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Design

The Tiny Project

Tiny house designer Alek Lisefski used smart construction methods, including advanced framing and a rain-screen exterior cladding, to build a home that will be as durable as it is energy efficient.

By Alek Lisefski

The Tiny Project house is an 8-ft. by 20-ft. structure built on a flatbed trailer. It’s a modern yet cozy passive-solar design with a low-sloping shed roof, 10 windows, and an all-glass door for lots of natural light. The layout includes a small front porch and a fold-up deck. There’s even a home office and “his” and “her” closet spaces in the loft.

Construction features include advanced framing for decreased weight, double-pane fiberglass windows, closed-cell spray-foam insulation, rainscreen exterior cladding, and a metal roof.

The house has many of the basic amenities you’d find in any house, including kitchen and bathroom sinks and a shower—which are supplied with hot water from a propane on-demand heater. There is a stainless-steel two-burner propane range, a refrigerator/ freezer, an efficient electric convection heater, a washer/dryer unit, and a composting toilet. Priority was given to the use of natural materials such as sustainable bamboo flooring, beetle-kill pine ceiling and walls, marble countertops, zero-VOC paints, and hand-planed custom-built joinery.

The Tiny Project house cost roughly $30,000 in materials to build.

 

  • Designer – Alek Lisefski, tiny-project.com
  • Photos – Alek Lisefski

Originally featured in the 2019 Downsize special issue of Fine Homebuilding Magazine

See four more homes from this Tiny House collection:

 

Tiny House Basics

This compact guest house packs in a ton of beautiful and useful details, including 2 sleeping lofts, a cozy deck, and an eclectic assortment of new and reclaimed materials.

 A Tiny House Inspires a New Occupation

First-time builder Ethan Waldman takes what he’s learned from building his small, efficient home and strives to teach others about the benefits of living small.

New Frontier Tiny Homes 

For tiny-house designer David Latimer, one of the biggest challenges was fitting all of the luxury details into such a compact home–but it all worked out in the end.

Tiny House, Giant Journey 

Jenna Spesard built this rustic little home to cut her expenses and leave more time and money for traveling the world.

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