7 Mistakes Made While Designing a Tiny Home

Untitled design (2) (1)

Working with your Tiny Home builder is simply the best way to avoid making the ‘big’ mistakes. By big, I mean the mistakes that will detract from fully utilizing and enjoying your tiny home.

At Absolute Tiny Homes we will work with you to ensure that we understand you and your needs. Working together we will avoid these mistakes and the additional post build expenses.

Rule #1. The position is king, how to maximize your position.

Most people fall in love with their view which often dominates their decision as to where to place their tiny home. Taking into consideration the environmental factors such as sunrise, sunset, and the wind means that you can enjoy your view working with the elements, rather than fighting them.

Tip #1 – North facing home. 

By this we mean, your master bedroom is typically positioned to the east to catch the morning sun, while your living areas should be north (or northeast) facing, to enjoy the natural warmth of the day.

Let’s go a little deeper. In addition to working with the sun’s warmth, we design for the prevailing winds and your privacy needs.

Designing for the wind. 

It is essential to understand where the prevailing wind comes from. The good news is this information is readily available. We don’t want you to have to rug up every time you sit on your deck. For a single home, this reality is straightforward. If you are building a home for multiple cabins, you don’t want a wind tunnel sweeping between the buildings.

Designing for privacy. 

If you are fortunate to have a section that has no visible neighbors, well done. However, not all of us have that much space. Hence this will influence such things as bathroom position, windows, privacy screens,etc. All of which we will work with you to ensure we maximize your privacy without compromising your view.

The good news, you don’t need to be an expert on this. Talk to Michael and he will take you through this in more detail to ensure you fully integrate your design with the environment and maximize the benefits of doing so.

Rule #2. Designed for you, maximize your living

As you look at the different brochures and floor plans, it is easy to see a home and fall in love with it. However, can you live in it?

Tip #2 – Do your own walk through.

For every floor plan you fall in love with, imagine waking up in your bed and doing your usual morning stretch as the day comes into focus for you. What is the first thing you will see, a cupboard, a door, a view (or your blinds)? Get up and walk through your morning routine. Make your coffee, where do you go to sit? Walk through your whole day this way.

Let’s go a little deeper.

Designing for living

Being able to plan how you wish to use your tiny home is a great opportunity to express yourself.  Living in a smaller space forces creative living solutions, as well as the opportunity to show your personality. You can hang your guitar on the wall so you can easily grab it and strum some cords. You can set up a book nook in your lounge. You can decide what can be out on display and what needs to be put away. Once you know what is important to you to have on display you can work on what needs to be put away and look at how you will store it. Pinterest is a great place to get ideas.

Designing for storage

We understand one of the most common regrets people have is not thoroughly considering their storage needs. It is tempting to think, ‘I can sort that out later.’ True you can… However, it is likely to cost you time and money post build. For each room, you need to optimize your storage. This means having a reasonably good idea of how you intend to use the room.

Your kitchen… which appliances do you want on the bench, which need to be put away? Your pots and pans cooking utensils… overhead hanging frees up cupboard space, if you don’t mind that look. Go into your kitchen now and look at how much ‘stuff’ you have and how much space you have to store it, then compare that to how much space you will have in your tiny home kitchen. Grab some boxes from a local shop, one per shelf or draw, and try stacking your stuff in them to see how much of your existing kitchen items will fit into your available space. Then you will have a reasonably good idea of what you can actually take with you. This will help you design your kitchen storage space.

Repeat this process with the bathroom and laundry. One of the challenges many people face is rationalising their beauty and hygiene products. This is a challenge that unless mastered will leave your new tiny home bathroom cluttered all the time.

Repeat the above process for your bedroom(s) and the lounge.

The good news is, even though you know you will have to get rid of stuff, most houses have way too much space, and it is often underutilised. You will be surprised what you can fit into your tiny home.

Designing power point placement

Let’s start with your devices, where do you go to check your phone, check FB or emails? Where is your charging station? Does it have enough power points for all of your (and others) devices? Go to each room and re-enact everyday activities and work out where you want your power points.  Armed with that information we can start to design a home that will meet your power point needs.

Designing your lighting

Your walk through will help you and your builder understand your lighting needs. Tell us where and how you want to use your space, inside and outside?

‘It is about getting the little things right.’

Michael Hale

Founder Absolute Tiny Homes

The good news is, at Absolute Tiny Homes, our philosophy is that we always ensure you have the power points and lighting right from the start. We don’t charge you extra for additional power points or lights. Let’s just get it right in the first place. Regardless of whether we are designing for a family of geeks on the internet all day or you want decks front and back with awesome lighting. We are all about maximising the living space in your tiny home.

Rule #3 – Don’t freeze in winter and boil in summer.

In a traditional home the norm is to install a heat pump. However, not everyone needs one. If you get Rule #1 right and maximise your tiny home position on your section, you may not need to do anything else.

In addition to position, we develop best practice when it comes to insulation. The Tiny Home industry is not heavily regulated and insulation is not mandatory, however we believe your personal comfort is an imperative.

Tip #3 – Don’t by-pass incorporating temperature management methods into your home

If you do, you will end up with little or no natural solutions, your heat pump will in be the wrong location, and you will end up buying plug in heaters and dehumidifiers for winter, and fans for summer. All of which will add to your power consumption and take up space.

Let’s go a little deeper.

Designing for New Zealand’s weather. 

Let’s face it. It rains a lot in NZ.

Consequently, planning for condensation is a must.

Just so we are on the same page, condensation occurs where there is an air pocket and the temperature changes (usually rises) crossing the dew point and causing water droplets to fall out of the air, resulting in dampness and mould in your home.

We follow best practice whether you go for timber, a steel framed home or shipping container. We install the right insulation, double glazing glass, thermal breaks (complete sheets, not just the corners), house wraps, eaves, flashings and more.

Our aim is to combine best practice with a quality build.

Rule #4 – Bathroom design, functionality is imperative.

Designing your tiny home bathroom is often the biggest design challenge. Key design decisions will impact how happy you are with your tiny home bathroom. Crowd everything in and you won’t be happy, plus you will be weaving between the toilet seat and the shower door. It will simply be uncomfortable.

Tip #4 – Avoid bathroom dilemma

Truly invest the time required to understand the key decisions that you are making. Both good and poor decisions here will impact on how you use and enjoy your bathroom.

Let’s go deeper.

Deciding Bath or Shower or both…

The single biggest decision is; do you opt for a bath or a shower? Space constraints of our 10.8m x 3m tiny home does not really permit both. We’ve explored with some clients installing a shower/bath unit (the shower head sits over the bathtub). In the end our clients decided to have a normal larger shower, simply because stepping over the bath edge into the bath to have a shower can become problematic as we mature.

The good news is you can have an outdoor bathtub or shower. You just need to remember to put an external hot tap outside. Then you have the best of both worlds. We won’t forget about your privacy needs.

Rule #5 – Understanding your energy requirements.

Energy consumption needs power. In the case of a tiny home, you may have the following power supply options, to:

  1. Go off-grid.
  2. Connect to local power.
  3. Connect to your local power supplies now and go off grid later.

Tip #5 – Energy requirements, design with the end goal in mind

In reality all, three options are straight forward.

Let’s go deeper.

Designing to connect to your local power supply

If you have power to your section, you can have power to your tiny home. There will be connection fees from your local power provider.

Designing to be off the grid

If, from the start, you wish to be off grid, you can have either of three storage options for the equipment to run your off-grid system. We are taking battery banks, invertors etc.

Your storage options are.

  • Inside your tiny home
  • Mounted externally, or
  • In an everyday garden shed.

The good news is that the whole kit that you need to go off-grid is IV65 rated, which means it is safe outdoor.

Designing to be off the grid later

You would think it would be a challenge to connect locally now and then go off-grid, but it is not. Why, you ask? The answer is simply, we use the same connection port to feed the power into your tiny home regardless of where the power comes from.

The good news is, if you want to go off grid later you can without any change to your tiny home.

Rule #6  – Understand what you are buying, your build contract, its inclusions and exclusions.

It is common when you start looking at tiny homes to do a lot of research. The annual Auckland Tiny Homes Expo is a great place to start.

This is essential, don’t hold back asking questions. Be sure you understand the glossy brochure and the more detailed build specifications. Above all else understand your contract. Be clear what is included in your contract and more importantly, what is excluded.

Tip #6 – Do your research and keep records of what is agreed, ensure the contract is updated before you sign it

When comparing builders and their tiny homes, it’s a good idea to run a spreadsheet that includes everything from price, size, materials, transport, inclusions and exclusions etc. For any exclusions get quotes on them. For example, at Absolutely Tiny Homes, every power point is included in your build cost, while other builders may have a base number of power points included in the build price, and any additional power points will be at your cost. If not agreed before signing the contract, new requests may occur a contract variation fee, which may be high. Don’t be shy to ask the hard questions early and save yourself unexpected costly extras.

Start conversations with your short list of builders. Add notes to your tracking sheet as to what they tell you. Before you sign the contract, go back over your notes to ensure all they have promised is included in the contract.

Rule # 7 – Do it now rule. 

Sometimes we call this the ‘now or later conundrum’. With tiny homes there are a few things we can do later. We have already touched on a few above, e.g., going off grid later, or the perils of not designing your storage now. Doing things later comes with a proviso.

Depending on what it is, for example:

  1. Going off grid
  2. Adding a second or third cabin
  3. Finishing off the painting and other internal projects
  4. Building the deck

Tip #7 – Avoid later where possible.

Cashflow dependent. Points 1 and 2 are totally understandable as they are more than likely cash flow dependent.

I can do it myself. Points 3 and 4 fall into this category. In most cases, I am sure you can do it yourself. If you are good with your hands and you have time before you move in, go for it.  If on the other hand you are way too busy, will it be sitting there for ever waiting to be done?

Wrapping it up 

Moving is one of the major changes and stresses in our lives. With every move and all the best planning, you will do things that in hindsight you wish that you had done differently.

We hope that, after reading this post, you are pondering the big decisions. The ones that will mean you can get up in the morning and enjoy your coffee from your favourite spot. The same good decisions will mean you get home at the end of the day and can relax in the warmth of the afternoon sun and enjoy your evening.

We at Absolute Tiny Homes want to make sure that you avoid the big and, unfortunately, way to common mistakes so that you can truly love and live tiny. Reach out to Michael and make your tiny home dream a reality.

You might also enjoy