Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! Technically I have the day off but, given how behind I am at work (something not helped by being sick this past weekend), I really didn’t have the day off.

Yesterday afternoon I had somebody float the idea of creating a tiny house community. After ten seconds of thought, I decided I liked the idea. As I get older I am trying to rid myself of all my possessions so that cleaning up after me when I’m gone won’t be so much a burden. What better way to get rid of 90% of your stuff than to move into a place where there’s no room for it? Assuming a location existed where I could find work, I’d build my tiny house, drive it there, then set up until retirement. After I retire (assuming I get to retire) I can drive my home to wherever I want to end up.

Tiny house living might be a great option for me. Assuming I could find one which has a ground floor bedroom so I’m not having to climb up to a loft each night when I’m 90 years old (knock on wood).

Except...

What about Jake and Jenny?

Tiny house living with cats seems an almost impossible idea. For one thing, I think they’d go crazy if they were confined to a small space for extended periods. As it is now, they like to run all over the place and cutting down their room to roam by such a huge amount would be cruel, wouldn’t it?

And then there’s the smell of their litter boxes. I have Litter-Robots which actually do a pretty good job of containing smells, but that’s when there’s 1,800 square feet for it to dissipate. What happens in 240 square feet?

And so... I guess perhaps tiny house living isn’t such a great option for me after all.

And then last night I got to thinking... unless... what if the tiny house was built from the ground up with cats in mind?

An hour later I had roughed out an idea in Chief Architect Home Designer.

• The home is single-level for humans... but the addition of an upper “catwalk” for the cats gives them far more space to wander.
• Perhaps running a steel pipe underneath the entirely of the catwalk would give me a place to hang clothes in my bedroom, pots and pans in the kitchen, and a place to dry clothes after washing in the living room? No closet required! Just put bins underneath a flip-up mattress on the bed for storage of things which don’t hang.
• To handle the Litter-Robots, why not build a ventilated loft for them? Between the robots keeping the smell to a minimum and cat-flap barriers to keep any residual smell contained, this is totally doable. You’d have to use incline-steps (which lower from the ceiling) for the once-per-week changing of the bags and twice-annual scrubbing, but if the bed flips up, there’s plenty of room for that.
• A removable “catio” that bolts to the back side of the unit adds even more room for the cats to have access and allows them outside time. Just unbolt to make the house street-legal when you move it, then bolt back on when you arrive.
• So many designs have the bathroom at one of the ends. This seems such a waste of potential window space! I’d rather have the bathroom in the middle and have nice big windows on the ends!
• 99% of the time I eat on the couch while watching TV. No need to build a separate dining area, I’ll just create a fold-out table when I need it.
• A couch which converts to a bed for guests isn’t as nice as a dedicated guest room, but it would work in a pinch.

And here we are. Note that I don't know how to make a slant-roof in Home Designer, but that's the kind I would definitely use on this so the snow would slide off. It just has to be tall enough at the front-side for the Litter-Robots, and could slant towards the back no problem. Cat's don't need more than 18"-20" to run around...

Also not shown... wheels. The entire thing would be built on a trailer bed so it's movable.

Here's the back side with the catio attached. Note that Jake and Jenny would access the catio from a door in their loft...

Here you can see the upper track for the cats leading to the ventilated loft where their Litter-Robots would be located...

Here you can see how the Litter-Robots would be accessed from a door in the bedroom. An incline staircase would be lowered from the ceiling, the bed would be flipped up, and the staircase would attach beneath the door. You can also see how there are stairs leading up to the cat track (just as there are in the living room)...

You can see the vents in the cat loft here. I'd think that I'd probably get some near-silent, slow-moving fans to install in each. That would help keep small flying bugs which might get past the screen from entering while keeping any smells blowing outside...

Tiny houses are, well, tiny. There's no getting around it. I would likely have to build a small shed that I could transport with me to hold stuff I don't use that often but want to have handy. I still love the idea of a metal pipe hanging under the upper catwalk so I can hang stuff from it. As you can see from this render of the living room, there's plenty of room for it. Note that the catwalk has windows all the way around so Jake and Jenny can look out everywhere and not feel so confined...

A view from the catwalk in the bedroom for looking down at the unsuspecting human sleeping there...

The bathroom features a full-size toilet, vanity, cabinet, medicine cabinet, good-size tiled shower, plus a closet for electronics and a water supply (plus small water heater)...

In the kitchen I prioritized a good-sized refrigerator/freezer, a micro-convection oven, range top, and a decent-sized sink. You can see the "stairs" for the cats to access their catwalk here on the left...

Here's the blueprints. You can click on them to embiggen...

The best part? $80-$100K and you're done. Assuming there's space where you want to live, you'll never have to buy another house. You can just take it with you.

And it's not so bad, really! I mean, sure I'd rather have a proper-sized house... but if that's not possible, I could certainly live like this. And I'm pretty sure that since it was designed to keep cats happy, they could live like this as well.

One of these days when I have some free time, I'll have to figure out how to slant the roof and add scratching posts and stuff. Fun times. Fun times.