prepare food.

All in all I'm quite happy with this floorplan, it gives me a 3.8meter internal width, identical to what I'm living in now. Small enough not to need a lot of furniture but large enough to have all the storage I'd want.

I'd be putting the washing machine outside, especially when space is at a premium. It is after all just a machine that is noisy, uses hazardous chemicals and is a potential water leak.

James Austin is looking at doing almost exactly the same as you except for the straw bale walls.
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=72577
Similar is awrattens build in Cairns
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=72415
Very similar floor plans - rectangular build one bedder.

Stewie

Yep, thanks. So I guess a small home is a popular theme these days. Makes sense for those of us wanting to be mortgage free as soon as possible. The other two are a tad larger than mine, but all similar variations on a theme. I will be interesting to see if this becomes a phenonmenon. I'll try and put together some elevations as well. I only have a basic image editor though and can't use SketchUp because my Mac is ancient and doesn't have the necessary IOS.

Older versions of OSX run Sketchup easily.
I've got OSX10.4 on a 20002 Mac and SU 4.1.
What do you need IOS for ??? Apart from the latest version of SU ?

Stewie

When I downloaded SKetchup it wouldn't run the install package, telling me my IOS 10.5.8 couldn't run it.

Are you sure you are downloading the correct version of SU for your OS?
IOS is for iPads and iPhones. OSX is for Mac computers.
Are you running OS 10.5.8 on an Intel or PPC Mac ?
This page http://www.oldapps.com/mac/sketchup.php gives a good rundown and links to download the right version.

Stewie