Gorgeous Extra-Tall Tiny Home + Legal Definitions You Need to Know

What I enjoy about tiny homes, it's such a game of inches. So much more than a big building because you've got like door swings and cabinets and where am I going to fit and can I get around the toilet and is the appliance going to fit in that door and can you open the appliance door or is the drawer on the washing machine going to be able to open or is it going to hit the bypass door. That's probably what I enjoy most is just kind of the puzzle of it all and just kind of stepping back when it's all done and it's like wow, like everything works as it should. Hello, I'm Peter Kingma. I'm the operations manager for West Coast Homes and we are in Linden, Washington. At West Coast Homes we mainly do residential construction. We do park models, tiny homes, modular homes, ADUs, you name it, we got it. This is our San Juan model. It's our most popular model and the dimensions are 400 square feet. That's kind of the limit of park model square footage that's allowed but it has a pretty sizable loft above it that doesn't count towards your square footage because it's less than a five foot ceiling height. So at the roof, this widest point is just under 16 feet and also from the ground to the top of the roof is just under 16 feet and why that is is because there's some different classifications on load sizes that the state has. If you're under 16 by 16, you're a super load and then you only need two pilot cars and there's not too much red tape but if you go over that you become a super max load and then you need state patrol escorts. Some municipalities will make you run only at nighttime hours so it just gets a little trickier to transport them when they're that big. And then the walls at the widest point are 13'6". Overall unit's 32'3". From front to back with a 10 foot deck off the back so overall is 42'3". We do metal roofing. It's like a standing seam system so it's all concealed fasteners. You don't have any screws that are going to leak after four or five years in the sun. Come on in guys, come on inside. Welcome inside. This is 400 square feet of awesomeness. That doesn't include the loft. This is our San Juan model. When it was designed I guess we kind of envisioned it somewhere with a sweet view. So lots of glass, lots of open windows, high ceilings in the living room. Try and make 400 square feet feel as big as we can. Here in the living room we go with a 9 foot ceiling in here and then a lot of extra transom windows above the regular windows just to let as much natural light in as we can. Typically we do a gas fireplace in them as well with a really nice fur mantle. This customer wanted some boho chic feel vibe tiles so that's what we came up with for her. The living room's quite big actually, 11 feet wide, about 13 feet deep. You can fit full-size furniture in here like a sofa and a chair. Another cool feature is the covered deck right outside the living room so you can open up the French door, the sliding doors and morph into the outdoors and it makes the space feel even bigger and more usable. In the kitchen over here we do more of a galley style kitchen that seems to work the best with the space that we have. We work with a local cabinet maker that does some really high quality cabinets for us. It's all these really nice soft close stuff so you can't slam it no matter how hard you close it, which is pretty cool. 18 inch dishwasher, we can do a full-size one too, you just get a little smaller tray cabinet. This client went with a farmhouse sink, it's not our typical but like I said you can kind of pick whatever fixtures you want to do. They went with a standard range. Another thing, a lot of park models out there don't have full-size appliances, which we do. This one has a schmag stove or range they call it and it's stuff like this and also like added cabinetry and islands and stuff that add cost to the unit but we usually leave that up to the client. Our units don't have to come with that, it's usually not included in our base price but you can get a lot more of an affordable functional range for a much less cost. It's just these clients wanted this one. And a nice microwave and then our fridges we do typically get a little smaller than like your standard size fridge but still a pretty large fridge and freezer. A lot of people walk in here and are blown away by the beam tongue and groove look that we have in the ceiling throughout basically the whole underside of the loft area. It just gives it a really cozy cabiny feel and our carpenters do a pretty good work with all their beam work and stuff. It's pretty nice woodwork so we're pretty proud of it. And then these clients opted to go with our movable island. So it's on casters, you can kind of roll it around, whatever you're kind of feeling in the kitchen you know. It's got storage on this side and then you can also have this side open for dining. Take a seat, tuck your legs under there so it kind of serves as a sweet little table. And then yeah you can like roll it and it's all at the same height so it butts in nice. Kind of whatever you want to do type thing or serve off of it. These people went with the coffee bar. There's a few different layouts. Some people do like a counter across the whole thing with uppers. Some people like the pantry and they just do all shelves. These clients opted to do an all-in-one washer dryer combo in here. Typically we do it in the master bedroom closet but we can do it here too. We kind of let clients choose. Just put the plumbing rough in on the other side of the wall so it's not that big a deal. It's got some nice drawers, make it a little more easy to get stuff out of it. Up in the loft we've got a bedroom and a little TV room. You could also use it for storage, whatever. You could make it a studio, you could make it a gym if you were really short. The loft has to be just below five feet of ceiling height so if you're short it's awesome. If you're tall you kind of have to hunch over a little bit. But it's totally functional and the stairs is pretty normal to walk up. It's got plenty of headroom up the stairwell. The bathroom. These are always fun. They're quite small in the sense of what typical bathrooms are. We try to pack everything in there but I think we do some good creative ideas. Let's start with the medicine cabinets. We do one up here. It's got some built-in shelving with a mirror in the door so you kind of don't waste that space. And then another cool thing that most vanities are just doors. But these are drawers and we've kind of notched them around the plumbing so that you can actually put your toothbrush and your toothpaste. So it's a lot more usable storage than trying to fish in there with doors. Regular toilet and we do like a built-in towel storage cabinet. That's optional so some people like a little bit of a bigger shower. But these people wanted the storage. We do a full tile shower. Really nice. And we do like a full hydro block water barrier behind all the tile. Fully waterproof pan with curb and all that so it's super bomber. It's not going to leak. It's not going to give any issues. And then the fancy handheld Mr. Thingymajoo so you can get yourself wherever you need to get washed. We do a frameless glass door. Standard. It's going to go in or out. So yeah you got to think about like clearance toilet. We've had it before where the clients want a bigger door or they want a bigger toilet. But then you can't open the door or you can only go in. So and then we've got another medicine cabinet here in the wall. And then some towel hooks and bars behind the door that are out of the way nicely for people to dry towels. And then we've done like heated floors in them. We've done like all our bathrooms come with a toe kick heater typically in the bathroom. So your toes are nice and toasty when you get out of the shower. You know all the fancy comforts. But then again you don't need all that stuff either. So this is a bedroom. It's quite big. This is a queen size bed. Enough room to walk all the way around it. So it makes it easy to make the bed once you get up in the morning. This customer went with side tables, built-ins. Not included in our standard models. A lot of people bring their own nightstands or whatnot. Lots of windows again. Lots of light in. And it's also got this really cool storage underneath. So you can fit a ton of stuff under there. If you're looking for storage that's always valuable in a tiny house. Your park model. Egress window for emergencies. You can get out. It's part of the requirements. Electrical panel. We usually tell people you got to put it somewhere. So just hang a picture over it and you don't have to look at it. Unless you like looking at them. These clients went for some nice drawers, built-ins. This is typically where we put washer dryer combo. Or we've also done washer dryer stacked in here. There's a few different configurations we do for closets. And then this client went with just two hooks. But then it's also quite deep back there. You can fit totes and a bunch more storage back there. But yeah, in the case of if there's a washer dryer there. Then they just take the cabinetry and move it over. Some people do shelves. We kind of have a few recommendations on how to utilize the space the best. So this is a great example of a pretty high-end customized unit. With a lot of fancy finishes, extras and that. Which we love to do for people. But in the next big over we've got our Cypress model. Which is still awesome. It's just more the standard, our base model. It's a very functional unit. It's very roomy. It's in fact more roomy than this. Because it doesn't have a stairwell. It's one level. So you gain a little bit more square footage on the main level. But you lose the loft. But it's sweet. It's got all the same quality finishes. Just not the fancy appliances. The extra cabinetry. And some of the bells and whistles that were showcased on this one. We've done a range of builds. I think our cheapest model currently is starting at $120,000. Something you can live in full time. Once it's placed on your property. And it goes up to as high as you want to go. If you've got the money for it. I always tell people we way over build our park models. Because we like to build a quality product. So if we're going to build something we want it to last. We want it to be able to withstand the weather. And somebody will be able to live in it for 50 to 100 years. If you took care of it. So we don't really like to skimp on quality. Which tends to be the industry norm a little bit with park models. They're just very cheaply built. Really thin paneling everywhere. Very minimal installation. They try to keep them as light and flimsy as they can. Park models are built to the ANSI 119.5 code. They can only be 400 square feet. That's the same as a tiny home. But in a nutshell it's what code they're built to. One's built to the ANSI code. And one's built to the IRC code. Which is the same code as a site built typical house. Municipalities all differ. That's the lovely thing about government. On the rules on what's allowed and what's not allowed. So some municipalities allow people to live in RVs full time. They don't have an issue with that. Other municipalities or counties say. Other places say not at all. And then they have different opinions on what the definition of living in an RV is. So what's a meaningful departure? There's all kinds of technicalities that you can dive into. If you want to permit a single family residence, a dwelling. And you want to live in it full time. Just like you would build a house on site. It's got to be a tiny house. Unless your county is okay with living in RVs full time. I would say the majority of counties and cities aren't okay with that. More rural I think it's accepted. Tiny homes are cost effective. Like I said we can build a unit for quite a bit cheaper than a large unit. It's nice in the sense that you're building them in a controlled environment. You don't have to deal with the weather. You don't have to deal with the noise. And all the other aspects of typical site built construction. And then the flexibility of them is that if something changes. Like worst case scenario they can get put on their wheels again. And moved away. Like they can be as permanent and as temporary as you want them to be. It's kind of this cool movement that is people being creative. And trying to utilize the money that they have to the best of their ability. And make stuff work. But it's kind of like I would say pretty like American. In the sense that it's just we'll figure something out. Like we'll find a way. Thanks for stopping by Tiny House Expedition. I'm Alexis. And I'm Christian. And this is our DIY tiny house on our homestead in Oregon. Looking for more tiny inspiration? Watch these videos. But if you're looking for something specific. Visit our channel homepage to browse tiny homes by category. And don't forget to subscribe. Hope to see you soon.