Small Minimalistic Home

I made a tiny home with a minimalistic design. This design would be good for a college student or anyone looking for a single person affordable home design. I made this because one of the biggest problems especially for young adults is finding affordable homes. The average home price is in the $300k range which for a 24 year old is nearly impossible. So to combat this I came up with this design where someone could put this on a small plot of land for hopefully under $150k or even less.

The only supplies used to design and model this home were Autodesk Inventor and a 3D printer to print the 3D model.

The first step to design the house was to lay out the dimensions of the floor. To do this I looked into sizes of apartments to see some small living spaces. I then took those small spaces and converted them into an actual house to make my tiny home base. I then researched the typical dimensions of a bathroom and showers to fit my shower and other bathroom utilities into one room.

First I made this wall as it is the basic plain wall with no cutouts. I determined its height by looking at the average height of one floor in a typical American home to determine the height. I then looked at the average thickness of a wall to determine the thickness should be 6 inches.

Then as the front and back walls are the same size I used the same dimensions as in the previous photo but added the cut out for the average size of a front door and then made windows on each side to match with the feel of the front door.

Then for both of the side walls I had to design a wall to fit the gap between each of those walls and the edge of the floor which makes these walls slightly longer than the others.

Then I cut out the windows with the dimensions shown in the 4th picture. They are all 4 the same size and these go on both sides of the house.

Next I designed the cabinets inside. First I did the cabinets on the top using the dimensions seen in the first picture. For the cabinets on the bottom I used the same model but from the bottom of it so they were flipped for the bottom of the kitchen. 

For this set though I also built a sink into it which was done by cutting out a square to insert the sink and inserting the sink designed in the 3rd image.

I got all of these dimensions by looking at the average height, depth, width, length of cabinets and sinks.

I then designed the fridge to fit into the space next to the cabinet getting all dimensions by looking online for the biggest fridge I could fit in a tiny area.

I then designed the final piece of indoor furniture, the bed. To do this I found the dimensions of a full bed to maximize the size of the bed while ensuring it would still fit in a small space.

I then designed the bathroom walls to connect it to the side of the house. I designed it with the door on the outside so the bathroom smells don’t come in and to save wall space as adding a door to the inside would eliminate an already minimal space. I figured out the size based off of average dimensions of bathrooms and how wide showers were to help determine how big it should be.

I then made the sink by taking the bottom cabinet from the kitchen in the house and cutting off the other half of it. This left me the half with the sink which fit perfectly into the bathroom. I then changed the sink’s texture to be copper to give it more of a bathroom feel.

I then designed the toilet, finding more simplistic designs for the home style of being simple. I determined the size by looking at typical toilet sizes and depths and then followed those to make the toilet.

I then designed the flush button by looking at the one at my house and getting its dimensions and putting that into the inventor.

I finally designed the Shower using more typical dimensions of shower trying to find one that would allow for maximum space for the user while leaving space for the house.

The final step of this project was to make the roof for the house. To make the slope of the roof I looked online to determine the typical slope of an American roof. This gave me 4:12 to 9:12 which means for every foot till the roof reached the peak it needed to increase consistently by 4 - 9 inches. I went with 4:12 as it allowed me to minimize the amount of roof, and slope which means it is easier to install the roof and ultimately easier to replace it in the future.To get the slope of the roof on Inventor I used the chamfer tool with a distance of 47.56 which allowed me to get those sloped sides for the roof.

Finally insert all furniture and appliances into the home. On Inventor you can put them however you would like to design it but this is the way that left me with the most room for a living space. You can also install the bathroom onto any side of the house but behind the kitchen has no windows which made it my choice. If you are 3d printing this model you can print the furniture separately so it can be moved and arranged in a variety of ways.

The final 3D design I made was made on a 1/64 scale. It was also printed all in one in comparison to the design where you print the furniture separately.