Small houses fail for two reasons: not enough storage, and nowhere to be alone. Both are layout problems, and both are settled on the plan before anything is built.
Sightlines do more than square metres
The reason MD 1 reads as the largest house in the range without being the longest is that nothing interrupts the view from one end to the other, and the glazing continues the room into the landscape. Where you cannot add area, you can add distance for the eye to travel. Conversely, a partition placed badly makes a compact plan feel like two cramped ones.
A door is worth more than a corner
The moment two people are home at the same time and one of them is on a call, an open plan stops working. That is the whole argument for MD 3 and MD 5: a room that closes. It does not need to be large — it needs a door. For families, MD 2 solves the same problem differently, with two lofts at opposite ends and the living area between them.
Storage is furniture, not an afterthought
The stair is the largest single storage opportunity in a tiny house, and in our plans it is built as a storage unit rather than as a stair with space wasted underneath. Because the kitchen, bathroom, storage and stair come in the same production as the interior fit-out, dimensions follow the actual plan instead of catalogue modules — which is what makes the difference between storage that fits and storage that nearly fits.
Outside counts as living area if it is covered
A veranda under the continuous roof — the idea MD 4 is built around — extends the living space by several square metres in summer without adding a square metre of heated floor. In a mild, dry location that is the cheapest space in the house. On an exposed or snow-heavy site it is used far less, which is where MD 6 and its pitched roof make more sense.