Tiny Free House » house plan

Pitched Roof Looks Much Better

Michael Janzen — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:13:58 +0000

As I fell asleep last night after posting the plan that just used pallets in their original form I realized a simple way to do the pitched roof. I think this looks much better and suspect it is as strong or stronger than the one I did a few hours ago. I’m also estimating about 45 pallets. If you wanted to have a flat bottom, without wheel wells, you might need two more pallets.

What do you think?

Update: Thanks Dave for the quick feedback. You’re right I did put the horizontal weakness back in. Here is an updated plan. If you look closely you’ll see I staggered the joints in the walls. This should be fairly easy to do by just cutting a few pallets in half.

Update: Added the wheel wells in the elevation plan. Also drew a dotted line showing where the siding might be cut around the wheels.

Roof Framing Plan

Michael Janzen — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:58:35 +0000

I think I’ve settled on a roof design. After playing with several more complex ideas, like some with dormers, perpendicular pitches, shed roofs, and so one, I decided that keeping it simple made the most sense. The only draw back is that the loft will overhang the main room 20″ more than if I turned the loft mattress 90 degrees. Queen mattresses are 60″ by 80″. Turn it one way and the loft has to be 80″ deep. Turn it the other way and 60″ is all that’s needed. The main thing to worry about is headroom so with a pitch like this one I really have to have it 80″ deep… hence the 20 extra inches.

Anyway there are a lot of other benefits with simple framing being the first. I’ll have no complicated hips or valleys to frame and I think the house will still be pretty cute. Dormers would add a lot so I may decided to add them later but for now I’ll just plan on sticking to the simple single 12:12 pitch. I’ll need a few more longer 2x4s, there are over-sized pallets out there, I just need to find them. Here’s a drawing of what I think the front of the house will look like with this roof pitch.

The Floor Plan Is Coming Together

Michael Janzen — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:22:02 +0000

Last night I stayed up late and worked out some of the more important details of how the tiny free house will be framed and laid out. Thanks to a lot of noodling and inspiration from another tiny pallet house concept I landed on a floor plan and roof line that should work well.

This is still a work in progress but far enough along for me to start putting panels together today. I also think I have a way of dealing with the verticle seams between the pallet boards that will cover the exterior. Using a router I’m going to create a half inch lap joint all the way around the boards. It’s hard to visualize so I’ll just take pictures today as I work on it and show you all tonight how it all came together.

I would love your feedback, especially if you know something about framing. The floor framing plan is a bit overkill but I’m trying to stick to short 36″ 2x4s and it needs to be strong enough to hold up with just the 4 RV corner jacks holding the house up. Normally 12′ 2x8s or 2x10s would seem like the right way to frame this… but would something like what I’ve drawn above work? The jury is still out in my head so I’m throwing it out to you. Thanks!