come on now.  While your small house design might seem intriguing how could a family possibly live in nine tiny feet.  As a Christain, I personally believe that God put enough on earth for every family to have a home that meets their home living needs.  Through wisdom is a house builded and by understanding it is established.  And by knowledge shall all the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.  Proverbs 24:3-4  Meditate on that a while and then draw the plans for a real house.

Here is my response.

Thanks… but I think if you continue reading about this design you’ll find that Nine Tiny Feet is an experiment in searching for the lowest common denominator in housing not intended as a viable solution for a family. It will also be a showcase for frugality, simplicity, and sustainable living… which seem much more in line with the teachings of Jesus than any McMansion or suburban track home I’ve ever seen.

Regarding: “all the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches” … I don’t think that was intended as support for consumerism and greed either. It sounds like it on the surface but this statement wouldn’t support the core teachings of Jesus. I suggest a deeper look into the true meaning of this is needed. My suspicion is that precious would be family and riches would not include money and wealth.

In many ways part of my simple living work is to help those that have forgotten how a frugal and wholesome life brings happiness, freedom, and for some closer to God. I don’t bring religion into my work overtly because I don’t want to exclude anyone from realizing the value of these lessons. While I have some deep personal beliefs I choose not to expose them because I have a stronger belief that working to unite humanity under a banner of peace is the only path to a sustainable future. I suspect Jesus would agree.

I hope that helps you understand another dimension of the mission I’ve found myself on.

If you continue to tinyhousedesign.com you’ll find more design concepts that might better fulfill the immediate needs of our families.

I’m also rethinking the rain water collection and soil box due to the added weight these two systems could add. Although I don’t want to give up on the added self-sufficiency these features add. I’ll have to noodle over that and weight the pros and cons.

For all the details on this new variation take a look at the post on Tiny House Design. Below are some semi-transparent images you won’t find on the other blog.

Now go take a look at the detailed description of this design variation.

The floor itself is still nine square feet, except it’s now trapezoidal instead of rectangular. The main difference is the overall shape which looks much more like a a piece of pie than a house. Instead of a sleeping loft I’ve imagined two flip down plywood shelves that cover the kitchen counter and chair to form a flat surface long enough for a six foot person to sleep. The main room isn’t long enough to lay down so I’ve borrowed a little space in the form of a tiny cubby hole from the nose of the house for the occupant’s feet. Sleeping in this design would be like sleeping in a backpacker’s mummy bag.

Like in past designs the toilet is below the chair. Since this design is about exploring extremes I still imagine using a sawdust composting toilet. This bucket toilet would be well sealed from the main living area to avoid odor build-up inside the house. The space it occupies would also be vented to the exterior. You can learn more about sawdust toilets at Jenkins Publishing.

The roof would be metal with a down-spout at the low end to allow water to be funneled off for future use. A storage tank would need to be place in the sharp nose of the house. Due to the triangular shape of the roof a lip would need to be added along the two long sides to prevent the water from simply running off onto the ground. You can learn more about collecting rain water at The Good Human.

Below the window is a planter box designed to reclaim waste water from the shower drain in the main floor and sink. The planter box, or soil box, would have several layers of material and screens to facilitate filtering and processing of the water. You can learn more about grey water soil boxes at Grey Water Central.

There are a lot of good ideas in this design but I don’t think I’d ever build it this way. I really liked the  traditional look of the original design. But I also like how this house is more aerodynamic, uses building materials more efficiently, includes more self-sufficient features, and crams most of the living space into the nine square foot floor plan.

So I’m going to let this cook in my brain a little more and see if I can come up with a hybrid that has more traditional aesthetics, a shed roof for easy rain water collection, and that’s still more aerodynamic than a brick. Stay tuned.

But If I were to build panels and then screw them together, using the plywood as part of the structure, I think I could have a better insulated structure that would be just as strong. I think I have it all figured out in my head and will get those ideas into drawings today and tonight. Here’s an exploded view and the revised plan so you can see what I’m thinking.

Updated! Here is an updated drawing with more detail.

I won’t repeat myself too much here, you can read the other blog post for more details on this drawing, but the short version is… Nine Tiny Feet is a design concept for a nine square foot self-contained tiny house big enough for one person to live. When I finish building my Tiny Free House I hope to build this house.

It’s not intented to be some kind of low-cost housing. It’s simply and exploration into minimalism and living with less. Enjoy the images. At the bottom of this post is a YouTube video of the 3D model on my screen.

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.

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.