Consider the width of your front door for appliances, bathroom shower, tub and toilet, furniture, and mattress to avoid surprises. Can you imagine if one of the most important things on your “wants and needs” list didn’t fit? Make plans by measuring furniture for small spaces as well.

And how about buying a trailer for your Tiny House. Here are some steps to help you plan a bit more before you get started:

1. Trailer – Is it the length and width I need?
2. Do you have a site?
3. Do I have to level the ground?
4. If it’s an existing Tiny House, does any roofing need to be removed to relocate it?
5. Do I need anchors?
6. Do I need to build a base?
7. Do you have blueprints/blueprints and a builder?

Other tips to keep in mind are to talk to other tiny home owners, attend workshops, and even sign up for tiny home newsletters to learn more. Have you seen the construction plans and do you know what you would like to live in? Some sites have complete construction plans that include electrical and plumbing.

Communicating, chatting, and blogging with sites like these will open your eyes to many things you might not have thought of otherwise. For example, one of the newsletters opened my mind to seeing a bed slide down from the raised kitchen floor. The kitchen floor was about 3 steps up, on the left side I had the bed hidden under the floor and on the right side is where they placed the 3 steps to access the kitchen. How cool is this idea? It would never have crossed my mind, since lofts are what you usually find in a small house.

Instruments:

• air compressor
• Measuring tape
• hammer
• shocking driver
• Nail gun
• Electric drill
• Circular and jig saws
• Table
• carpenter’s square
• Level
• wall framing
• Windows (style, quantity and size)
• Skylight (style, quantity and size)
• Doors (style, quantity and size)
• Hardware (bits, nuts, nails, staples, misc.)
• roof (type)
• Sidings (type)
• Exterior trim work (style)
• Gas lines if necessary
• Electrical (outlets, lighting)
• Heating
• Plumbing (faucets, toilets, showers, sinks)
• isolation
• Floors (style, type)

By now, you will find yourself deeply committed and looking forward to the outcome of all your planning and hard work. Moving on to my next article where we will go over the steps to plan the interior of your dream tiny house. Now that we’re sure everything fits through the front door, it’s almost time to kick back with pride. Everyone involved in making the dream come true will experience the satisfaction of hard and smart work.