Nine Tiny Feet

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.

One night while falling asleep I was noodling over some stuff I’d been reading about the tiny house movement. I had just finished reading Jay Shafer’s tiny house books while on a business trip to Santa Monica. Living in a smaller space sure was making a lot of sense to me, reduced maintenance cost, easier to clean, more time to do the things with the people I love.

But then I wondered how small could a house be and still meet most of the basic requirements, bed, bath, kitchen, work space, lounge space, etc. Like I said I was lying in bed so I imagined how much space I took up lying in bed. That seemed like a good starting place because who would want to sleep standing up? I’m six feet tall and about two feet wide in some places and one foot wide in others. I guessed about nine square feet would be the starting place and then I’d add on square feet for the other stuff. About that time REM took over and I crashed.

But in the morning when I started to draw a picture of the nine square feet required for sleeping I realized that maybe I didn’t need any more space if I added a loft and bay windows. These spaces are not normally included in square footage calculations so it seemed fair to add them and keep my official square footage to nine square feet.

After several concepts and foam core models I landed on this design. I’ll share more of the design as I refine the idea but as you can see the interior floor measures 40″ X 32″ which is actually 16 square inches less that nine square feet (1296 square inches). There is a big porch in front and the sleeping loft extends over both the porch and house under a 24:12 pitched roof (not pictured here). The toilet I’ve select is a small composing toilet used in small sail boats called the Air Head. A seat would cover the toilet when not in use. The refrigerator is a 12V DC cooler made by Koolatron. They make bigger models but I like the P20′s exterior dimensions. The kitchen bay window would also contain a sink and stove. In the opposite bay window a Dickinson Marine fireplace (like the one Jay Shafer uses in his Tumbleweed houses), would be used for heat. Storage will be minimal but I suspect I’ll add in some cabinets once I get started in building it. Electricity will be from solar panels.

I plan to build the Tiny Free House first and then move onto this project. But this project will brew on the back burner all the while and I’ll post design progress as I make it.

OH… WHY?

No I don’t intend to live in it. Building something like this will be an interesting journey and I plan to use it as a home office some or all of the time. I may also use the Tiny Free House as an office too, I just haven’t decided. The other reason is to show people how small, small can be. I’m beginning to develop a theory that nine square feet is all we really need and that every square foot after that is for added comfort, vanity, or people.

So the short version… I’m building a nine square foot house to explore the possibility to satisfy my own curiosity and explore my own values. If successful I hope it will act as a tool to help other people see that the least is the most.