Caboose living

[bobhenry]

State and local laws will vary.

We lost a house to a fire and moved into a 2 berdoom single wide trailer on a beautiful 5 acre piece of property we were able to buy for damn near nothing. The wife, 2 girls, and a son. We bought the girls a seperate RV and I plated it 1 year. Dug a trench for 10 3 underground and hooked up their electric in the dark of the night

Zoning folks and neighbors were upset about our little trailer park but it was just an RV parked on the property so they were powerless. The girls loved having their own home only coming to the main house for showers and potty breaks.

[bobhenry]

Here are a few space saver ideas I have bumping around. The desk will attach to a 3' short wall at the right end of the kitchen counter.

The breakfast nook will be on the front wall just right of the side slider door



The short wall will have a pull out to use the cavity for storage of small utensils, pan lids, skillets and other near flat items such as cutting boards and cookie sheets.

Since the backside faces the mini home office it could be a cork board or a dry erase board for a message center.

[bobhenry]

I like this concept ........

http://www.shelterness.com/space-saving-bed-transformable-to-desk/

[48Rob]

Neat beds, click below for pricing.

http://www.studybed.co.uk/model-range/

[bobhenry]

I was just trying to get my head around the hardware so I could build it !

Looks a lot like standard spring loaded murphy bed hardware.

Nope I don't have $3,000 laying about extra !

[Engineer Guy]

Yessir, those Caboose Plans are lookin' Good! Some random thoughts...

1. The pricey Murphy Bed Hardware reminded me of Hardware on several 'Old School' Hide-a-Beds I've helped move over the Decades. Perhaps a person could score an old Bed at a Yard Sale or Salvation Army and recycle that 'assist' Hardware.

2. Another less-feasible thought I had was to use a small, 'wind up' Spring Assy. from a Single Garage Door, or a Warehouse Overhead Door as an assist mechanism.

3. We can do pretty much whatever we want in the Code-free County we live in. However, others tell me that fixed Building Property Taxes are avoided by keeping Wheels on a 'portable' Building, even if it can/does move only a few inches/yr. [which some folks reportedly actually do].

It occurred to me that excavating a rectangle below a Tiny House Trailer w/Wheels would allow it to sit 'flush' with the surround Grade, and provide Crawl Space for 'whatever'...

The weight of Coal Trains that transit nearby us ensures that there's lots of used RR Ties for sale on the cheap. A person could use them to box in an excavated area. There's also lots of used Track and associated Hardware around for the person wanting to build an authentic support Assy. under a Caboose.

Standard procedure around us is to pour 2 Concrete Strips on Grade to set a Modular House infrastructure down on. It will be interesting to learn what details constitute a fixed vs. a non-fixed Structure. Especially as County Regs change due to folks having to scramble for Housing options...

[Deryk the Pirate]

The bed idea does make alot of sense living in a small place. Im sure the assist hardware could be found online, or play around with some pulleys.

[bobhenry]

This picture gave me another storage opportunity.....





As the dividing wall between the kitchen and bath areas are simply two floor to ceiling stacks of 12" deep wall cabinets. A pocket door would require a wall to slide it into. This idea actually hides the bath until needed. While it does require the opening of 2 doors I think the additional storage is a grand idea and I will not be giving up almost 3 sq feet of floor space to a pocket wall.

[bobhenry]

Here is a bed idea I had posted on another thread.
I am posting it here also to help keep my random
thoughts together......


Those extra heavy duty trucking ratchet straps are
drawn onto a common take up shaft powered by a
manual gear reduced winch or a gear reduction
reversable motor. The straps run over the pully
shafts as shown in the crude drawing and lift the
bed evenly. The cupalo will be designed with a
slight outward taper so the bed will guide itsself
into the storage position. A decorative panel under
the bed will spruce up the ceiling.



I have to thank the folks at " bed up" for the idea !

http://www.bedup.fr/

[Deryk the Pirate]

I saw a bed like that in a french small camper I saw last summer...a french couple shipped it over to tour the US in.

[mezmo]

Hi Bob/bobhenry,

I posted a suggestion RE the bed in the Tiny House Thread this
10-27-11.

See:
http://tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?t=46728

Cheers,
Norm/mezmo