A Tiny Resort Apartment

I don't know why this wasn't one of my first thoughts in posting about small spaces.  I suppose it was because this was a semi tropical location with a killer view.  This is an absolutely tiny space.  It was probably a silly use of space in some ways, the enclosed space at the back of the apartment was 1/3 hallway.  There is my prejudice against hallways cropping up again.  The kitchen was tiny and had an eating area in it.  I would likely just omit the eating area and make it all prep space.  The bath was off the kitchen with a sliding stained glass door, and was quite spacious. 

The apartment was in Taormina Sicily.  It was located on a cliff edge and God help them if they have an earthquake of any size..

 

 

 Above the town was(or is) a smaller hilltop village, a fortress really.  As you can see, this was only about 12 feet wide(the metric version of course) and was all glass until you got to the kitchen wall.

There was a terrace on one long side and at the front, that went out to the edge of the cliff with low walls,  It was perhaps 18 feet wide and 25 feet long beyond the front of the apartment.



 

The front at night.  The two center panels are sliding doors. 

 Personally I like French doors better

 

 

The low wall with all the potted plants that are everywhere in Sicilian town homes. There are usually a lot of succulents and cactus plants in infinite variety.  Doing greenhouse like additions, sun rooms, conservatory rooms are quite common in Italy, especially when the apartment is on the small side. 

 

This was the more logical place to have an eating place.  Also, the bed was very large.  We were there in the late winter(an admittedly warm winter in Sicily) and with the curtains drawn, it was perfectly comfortable without putting the heat on.

The kitchen was sooo small, but it did function.

It was completely impractical for long term, but without the table and chairs, it would have been perfectly useful. I think that with the terrace, and with the elimination of the hall and strange kitchen layout, this would be a perfectly acceptable retirement home.

The bath was to the left and back around the blue tile corner. Pictures below...

 

You can see the width of the kitchen and bath.  They were behind the wall at the head of the bed.  The hall at the right would have added a lot of square footage to the kitchen and bath.  Notice the heat and air-conditioner above left.

 

The bath from the kitchen.  The only real kitchen storage was on the right in the cabinet...

Lots of wasted space.  Notice the wonderful swing out round window on the left.  It was painted bright, primary blue and was made of cast iron.

Well, what can I say...the shower.  I love the blue, but so hard to keep the water stains and soap off them.

 

I also did not think to take a good picture of the view from the terrace, but it was virtually identical to this one.  In the distance is Messina, and just out of view to the right is Reggio Di Calabria.(the mainland of Italy)  The apartment is actually to the left and below from this photo location.

 

Unfortunately the terrace did not have a view of Mount Etna, but I could not leave this out of the post.  See the little puff of smoke?

 

 

The settee was also impractical and ended up as a luggage rack at best.  It is, however, fairly traditional.

I will post a plan of the apartment as soon as I have a minute.

If I remember correctly, there was a trellis like overhang at the front of the apartment that would shade the glass in the hot weather, when vines are trained over it.  A Wisteria, Trumpet Vine, Akebia, Virginia Creeper, Grapes, Clematis(One of the big plants like Montana or Sweet Autumn) or annuals like Scarlet Runner Bean vines or Morning Glory. 

 

Looking out from the bedroom.

 

Here is a part of the view to the north.

 

We went to Taormina in the spring of 2008.  It was part of a trip around Sicily, including Palermo, Cefalu, Taormina and Siracusa.  This apartment was on a cliff and on the third floor of a guest house.  The entire third floor was just a tiny 12x12 space, as much as 1/3 of which was taken up with the top of a staircase and hall.  The rest of the floor was really just a roof terrace.  They added on a metal framed conservatory with sliding doors everywhere.  Then they added a solid roof, flat except for a slight tilt for water runoff.  In snowy climates, it would be necessary to do a more extreme angle or a conventional roof.   This could easily house a sleeping loft and/or storage.  Of course in a summer house you need little storage except a place to hang your bathing suits and a single set of regular clothes and a bunch of sandals, sneakers, T shirts and shorts. 

They placed the private bath and the kitchen in the actual masonry part of the apartment, and added the rest in front, extending toward the walled edge of the terrace.  The entire conservatory houses the bedroom area and a dining area.  If they had been a little less generous with the bed size, this could have also had a couch and a couple of chairs in addition to the little dining table and chairs they had in the corner.  Of course, most of the year one would be dining on the terrace in the bright blue wrought iron dining set.  They also make beautiful ceramic table tops for indoors or out, locally, in Caltagirone as well as in Deruta in Umbria. Vibrant blue edges with swags or bunches of olives,lemons, grapes or oranges on a white ground.  Marble is also common for dining tables, often including a "Baluster" or "vase" base and even Roman style chairs in marble.  The floor better be well braced for that though.  You can go to a counter top manufacturer in the US and have a table top cut from granite.and placed on an iron frame made locally by a welder.

The entire conservatory had heavy drapes hanging on rings from rods, covering the glass. 

The side wall of the apartment was the masonry wall of the neighboring house.   

 

My Retirement Cottage Plan

I have been thinking about this for some time now.  Those few of you who wanted more posts...Sorry about that....

I have been measuring rooms here and there...hotels, houses, my own house.  I have been trying to determine just what my absolute minimum requirements would be if I was building today.
I have assumed that a single bedroom would be good for most people, with the addition of a sleeper sofa in the living room.  Storage would come from free standing or self built bookshelves, multi purpose furniture, Armoires, built in bins and chests in the bottom of the one big closet and tons of storage in the attic, that should have good sized windows in either dormers or in the gable ends.  Also, if you need to house a lot of guests, a hatch should be built into the center of the house or in the center of the living room.  It should be beautifully finished to look like a ceiling coffer, that would allow temporary access to the attic, with beds.  One could also build a bath in the attic with plumbing going down through one of the walls flanking the archway of the kitchen into the basement.  Kids would love a beautifully crafted, drop down ladder/staircase but it might not be so good for your 90 year old mother.  Notice too, that there are no halls except the two feet leading into the bath from the bedroom..  Putting a hallway in any house is lunatic...a total waste of space unless you are an art collector and need wall space.  You can build houses of all sorts, that have either no halls or halls that do double duty...good planning and creativity will replace halls in almost all circumstances  I would leave the hall wall that forms the wall of the closet, unsheathed, and install shelves for extra bath storage, decorative bath salt jars, robe hangers etc..

I have left the doors and windows up to the builder.  I think that one should decide what furniture and art will be used.  You should decide on furniture placement, then arrange the doors and windows to fit.  If you are really concerned with the exterior symmetry in placement of doors and windows, try to make nice arrangements, symmetries, then fill in any blank spaces with an odd shaped window, like a round or oval in the wall space that does not fit in.

Use all the glass you can on the south side and on the living room and kitchen end walls.  No openings at all on the north side.(you might even consider exterior Styrofoam insulation between the sheathing and the shingles on the north side.)  Use dark tile or matte stone on all the floors in the living room, kitchen and bay.  This will help to heat the space a bit with sunshine. 

Personally I would fill the south side with french doors all the way over to the kitchen wall, then put in a nice Palladian, round or oval window above the counters in the kitchen wall(south side).  A good place for doing dishes at the sink, though the plumbing run might be a bit long from the bathroom.  Also, if you use European casement or double hung windows over the kitchen counter, you could pass through from the kitchen to a dining area on the patio.

 

 

I have this photo in another post in the blog, but it would also be a good choice for the separation between the kitchen and the living/dining room

Put a patio on the south side, and run a vine covered pergola in timber or welded iron the full length of the house.  Cover it with trained Laburnum, Wisteria, grapes etc. to block the summer sun.  The bump out could easily be a manufactured greenhouse with a glass roof as well.

The small walls either side of the kitchen opening, could easily terminate with engaged or free standing columns in your favorite style.

Measurements are approximate.  They are very close, but depend on the use of 2x4 or 2x6 exterior wall construction.  In any event, the idea is to make for easy and less wasteful construction in multiples of 4 feet.  So, it is 24"x24" foundation size.

Notice the south southwest orientation.  This is ideal for solar gain.

In this house, you are looking at a 24 foot span for the roof, ceiling and floors.  There are solutions for each of these.
 
Roof:
You must have a truss system for this length of roof studs.  You will have to put in vertical posts a few feet from the tails of the rafters to support the length of them and snow load.  I will try to post some optional designs for this in the very near future.  You may also beef up the rafters by using larger dimension boards.

Ceilings.
This should not change too much as there is an almost unbroken wall the full length of the house along or near the center.  If you feel it may be too springy to use as an upper floor, beef up the joists by using a larger dimension of board.  However, do not try to move the wall in redesigning the plan too far to one side or the other, as it is just too much of a span without doing something for support. Remember that this is a load bearing wall, and the door cut into it must have a heavy beam on top of the frame to support the ceiling(upper floor)

Floors.(assuming this cottage has a basement or crawl space below)
This plan requires a beam running the entire length of the house, directly under the wall above.  This beam is supported by masonry posts, sonotube and concrete, steel columns(not lolly columns for permanent use) or good heavy rot resistant wooden posts of a good size.  Put them in every ten feet to be safe.  The beam can be a single beam of laminated material.  You may make your own beam out of 2x10 boards glued and nailed(or screwed) together to make one very thick beam,  Do not try to make this out of 24 foot stock.  Hard if not impossible to get, and hard to transport etc.  Make it out of 12s , 8s  and 10s  and make sure  the butted seams fall on top of columns.
You may wish to use a steel "I" beam.  Make sure that the ends of the beams are sitting securely on the foundation or on columns incorporated into the walls of the foundation.  You can also cut a notch into one layer of the sills to slide the end of the beam in.


This house should easily heat with a fireplace in a mild climate, and a good wood stove on the small side would be a good choice.  It would require a vent from the kitchen to the bath and from living room to the bedroom.  A supplemental heater of some sort would also heat the bath easily.

  

Capes The New England Vernacular

The Cape house started out in the 17th century and before as a single rectangular room(called a hall) with a large fireplace (with perhaps a beehive oven on one side or inside the firebox itself.) at one end of a rectangle.  Early buildings were made by driving the upright posts of the house into the ground and building the rest of the house around it.   There might only be a hole in the roof to let smoke out and rain in.  A fire was kept going on the ground. The clay in the soil would eventually fire into a soft ceramic.  Later a raised hearth of stone or brick would sit on the floor in the middle of the room.  Beyond the fireplace was a narrow hallway or just a door leading in from the wide side of the building at one end.

Later there were two rooms of nearly equal size with a fireplace and a partition between them.  There might be a large cooking fireplace facing one side and a blank brick side facing the other room, or there might be a second smaller fireplace facing the second room.

As time went by, and houses got larger(see note below) the configuration changed again.  The front center of the house would have the door and entry hall.  This would be about as wide as the fireplace mass which was often as big as a small room on its own.
 To each side, left and right, was a room which would be nearly square and extended to the back of the fireplace mass.  The back walls of the two rooms formed a long wall across the length of the house.  A door from each side room would lead into the back room.  This is sometimes referred to as a keeping room. This was basically the other half of the house.
 Along with the front rooms, the footprint of the house was close to a square or a not too elongated rectangle.  28 by 39 was a not too uncommon size. 
Remember that the closer to a square you get, the more efficient you are at conserving heat. 
This last room usually had the narrow end against the wall partitioned off to make a small, perhaps 6 foot deep, room called by many, probably incorrectly, a "borning" room. 
The back corner of the house, behind this room sometimes had a tiny spiral stair with high risers that went to the second story under the roof. 
There was often a staircase in the front hall that had a landing on the right and rose to an upper room from right to left.  It might be exposed, with a newel post and spindled rail or hidden behind paneling with a door leading to the landing from the hall.

Take a look at the Space Saving Partition Walls, posted elsewhere, for simple interpretations of these partitions.

The fireplace would be huge in these back rooms, perhaps a dozen feet or more!  Sometimes they would have a huge beam supporting the front of the firebox opening, an arch of brick or later on even a forged iron bar.  The early fireplaces might have an oven built into the back wall of the firebox.  You would step right inside the fireplace to bake.  When you wanted to rake out the coals from the oven, they just fell onto the hearth.  Often you would sit right inside the firebox on your little stool or chair while working all day.  Later the firebox was a bit smaller, and the oven moved outside the firebox to one side, though the decorative mantle still extended over the oven opening.  The oven often had a wooden door panel just pushed into it to block the heat in(often replaced as you might expect), and later on, they might have an iron door on the front.

There would be a huge panel of cast iron standing at the back of the fireplace if you could afford it, to reflect heat into the room and keep the heat from damaging the brick or stone of the back wall of the firebox over time.  Sometimes they were very simple or they could be great works of folk art with figures and dates cast into them.

One might be surprised at the size of homes of this time period.  These people were only limited by their time set aside for food production and desire to set aside building time.  The lumber was free.  Much of the house was joined using square Black Locust(where available) or Oak wooden pegs, and local people often were able to mine iron and make nails(the only purchase other than window glass if you wanted it).  You could actually build an entire house with just wood.  Only the clapboards had to be nailed on,  If you have plenty of time, even the siding can be pegged on.
Instead of window glass, you could use oiled paper, or nothing.  Often there were wooden bars that kept intruders out and eventually evolved into mutin bars to support glass panes.  Shutters closed at night or on cold days.
Back to the size....there was fuel everywhere early on, and other than inefficiency and drafts, there was no reason at all to be cold.  Fires were small, usually, just because wood was a lot of work, and fires became smaller as towns grew and the forests receded.  Basically, however, if you did not mind the work, you could heat large houses easily.

In Europe, people had depleted the forests centuries before and had to rely on dead, fallen wood for heat. (Forests were often the property of the lord or landlord.)  Coppiced twigs, grape or other woody vines and peat were used in some areas.  You could also burn dung from your animals, though you had to have dry conditions to get it to burnable and low odor condition.  Cold was your constant companion in the winter.

The Cape house was easy to expand into the next big trend, which was simply the Cape plan or an existing Cape that you wanted to alter, with the roof raised up and another floor inserted under it.  You might go without fireplaces upstairs, relying on heat's habit of rising, or smaller fireplaces would be added to the extension of your central chimney.

Thatch was a common roofing material(again requiring no nails), bark could be used in big sheets as roofing, but split shingles were most common.

Siding was sometimes just a matter of filling between the beams with mud and woven twigs plastered over (with true plaster or with a mortar or plaster made from shells) bricks and mortar or mud filling.  both could be seen alone, plastered, or covered over with split oak clapboards.  Later came wood plank sheathing, either vertical, fitting into grooves in the beams, or nailed on horizontally.  Then they were clapboarded over.  Much later came board and batten siding.

Professional house-wrights made pretty regular, cookie cutter houses that were similar except in size, but any good craftsman could build a house.  There were design trends, sometimes published but you could have many variations in houses of the period, that might look very similar outside. 

A Mental Exercise

I generally try to do the blogs as a service to others.  I would like to give others a chance to make a little house of their own as a result of these pages,,,Pages...now there is an outdated term with these days of computer books...posts...that is better isn't it.
I would love to fantasize with you about my favorite form of house for my retirement.  I know it will not come to pass, because I do not have the resources to buy what I would want to furnish it with.  I do have some fabulous antiques to work with, but not in a consistent style.  I have a Sheraton chest of drawers, a pair of 17th century candlesticks , early American rocker,French Bergeres...nothing blends well.  that is OK if you have several rooms, but a consistent style is best if you are talking about this particular project.

 

Even though it is in a palazzo, it is not appreciably larger than the room I am discussing

 



I have long felt that I would only need a house the size of my living room to be completely content.  Well, I was wrong.  I have been researching my needs and wants and this week I have finally looked at a building that gave me the inspiration I was looking for.  I have settled on a rather opulent Palace room in Italy.  Now, I am actually approaching this subject with the idea of using any one style in this type of house.  I like the Italian Palazzo, but this would be a good thing to do with 18th Century American Furniture, or all American Empire, French Provincial or Craftsman.  You choose for yourself.
My living room is about 16 by 24.  I have a hard time decorating this because we have different takes in my house in how to do it, so as a result, we have all sorts of stuff jammed together in an inharmonious mess.
Ideally this should be thought of as two distinct rooms.  Well, I could get along fine with just that, but it would not include a kitchen and a bath.  So, I thought the best idea would be to increase the length of the building to 32 feet, just twice the width.  A good, compact bath can be put into just under 8 feet, and a kitchen in galley style can as well. 
So I am now thinking of my 16 by 24 room for living(the attic can provide sleeping lofts for guests) and the end of the building would house the bath, closet  and the kitchen.  If more utility space is needed, a lean-to could be put along one side of the house for rough storage, furnace etc.  this could be added later, especially if you use a fireplace, electric heat or woodstove.
In many styles, 2x6x8 would be fine for the wall studs, but in my particular style, I would increase the studs to 10 feet.  More storage room, more height for a feel of space, etc. plus I love chandeliers, and they are best with a high ceiling.

In a small building, wall space is critical.  Since one wall will have the utility rooms, one wall,( the North) with possible access to store rooms and perhaps the fireplace, and the third left fairly un-used for balance, that would mean that the last wall would be all glass!
I love light, but I am not so hooked on light and bright as others are.  I would likely put a loggia or pergola along the glassed wall for vines to provide summer shade.

In the 32 foot room, I would like to put a partition at the 8 foot mark, with a center door.  The center door would lead into an antechamber with a door to each side.  One would be for the bath and one for a compact kitchen.  This would end up being a bit under 8 by 6  The anteroom would house a closet against the outside wall for linens or pantry.

The rest of the room might be all french doors along the south and longest side, or a combination of french doors and floor to ceiling windows.

The opposite long wall would house a classical design fireplace, with a door to each side or a wall of bookcases surrounding the chimney breast made of kitchen cabinets on the bottom and simple shelves to the ceiling.  One end of the room would be for a showy bed, the rest for a living and dining room combination.

Make all finishes from the finest sources possible.  Silk drapes, oriental carpets over hardwood or marble floors, heated from below of course.
Sell everything I own and buy the best antiques possible to fill the space, except for dining room chairs and chairs meant for lounging(we do not want antiques for the items that get the most abuse and use).

Above there should be venetian glass chandeliers or period brass or bronze.  All can be had reasonably if you search carefully.
An added bonus would be a very deep bay window in the middle of the glass wall, to accommodate a relatively small round dining table and chairs.
As impractical as this seems, I guess I am trying to emphasize that a small house can be decorated as a jewel box, and you can have a tiny house that can be a source of pride even when you invite the snobbiest people to your house.

Off-beat

There are some options that are particularly well suited for a small residence, though they may not be immediately apparent.  Seattle and some other areas of the country have neighborhoods that are moored at docks.

 

Thank You Wikipedia for this photo.

 

 



There are size restrictions in many of these places that would make a large building difficult to find a home for, and expensive as well.  However, a small houseboat, no larger than an average boat would be fairly cheap to keep at a marina, and certainly far cheaper than buying a lot and erecting even the tiniest house.  Many marinas offer water connections, TV, electric connections and sewage disposal.
If you go to the Netherlands, there are whole towns built on canals and sheltered waterways, including in some cities like Amsterdam.  The barges in Amsterdam are much larger than anything we would be discussing here, and in many cases are truly built on boats.  There are barges and arks as well, and these would be much more stable to live in.  Consider a well designed building towed on canals in Europe.
It seems to me that in these days of tough economic conditions, that it would be easier than ever to find someone who was trying to get rid of watercraft.  Construction on a boat would very likely be top heavy, so do not count on taking one of these out sport fishing in the Atlantic.  Most could in reasonably calm weather be towed to new locations seasonally.  It might be possible to tow for long distances, even along the inter-coastal waterway of the Atlantic, as long as reasonable weather and wave action were present.
Contact your local authorities for information on mooring in lakes for say the summer, your local marina may be able to offer advice on requirements in similar facilities.
An ark would be most likely to fit into our tiny house scenario.  In this, a floating dock structure is constructed of treated timbers.  The framework is filled with foam pallets made for floating structures..  Then a deck is constructed on top, of either water and salt(if on sea or brackish water) resistant woods like Teak(no small expense and a very heavy wood), and a house constructed with water resistant, or marine grade materials.  There are plenty of  materials out there that are virtually impervious to weather, which might not be a good idea or even attractive for a standard house, but would be fine for this application.  Extruded PVC comes to mind. 
One thing you have to remember with artificial materials like this is fading.  Color is very hard to maintain in direct sunlight, so stick with white.  Touches of color can be added on trim, outdoor grade fabrics or stained glass panels etc.  You might explore mahogany, cypress and cedar as alternatives.
Think summer house in Cape Cod, downtown marinas in Boston, Miami or somewhere on The Gulf(if you dare).

 

Thanks to Wikipedia for a picture of an Amsterdam houseboat, though this would really qualify as an ark.

 



Make sure that you build small.  Do something that can be lifted completely off the foundation so that the "raft" can be replaced periodically.  Also, consider bolting rooms to each other so a larger house can be disassembled and pulled off the barge and reassembled on land or on a replaced or refurbished raft.  No plasterboard!  Wood panels, pickled, if you want light colors would be a better choice.

If salt spray is not a problem, you might consider large planters with flowering vines etc trained over pergolas, made of extruded steel stock, welded into a framework or build a lattice of water resistant woods.  I'll bet a scarlet trumpet vine would do well in this environment, forming a leafy roof.  Use plenty of Pearlite or foam peanuts mixed into the soil to lessen the weight of the soil.

A small ark would easily be dragged onto a flat bed trailer and used in the winter or put into storage as well.

In very tidal locations, one might have posts pounded into the mud.  Several feet of steel pipe would then be placed on the bottom of your ark, and slipped over the posts.  The sleeves and the ark would then ride up like pistons in high tide situations and lower down to rest on the posts when the tide is low.  This would be good in places where you plan to be on stilts for much of the year, but still want to be close to the water level.  You would not be inundated during high tides.

I have noticed.

I have noticed a lot of interesting searches ending up here on my site.  Lots of things that I know a lot about, especially about old and antique houses.  I was a museum curator for old houses for several years and worked in historic communities.  Please feel free to email me with any questions you have.    This is a part time labor of love for me, and I cannot always devote enough time to it to answer all your questions in the text, so just ask, and I will help you.
I have a modest background in all types, both modern and antique building, historic restoration, colors and decorating, both modern and antique.  So, if you are getting less than satisfying answers to your questions, please contact me.  anerio@yahoo.com
If I do not know the answer, I will certainly do my best to direct you to the proper person.

Yahoo Article

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/could-live-120-square-foot-162708227.html

Take a look at the article from Yahoo about tiny houses.