Nine Tiny Feet

Here are more drawings of the Nine Tiny Feet design. The interior is 78″ high (6 1/2′), the sleeping loft is 34″ by 76″ and extends over the porch. The bay windows server double duty as windows and space for small cabinets to hide away plumbing and the 12V DC cooler.

I still need to think through how the  trap door to the loft will work and the vent for the fireplace (not pictured here) which will sit in front of one of the bay windows. I think there is enough room for the stack to vent out the bay window roof. If that doesn’t work I may put if over the toilet/chair.

I’ve made a few scale models from cardboard as the design has evolved. I’ll make a new one with these revised dimensions and post photos of it next. 3D drawings help visualize the space too but I find old school hot glue and cardboard does a much better job.

Now that I have a tiny trailer for my tiny nine square foot house I need to change the design slightly. It shrank in width six inches to fit between the fenders of the tiny boat trailer and got a little longer to keep it at just under nine square feet. I also added a couple inches to the sleeping loft that spans the house and porch.

While my primary intention with Nine Tiny Feet is to make it as small as possible and still function as a house, stumbling on two free trailers at my in-laws farm was quite a turn of luck. My father-in-law got the trailer with a small boat he bought cheap. He didn’t want the trailer but the guy who sold him the boat said they were a package deal. Funny. On the way home the tires went flat and he had to stop and get new ones. No so funny.

I know it doesn’t look like much there in the weeds but the size is just about right. If I use this trailer I’ll need to change the houses width from 48 inches to 42 inches but that will simply give me a few more inches of depth. My only concern is the weight capacity of a small boat trailer. I’ll need to carefully consider every pound as I begin to build. I love the fenders and I’ll need to cut down the length a little, but for the most part this little trailer is the perfect size for Nine Tiny Feet.

My wife’s grandfather bought the little boat below before he passed away for sentimental reasons. It reminded him of a boat he had when he was young, and it was in about the same condition as you see it in the photo. Since the boat really no longer needs a trailer, which is a little larger than the small trailer above, I may end up using this one instead. It has slightly larger wheels (12″ instead of 8″) and we expect it’s axle to be able to handle a bit more load. It’s also 48″ between fenders so no design modifications would be needed. On my next trip to the farm we’ll pull both out of the weeds and pick a winner.

I had actually though I might be able to use one of them on my Tiny Free House, but I think I’d have to downsize the structure a lot. That design is 6′ by 15′, ten times bigger than Nine Tiny Feet, and I suspect I’ll need at least a ton weight capacity on the axle if not more. Nice to get my first lucky scavenge though, on Father’s day no less. Nice.