How Firm a Foundation?

One of the first questions you need to ask yourself when planning a tiny house is one of foundation.  Where are you putting this thing?  Do you have land?  Or are you setting it somewhere temporarily, to move somewhere else later?

The answer to this question is an important one, because it helps determine the shape, size, and layout of your home, and everything that goes into it.  If you have land, are you setting your home on a basement, a half-basement, a so-called crawl space, a slab, or on padstones/pilings/footings?  Land allows you to look at making use of buried/bermed construction, a dome-style home, a tower layout, or just about any shape you can imagine!   But once built, it stays where you've built it.

Using a trailer as a foundation for your tiny home is both liberating and limiting.  Liberating, because you can build it in one place and then move it to another -- you are not tied to your construction zone.  On the other hand (and this is crucial), a trailer strictly dictates the size and proportions of your home.  In choosing a 20'x8' trailer as my foundation, I was constrained to utilizing those specific dimensions and proportions.  And try as I might, I could not fit into it the exact configuration of shower I really wanted -- this would have been simplicity itself with a different house footprint.  Ah, well.

Tiny House Design for a trailer must be one of compromise.  Here's what I want, can I make it fit?  No?  Then what can I make fit?  Will that do for my needs?  If not, how can I change it?  (Of course, you might fall in love with an existing plan and not want to change a thing.  That's cool, too!)

More on evolution of design later.  For now, here's my beautiful trailer in its raw form, as I got it from the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company in mid-June this year: 

My trailer, placed just about where it will be located for the next while.  The big sugar maple to centre-left is the one we had a rope-and-tire swing on when we were kids.  The yard was just a simple lawn in those days.  Mum did a lot of planting over the years, and earned a Trillium Award one year for her gardens.  Now it all makes a lovely secluded setting for the Gatekeeper's Lodge.  I look forward to watching my cats watching the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks as they investigate the feeders.