June 2016 Update: The design I am building has changed once again and will be entirely different from the one pictured here. I’m keeping the new design under wraps for now–hopefully you will enjoy seeing it revealed as it is built!

I’m happy to report that I put the finishing touches on my first “legit” construction project last weekend, finishing up a small deck expansion project. I’ve worked with wood many times before, but I’ve never had the experience of calculating materials, buying lumber, and framing a structure from start to finish. Digging those 48” deep post holes by hand was no picnic, but once the concrete was poured and everything measured out, it was an utter joy to see it come together–so much so that I would come home from work after sundown and be excited to get straight to building without missing a beat. There’s something extremely rewarding for me about the whole experience.

With this project wrapped up, I’m feeling a bit more freed up to focus on the tiny house. I’ve made two somewhat significant design modifications. The first is that I’ve increased the pitch of my roof to 1.5:12. I’m still debating what to cover it with, EPDM (rubber) or metal. I would prefer standing seam metal for the purposes of a rainwater collection system, since this will not leach potentially harmful chemicals into the rainwater. However, I’ve been told by a builder acquaintance of mine that I should go with EPDM in order to avoid water issues at such a low slope. Alek at the tiny-project blog seems to be doing alright with metal roof at a 1.5:12” slope, so I figured it would be wise to at least match his if I’m going to attempt to go that route. I wonder whether the fact that the run of the roof on a tiny house is as short as it is should play any role in minimizing these concerns. My gut tells me it would, but I could be wrong.

The other part that plays into all of this is maximizing the headroom in the loft and the aesthetics of the design. Once again it’s a balancing of priorities. On the one hand, I’d like to have as much headroom as possible within the overall 13.5’ afforded to trailered structures, but I also don’t want the structure to appear tall or out of proportion. Shorter buildings tend to have a friendlier, less imposing appearance. What I like about the increased pitch is that it gives ProcessHouse a less imposing appearance from the front and a more interesting profile and interior, and gives the large windows in the back a more appropriate emphasis.

Part of making this decision involved figuring out exactly how much headroom I’m going to need to be comfortable, which lead to taking a closer look at my floating stair design. I figured out that as long as I have about 31” of headroom at the lowest point, getting up and down the stairs should be reasonably comfortable. The trick in this is making the distance between the last stair and the loft floor larger than the rest–high enough that you can crawl up into the loft without having to duck your head much at all. After doing some real-world testing, I figured out that I was going to need another step in the staircase to really make the trip up and down the stairs reasonably safe and comfortable. I also decided that adding a little bit of storage space under the stairs would both increase the usability of the space and improve the structural integrity of the stairs without losing much visual space.