One question seems to be on everyone’s minds lately: How do I build a three bedroom tiny home?
For those looking to take tiny home living seriously as a solution for themselves and their families, a 3 bedroom tiny home could be the perfect solution. Sleep Mum, Dad, and two teenagers. Maybe you want a holiday home that can accommodate all the cousins. Perhaps you want a bedroom for you, a dedicated study, and a dedicate daybed area. Having 3 dedicate places of pause and rest provides a LOT of utility to your tiny home dreams. With the average australian 3 bedroom home costing anywhere from $300k to $1.49M (once you’ve got the land!) and taking years to plan and build, a 3 bedroom tiny home might just be the right solution for you and your family. Be cautious: building a 3 bedroom tiny home pushes all the boundaries of tiny home design, at once. Don’t let your tiny home adventure become a misadventure.
There are two main ways that your 3 bedroom tiny home pushes all the boundaries:
Tiny homes are small. Duh. What’s not so obvious, is how that size impacts the floor plan at different scales, mostly driven by the architectural concept of ‘circulation space’. This critical aspect of architectural design considers how people move through the built environment.Key to small spaces, is using circulation space sparingly. Each piece of space that we give to walking, moving, and stretching, is space we can’t use for other purposes. This is also a big part of what makes the famous Kitchen Work Triangle such an effective design tool. Generally, we try our best to overlap the circulation space of various parts of a tiny home. Take for example, the Ningaloo 7.2 floor plan, and its various parts:
Circulation space for the bathroom – notice how the circulation space is serving the shower, toilet and vanity, all at once!
Circulation space for the Kitchen – compact, not much larger than the bench itself!
Circulation space for the entry, sunken lounge, and stairs!
Putting it all together, we get a nice flow of functions from the circulation spaces!
This study can show a lot about a floor plan. For example, notice how between the bathroom and the entry door there’s no circulation space – this is a great place to add something that won’t interrupt the flow of the tiny home! This is indeed a spot that we often place a full sized fridge, tall pantry, or shoe/coat rack.
What you’ll find is that the longer you go, the less easy this becomes. This is because not all rooms do well with passing a continuous circulation space through that can serve other spaces. Kitchens, stairways, and dining rooms are great for this. Lounge rooms are a little trickier. Bathrooms can work if they are designed as an en-suite, and bedrooms definitely cannot allow passage through to other rooms!
With 3 Bedroom tiny homes, this means that the bedrooms need to create the ‘ends’ of the tiny home. With a mezzanine, that’s two floors with 4 ends. So if we put a bedroom at each end, we have one left over closed end:
When we look at tiny home plans, we find that when we place a bedroom on each of the 4 points, we only have 1 ‘end point’ left. This point needs to be shared between the bathroom, kitchen, and lounge room. Each of these rooms ideally have their own end point. Most designs clearly show this compromise in action. For example, take this tiny home plan:
The loft bedrooms, and ground floor bedrooms, all have their own circulation space end points. Beautiful! But, the bathroom has a corridor through it. Not so bad. The real downside of this design is that the lounge room and kitchen are both sharing the same space! Not to mention the dining room, which I suppose is also the lounge room. This means that the lounge room is destined to feel busy, and not a particularly restful place, nor a place to congregate for the 4-6 occupants of this tiny home. Perhaps this can be mitigated by having a large outdoor deck, or another small room outside the tiny home that can serve as a lounge room. Most 3 bedroom tiny homes follow this pattern, where any 2 of the 3 extra rooms – the kitchen, the lounge room, and the bathroom, don’t have a circulation ‘end point’ and hence won’t live up to their usual dedicated functions and won’t feel like restful spaces. In Feng Shui, this is sometimes referred to as a room having too much ‘energy’.
Is there anything we can do about this?
Well, yes! By placing the bathroom outside of the tiny home, on a popout, we can give the lounge room a dedicated end space, and allow the busy kitchen to take a central position in the tiny home. This makes great use of the circulation spaces, and allocates plenty of space for a lively dining area in the kitchen, which can expand to the lounge room when guests arrive or all the occupants are home:
Add in a deck in front of the entry, and possibly a hanging net out of the conversation pit! This is a very spacious and effective space for up to 6 people to enjoy.
This design has one big disadvantage: The popout requires some onsite work. This increases costs a little, and impacts the ease of future transport. However, for many, it’s worth this compromise! We’ve engineered a special popout system that allows the foundations of the popout bathroom to be supported by the trailer, greatly reducing the onsite work by eliminating ground foundations entirely.
Our 3 bedroom tiny home. Fit and finish chosen by the client. Get in touch to design yours today!
You can check out a full video of this model tiny home here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTibyBG6YQE
The size can also affect the classification of your tiny home. We take a deep dive into this subject in our Exploring Tiny Homes article, but the long story short is: Be absolutely sure what your tiny home design means in relation to the local rules and regulations. Be very careful of anyone offering 3m wide tiny homes on wheels. Despite what some will say, we think it is foolish to suggest that a tiny home can be both a caravan, and a ‘load on a trailer’, simultaneously. Also, be very careful of proposals to build up to 4.6m tall. Be sure you understand the regulatory implications of this decision; you might not be able to move it as freely as your first thought! For tiny home design, bigger is better, generally. For transport, the opposite is true.
Many people tolerate a little risk with the regulations. Be sure that you are making your decision with your eyes wide open.
With lofts on either end, and a lot of built in joinery to squeeze the most out of every room, 3 bedroom tiny homes are very heavy. Be sure to check with your builder that the weight conforms with the limits of your trailer.
The draw of 3 bedroom tiny homes is undeniable, offering a versatile solution for families seeking functionality and affordability. Be sure to carefully consider the size and weight of your tiny home. If you prioritise exceptional design, adhere to engineering guidelines, and make a fully informed decision, your tiny home will serve you and your family for decades to come.
