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Tiny House Design Sessions

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Ready to schedule a design session for your tiny house? Here’s what to expect.

Before Your Design Session:

1. Get an idea of what you’d like in your tiny house and how much you want to spend.

Tiny house design sessions can happen either via Skype or in person at our workshop in North Adams, Massachusetts.  To prepare for your design sessions, many people like to schedule a visit to our workshop if we have a tiny house to show visitors, or look through our photos and videos of our tiny houses and check out the customization options, which are listed in each category from the least expensive to most expensive.  Finally, customers like to get a ballpark estimate from our Instant Estimate Generator.

When you’re ready to schedule your design session, contact us.

2. Choose your Fee Structure.

If you’d like to save money on your tiny house, start by choosing an existing design.  If you love our existing designs, all you’ll have to do is choose the colors and materials: making these choices are free and your design session won’t cost anything.  Our designer and builders already have experience with our existing designs, cutting way down on labor time which saves you money.

If you’d like to make changes to an existing design, we can make a couple tweaks to the blueprints for the Design Alteration fee.

If having a custom-designed house is a higher priority than sticking to a set budget, we can work with you to create a tiny house from scratch for the Original Design fee.  Original designs cost more money because they require more time to design, ensure certification, and to build.

See the design alteration and custom design fees here.  Scroll to “Pricing for Customizations & Alterations” about halfway down the page.

Pictured: Floor Plan of the 8.5′ x 30′ Stony Ledge Tiny House (without dimensions)

During Your Design Session:

We’ll start our design session by finding out how you plan to use your tiny house.  Will you travel with it?  Will it be used as a permanent residence, guest house or vacation home?  Do you plan to host visitors?  Do you love to cook?  Is physical accessibility a priority?  We’ll end up designing your house differently according to whether you need water tanks, whether you’ll move your house often, or whether you’ll use solar power, so we like to know up front what your plans are so we can design around them.

Next, we’ll ask you for your ideas on how you’d like to customize your tiny house.  We’ll advise you on what is and isn’t possible for your design regarding space constraints, conformance to the standards we build to, and maximizing the efficiency and livability of your tiny house.  If sticking to a budget is a priority for you, we’ll suggest ways to get the best bang for your buck (overall, the simpler the plan, the less money you’ll have to spend on it).

When we’ve finished discussing the layout of your tiny house, we’ll go through all your choices for fixtures, materials, and colors.  Sometimes this happens during the design session and sometimes it happens later on, after you’ve received approval to have your tiny house built (more on that in the next section of this post).

After our design session, we’ll spend a week or two drawing up your plans.  From your plans, we’ll create renderings.

stony ledge

Pictured: Exterior and Interior renderings of the Stony Ledge Tiny House.  The interior was altered slightly after these renderings: the two-burner electric cooktop changed into a three-burner propane stove and oven with a range hood, the pot rack was removed, and the cabinetry next to the fridge was altered to make the house feel more spacious. 

After Your Design Session:

When we’re finished designing your customized tiny house, we’ll send you the plans showing you the dimensions of your tiny house as well as 3-D renderings so you can envision what it’s like to walk though your house.

At this point, you may have to show your plans to another entity that controls your land, like your potential landlord or the building inspector and/or zoning board of the municipality where you’ll put your tiny house.

When you’re ready, we’ll have another chat where you can either approve your plans or discuss further alterations.  Design fees include two free alterations.

If you’re ready to move forward with having your tiny house built, we’ll send you a construction contract to sign.  Once we’ve received your first payment we’ll be able to start ordering the materials for your house and building it.

Ready To Schedule Your Own Tiny House Design Session?

Contact Us!

Image: Completed Kitchen in the Stony Ledge Tiny House, showing the three burner cooktop with range hood and altered cabinetry. 

The Coolest Tiny Home Add-Ons

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At B&B, all of our tiny houses are customizable to your preferences. That means that you get to pick all of the finishes in your tiny house. Check out some of our customers’ favorite features and add-ons below.

Solar Panels

Solar panels can be fully installed on your tiny house for as little as $10,000. Grid-tied solar energy offers a great way to live sustainably and you even have the option of selling back excess electricity–a win-win!

Read our blog post on the two most common types of solar panels: off-grid and grid-tied. 

Shiplap

Who doesn’t love shiplap? At B&B, we offer shiplap bare, painted, or stained. You also have the option of having the shiplap on the ceiling.

Shou Sugi Ban

Shou sugi ban is as practical as it is functional. Originating from Japan, shou sugi ban weatherproofs the exterior of a house through charring the panelling of a house. The result is a beautiful, contemporary house. Shou sugi ban can come in a range of colors from lightly charred to completely black.

Futon sofa

Sleep up to two more people in your tiny house through a convertible futon sofa.

Expanded Porch

If you know that you will be keeping your tiny house in a single location, then an expanded porch is a great way to even better enjoy your surroundings. Also, they are great for entertaining!

Apartment Sized Fridge

Living tiny doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice a full-sized refrigerator.

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Quiz: Which Tiny House is Right For You?

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We know: there are so many beautiful designs to choose from and the choices can get overwhelming!  Which is the best tiny house for you?

Click each answer that’s the best fit for you: there are no wrong answers!

What's your approximate budget?

Tow it yourself or have us deliver?

Which master bed configuration is your favorite?

How many people will be sleeping in your tiny house?

 

The 8 Steps To Buying A Tiny House: Everything You’ll Need To Do To Go Tiny

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You’ve been dreaming about your very own tiny house for years.  Are you ready to take the leap?

Here are all the steps you’ll take in the tiny house buying process.

Choose a tiny house site.

For some this is easy: a backyard, a piece of property in a town that allows RVs, or an RV park.  For those who don’t yet know where to put their tiny house, finding a location to put their tiny house is a crucial step.  We’ll build your tiny house differently depending on whether you plan to travel often with your house or it’ll stay in one place.  There are many different customization options available for your tiny house, which often depend on what kind of utilities are available at your tiny house site.

Here’s a blog post on where to put your tiny house, and what to know if you’re thinking of buying land for your tiny house.

One way to find a location is through networking.  Here’s a list of tiny house networking sites: most of these groups are through Facebook or Meetup.

If you’re finding it difficult to find a town that already allows tiny houses, you’re not alone.  In fact, most towns’ Planning Boards haven’t even considered whether to allow tiny houses on wheels: all it’ll take to start the wheels turning (pun intended, sorry) is for someone to ask.  The American Tiny House Association (Website, Facebook) is a great resource for those who would like to ask for permission to live in their tiny houses.

Choose a tiny house model.

Know where you’ll put your tiny house?  Great!  Browse our tiny house catalogue online (there are nine models to choose from) and decide which model is the best for you.  Each of our models is customizable: customizations like materials and paint colors are free, while having our designer change the blueprints is an extra fee.

Most of our tiny houses are the road-legal limit of 8 1/2′ wide.  If you’re looking for a tiny house you can tow with you, check our our Lightweight Models for Towing.  We also offer Park Model Tiny Houses at 10′ wide, the Taconic and the Kinderhook.  Park Models are great when you want a little extra elbow room and don’t plan to move your tiny house after it’s put in place.  Don’t want to climb up a ladder to go to bed?  Click here to see our models with a first-floor bed.

Get your finances ready.

B&B Tiny Houses are inspected by the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association, or the RVIA. Your tiny house will come with an individual seal showing it’s been certified.  Because they’re certified to RVIA standards, our tiny houses are legally considered RVs, and can get financing, insurance, and access to RV parks.  Having this certification also helps when explaining to your town’s Planning and Zoning Board exactly what a tiny house is!

Our tiny houses start at $39,000.  If you’ll use financing, down payments differ based on the financial institution, but they’re generally between 20 and 25%.  If you’ll pay cash, we generally charge 60% up front and 40% when the house is complete.  You’ll need to have this amount saved before you buy a tiny house.

To find out about how much the tiny house you want would cost, try our Instant Estimate Generator.  This will give you a ballpark estimate so you’ll know how much to save.  If you’re not comfortable with your first estimate, you can go back through the Estimator as many times as you’d like, choosing different options.  Here are some suggested financial institutions for getting RV financing for your tiny house.

Schedule a tiny house design session.

Whether you’d like to make changes to the design of the tiny house or not, a design session is the next step. If the only design changes are your selections for colors, materials and fixtures, these choices are free to make; the cost of the materials you choose will be reflected in your final quote.  If you’ll make changes to the blueprints, we charge a Design Alteration fee before our design session (scroll down past the customization options to see the fee).

Contact us to set up a time for a design session, whether via Skype, phone, or in-person.  If your session is in person, we’ll walk you through any tiny house that we may have at our shop so you can get a feel for the space.  During our design session, we’ll go through, in detail, which options you’d like, and the pros and cons of each depending on your location and how you’ll be using your tiny house.  You’ll have a chance to get your tiny house questions answered as well as learn more about which options are realistic for your living situation.

We’ll create a quote for you and send you a contract.

After your design session, our team will create a quote for your tiny house.  If you need changes to the existing floor plan, we’ll create a new drawing: this can take a few weeks depending on our design pipeline.

We’ll review your quote and final customization plan (your choices for colors, materials, fixtures, etc.) with you.

When you’re ready to finalize your choices and move forward, we’ll send you a build contract.

When we receive your signed contract and first payment (if you’re paying with cash, 60%; if you’re financing, we’ll need the payment from your financial institution) we’ll start ordering materials for your tiny house.

We’ll build your tiny house.

shou sugi banOur build schedule varies throughout the year: sometimes we can start building a tiny house right away, and other times there will be other projects in the pipeline.  We’ll be sure to keep you updated on our build schedule.

Trailers take about five weeks to build; your tiny house, depending on its size and level of complexity, should take 6-12 weeks depending on our build schedule.  We’ll keep in touch with you during the build process.

Get your site ready.

Tiny House RV Hookups- Power and WaterThe needs of tiny house sites vary greatly.  If you’ll be traveling with your tiny house and parking it at RV Parks, there’s not much you’ll need to do other than reserve your spot.  If you’ll be keeping your tiny house in one place, you’ll need to make sure you can get water and power to your tiny house and waste water away from it.  Depending on the permanency of your tiny house, you may want to have a gravel or concrete pad poured, and lay water and electric lines.  If you’re going solar, you’ll need to contract with a solar company to have your panels installed on your site.

Pick up your tiny house at our shop or have it delivered to your site.

If you’ll be towing your tiny house, here’s a primer on what size vehicle you’ll need.

Those who do not plan to tow their own tiny house may have it professionally delivered to their site.  Contact us for a delivery estimate.  We’ll schedule a time with you to ensure you’re on-site when your house is delivered, and we’ll answer any questions you might have about setting it in place.

Ready to choose a tiny house model?  Check out our Tiny House Designs and then get an Instant Estimate.

Have Questions?  Contact us.

Comparing the True Cost of a Tiny House Versus a Traditional House

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Tiny Houses at first glance are much cheaper than traditional houses.  However, let’s take a closer look at the costs involved in tiny house living versus traditional house living.

The cost to build a tiny house is more per square foot, but less overall.

Why? Tiny houses are smaller.  The cheapest square footage in any home, whether tiny or not, is empty space.  The most expensive space per square foot in a home is the kitchen and bathroom, which have appliances installed that need electricity and plumbing.  A tiny house on wheels still has all the appliances and fixtures: a toilet, shower, and sink in the bathroom, and a fridge, sink, and cooking device in the kitchen, just like a “big house”; what we’re eliminating when building tiny is the cheapest space: empty floor space.  That’s why the cost per square foot is higher in a tiny house.

However, in a tiny house, the overall material cost is less than in a traditional house, simply because there’s less space, which means less material, labor, and time to build.

The cost of a tiny house doesn’t include land or hookups for water and electric.

With a tiny house on wheels, whether you’re planning to buy land, lease a spot in an RV park or stay in the backyard of someone you’re renting a space from, you’ll need to factor this cost into your overall budget.  Tiny houses can be connected to RV hookups in an RV park or permanently hooked into water, septic and sewer.  If you’re buying raw land (with no water and power) you’ll need to have a well dug and power connected.

Generally when buying a traditional home it’s already hooked up to utilities and is being sold with a plot of land.  Therefore, be sure to factor in not just the cost of the tiny house itself, but the land and hookups when comparing the cost of a tiny house to a traditional home.

Tiny house financing is often for fewer years than traditional mortgages.

B&B’s tiny houses on wheels are certified by the RVIA and therefore financed like RVs.  RV financing can be through your own bank or through a national lending institution.  As an example, as of 12/21/18 Lightstream’s website lists their RV loans up to 84 months, or 7 years.  Traditional mortgages are often 15 or 30 years.  Tiny houses, because of their smaller price point and smaller finance time, are usually paid off before a traditional mortgage.

Remember, though, that RV loans are just for the tiny house itself, not the land the house is on.  If you’ll be buying a piece of land to put your tiny house on, that would be either paid for all at once or financed separately.

Tiny houses’ utility bills are less.

Tiny houses are smaller than traditional houses, which means less space to heat or cool.  Because they’re on wheels, we never know where they’ll end up, so we build our tiny houses to withstand any climate in the continental United States.  Our shop is in a rather extreme climate zone so we understand the need to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  The tiny houses on wheels we have built have been toasty warm in New Hampshire in negative temperatures as well as nice and cool in the Texas heat.  Double-glazed windows, high R-value insulation in the floor, ceiling and walls, and efficient heating and cooling systems used in B&B Tiny Houses make for some pretty tiny utility bills.

If your tiny house design gets big enough, in some cases it can make more sense to just buy a regular house.

B&B Tiny Houses’ longest tiny house is 32′ long (on a 30′ trailer with a small overhang) and our widest tiny houses are 10′ wide (the Kinderhook and the Taconic Park Models).  If you’re not planning on moving your tiny house, “large” tiny houses can be a great way to get some extra elbow room.  When you start going bigger than 10′ x 30′ though, depending on all the other factors mentioned above it may make more financial sense to just have a traditional permanently-affixed home, park home, or modular home built.

To recap, be sure to consider all of the costs involved with living tiny versus living “large”: not just the cost of the houses themselves.