I am happy to announce three new floor plans that Stephen Marshall from Little House on the Trailer has put together for additional ideas on how you can use the Sonoma Shanty. Stephen will continue to generate new floor plans and they will be added to the Sonoma Shanty plans and emailed to previous buyers.
Here are the three new ideas (plus the original):
- Garden House (this is the first completed shanty)
- Tutor’s Cottage (great for an office on or off wheels)
- A Room of One’s Own (need a spare bedroom or workspace?)
- Tiny House (original floor plan)
Here is a recent testimony by Nick from Indiana who bought the plans:
I have to say I am rather impressed with the plans, the ability to mix ease of construction and functionality in this design is really pretty amazing. Example, using the 12/12 roof, provides simple construction and yields sufficient loft space. You’ve also eliminated the need for a birds mouth. These are all things a person new to construction would likely mess up. For those of us who have previously built such things, the elimination and simplification of these adds significant time savings, less room for error and waste, and ease of assembly. I am very satisfied with the plans.
If you think the Sonoma Shanty is the space for you click on the Plans button above and get your set today.
I love small homes. Very efficient. However, could you think of ways to make smaller kitchens. The Sonoma uses 1/2 of the inside living area for it. Must be a better way. And fold out furniture/bed. Great job!!!
Be well; have fun…
dan
I need to talk to Stephen about revamping that floor plan, I suggested having a kitchen on one side or in front of the shower area and storage on the other. Let me see what I can do. I also plan on blogging on some kitchen options here soon…Kent
A very compact and bijuo design indeed.
After reading Dans comment above about wanting to make the kitchen smaller I got an idea you could try. Instead of having the cabinets against the two outside walls with the isle way between them. Put a lower and upper cabinet against the bathroom wall with the sink on one side close to the door and the stove top on the other side also close to the door. Then to provide more counter space when needed place a flip down counter top across the doorway to the bathroom between the two lower cabinets. When you aren’t cooking you just flip it up and latch it in place to provide access to the bathroom. The fridge can go under the counter on the stovetop side and for even more counter space perhaps a pullout cutting board or even a small flip up table adjacent to one of the cabinets along the side wall.
Just a thought!
Great suggestion Michael. The floor plans are of course just suggestions. The shanty can be designed however you choose. There are many ways to change and improve it and make it your own…Kent
Hey, I got some ideas that aren’t specific to the above plans, but which I was wanting to get an opinion on. My idea for a mobile home similar to this is to have a 8×20 trailer where one is trying to max out the height at around 13 feet something. The entrance will be on the side farther toward the corner of the building/trailer. No for insulation i though the sing honeycomb would be great. Then once you walk in you immediately are stepping into the shower/toilet/mudroom area. Here you could put some nice tiled flooring with a drain. This are might be 3 feet by 3 feet. I was thinking a composting toliet could be placed in here with the shower. When you want to show just put up curtains or some kind of hard plastic material. To the left when you enter is the back of closets that go from floor to ceiling. I’m thinking the cealing maxes out at 8 feet. Then going through the mudroom/shower room you enter the kithen which is 3 ft. x 5 Ft. Here you could do as Michael says to use a 2ft fold down piece of wood as a temp. counter that could be folded up. The rest of the space can be customized how you want. Thus, in the back of the home you have the kitchen and bathroom taking up a total of 3 ft. x 8 Ft. of the original 20 ft. x 8 ft. The rest can be used as a living room/bedroom/dining room/tv room/office. Thus you would have 17ft. x 8 ft. to work with. Instead of creating a loft for just a bed, I was thinking of rasing the floor a big to put a king size bed underneath the floor boards. When you want to go to bed you would just lift up the floor boards. Additionally, you don’t need insulation because then during the day the bed acts as insulation. To further use the space under the floor boards I figured this space would be great to store your clothing as sort of a dresser under your feet. This way too the clothes can act as a sort of insulator, but you still have a closet on the backside of the shower to hang anything. Additionally, since have the bed underneath the floor boards that means you have no loft, thus I was thinking you could create like a 2 foot attic space for storage that could span the entire length of the trailer except for the space over the shower and kitchen sink which both would hold water tanks. I believe these ideas would make very efficient use of the space, but I did know quite how well not having insulation would work in a place such as this? For furniture I was thinking just use inflatable furniture to adapt to my needs. Let me know what you think.
Hi Zac – sounds like a great idea and if you wanted you could get the basic shell from Stephen Marshall at Little House on the Trailer as he builds one on a trailer and it is 8×20. Look at the kits page https://sonomashanty.mystagingwebsite.com/kits/ and at the 2nd picture down. I like your idea with the bed and storage in the loft. You might draw this up and scan it than email it to me and I could post it so people could visualize your idea more. I know it would help me.
Sounds like a plan, I’ll have to wait till Christmas break because I’m still in school, but I’ll make sure you sketch something up for you. My only concern was if taking away insulation could have any drastic problems in the winter? I also have the idea of taking a foot off the side of the building for space to have a fold down patio that when travelling will just fold up along side the house.
If you’re elderly, try a daybed. Store wardrobe and possessions under the bed. Store extra blankets in pillow cases on top of the bed. Coat hook near the front door.
In the kitchen: Place the sink, along with a single lower cupboard, against “one” of the bathroom walls. For more counter space, try a large cutting board over the entire sink as well as a pull-out cutting board. Store dishes and glasses vertically on a narrow shelf over the sink – use mug hooks beneath the lower shelf. Try a small fridge under the sink. Store a portable stove top, pans, dry goods and a utensil jar in the lower cupboard.
Try one-pot recipes. Use a pan as a bowl and a mug as a measuring cup. It’s okay to eat or entertain with your plate in your lap. Hide dirty dishes in the sink under the large cutting board. Dry dishes on a towel on the counter. Dry dish towels on hooks on the inside of the cupboard door.
A thick towel over the counter works well as an ironing board. Iron your outfit the night before and use one hanger.
In the bathroom: Try a towel/cosmetic cupboard over the toilet. Try a full-length mirror and towel/clothing hooks on the inside of the bathroom door. Have the door open onto the remaining empty kitchen wall.
For spaciousness: Vaulted ceiling, recessed lights, more windows, arched windows at the peaks of the house, glass front door, deep window sills. Skylights for longer-lasting daylight and summer ventilation. Computer notebook for all media.
Would you have a drawing for running electrial wiring and panel box, and running all of the plumbing.
No electrical is not included in these plans.
Just wanted to say love love love your house. Are the plans still for sale? I’m thinking of purchasing these plans. I really like the quality of workmanship. My goal is a log home…tiny house. I have a wonderful builder and I think I’d really like him to build the Whidbey tiny house. However I saw an article where a gentleman built something similar to your house. He lived there for several years and built his home mortgage free. Thanks again I love your tiny house.
Hi Kent,
My family is doing some initial tiny house investigation and visiting different sites/blogs of knowledgeable people like yourself to see if it’s possible/probable/doable with our situation in life.
Here’s our situation:
My husband (lucky for us) has a good job in a large construction management company. He’s good at his job and for the most part he really likes it. It gets the week to week bills paid however we’re far from being able to really pay off any debt let alone save for the future. We’re also highly encouraged by his company not to purchase a house because we move about every 2-3 years. As you can imagine I’m more than fed up with seeing sometimes as much as half (yes that’s correct… we’re living in CA right now) of our family’s income going towards rent each month. We usually only get between a month and two weeks notice before we’re told we’re moving to another state. This doesn’t give us a lot of time as you can imagine to research living codes etc. or plead for any changes to laws/codes.
Another hurdle:
We have two children right now and plan on having two more in the next 2-6 years. So that means six people in our household. My thought is building perhaps two houses (with two of the largest size trailers 24 ft long) on wheels, one for sleeping equipped with two lofts a large slide out bed, large closet/ shelving space for clothing and a bathroom. The second house would be used as the kitchen, convertible living room, diningroom and studio/office.
I’ve been researching the past week or so and haven’t found anyone living the type of lifestyle we have (moving as frequently as we do). A lot of the tiny houses I stumble upon on online the owners use them as more of a weekend house or summer house or they only live in it a few years before they purchase a larger home or they’re either a single person, a couple or a couple with 1 maybe two very small children. If we do this I want to do it permanently.
I’m wondering if you have any advice for me? Anyone else I should contact? Cautionary tales/information or words of wisdom would really be appreciated.
Thanks so much!