1st Floor Remodel

The hubs grew up with 2 other siblings. It inspired me to redesign his childhood home to better fit their large family & guests.

Original / current floor plan

Simple remodel • breaking down the walls with 2 fridges & dishwasher for the lazy family:

I'm not quite sure if there are parts of the wall that are structural though, and assumed there is a structural column by the new kitchen island ...

Our current lifestyle "requires" a desk in the LDK. But yikes! The "great" room, even without the walls, is too small!

So, here's the whole first floor:

Re-imagined with a larger island, floor seating dining, and a separate living/family room:

+ a proper full bath, bedroom, and a sun room to the large backyard

I was also sketching out an accessible ramp to get onto the front porch ...

An alternate version where the washer dryer isn't enclosed which perhaps gives more space in the working area:

What do you think of this design? Leave a comment to provide your thoughts!

57' Semi trailer

Having experienced living in a fifth wheel trailer for almost a year now, unfortunately I'm finding the 42' length to not be long enough.

The hubs has found another solution -- 57' semi trailers! 😅

Bigger office, bathroom, and kitchen space:

Inspired by SpaceCraft MFG

Length comparison to our current 42' fifth wheel

We can probably make it shorter if we can remove the wardrobe at the end of the master bedroom and the dining/bar area can be a foot or 2 shorter too, hopefully it doesn't compromise with structural strength of the trailer. So we can probably get it down to 54'.

Check out this beautiful modern build from SpaceCraft

The semi trailer have also appealed to us as a possibility since the semi truck / sleeper semi can be a roomier mini rv with toilet, sink, and bed to use when exploring a city; roomier than a converted regular truck.

2019 Freightliner Cascadia 126

Layout inspired by Powerhouse Coach, Inc

Initially I considered to increase storage instead of a shower.

But alas, their wisdom is true. A shower would make the sleeper trailer more versatile. A pole can always be added to the shower booth to hang / store more clothes.

Slight alteration, change the back of the sleeper into a wet bath to enable easier clean of the back. (I think we'd prefer a compost toilet over an incinerating toilet.)

Could we get 2 seat belts in the dinette and another 2 in the bed above :D !

And pictures from Powerhouse Coach, Inc

Looks like the back seat cushion can be used to extend the bench to better seat 2 at the dinette. Brilliant.

Folding ladder to bunk above

Ultimately, this exercise may be more of an iteration of what is the minimum livable size for our/my lifestyle. This is close, though in a non mobile situation, another half bath may be most ideal, which in the trailer situation, the trailer has the extra back up bath.

Long House

Long House — 2nd house template from the Lee-Shih House Anywhere collection, this floor plan is for steep sites where it would be more economical to build long wise to minimize building on the steep slope.

This particular site's southern exposure challenge is the instigator for this staggered roof design. The staggering roof line enables south facing sunlight to be able to peek in at the top of each room.

This leads to a 2-story tall roof height at the LDK great room which will enable aerial silks to be hung at a sufficient height for practice.

2 bath, 1 master, 1 office, and a long hallway for storage, bench work, crafting, ...

A more economical, traditional, alternative roof design. Roof design may also provide extra drainage barrier.

Alternative floor plan design. We could cap the end of the house with the office staggered into the hill, thereby giving more space, letting more light in the south east corner of the master bedroom. However that would cap the house and prevent additions to the house.

C House

 

C house — the 3rd house plan for the Lee-Shih House Anywhere collection, appropriate for a generic size-able flat piece of land. This house was inspired by this particular site in mind where it's south facing, the width is size-able and very long. There's a trail at the north end of the site.

The C layout is inspired by the beautiful light courtyard spaces can bring into the home. And perhaps we could raise chickens in the courtyard!

This 1 floor home design is also optimized for wheelchair/mobility challenged and aging in place living.

Courtyard section.

Great space to raise chickens?!

2 bath, 1 bedroom, 1 office, 1 workspace

If the family needs more space to grow into, there's space for a stairwell and rooms above the dining/living and master bedroom.

Though for now, that 2 story space (a la round carpet) would be perfect for aerial silks!

4x4 Camper Van v2021, 19'

2021 v2 — Wet bath entry~!

This might actually enable to us have a clean B floor.

Winnebago's recent variation of camper van layouts each had fantastic components that could suit our personal needs. Here's a full fidelity edit of Winnebago's floor plan that mish & mashes to our personal needs (Thanks Winnebago for providing editable vector files!):

• Seats 6 for friends & family
• Overhead cabinets for storage — above the sofa bed, bench seat, & cab
• Induction cook top & microwave
• Tall wardrobe for coats
• Roomy table to place meals for 2
• Wet bath without the duplicative sink

Note superimposed induction cooktop & microwave.

Full width sliding door opening over kitchen countertop.

Tall wardrobe to hang coats.

Missing fold-down counter extension

Note: spacious overhead cab shelf, roomy bench seat, overhead cabinet above bench seat.

Adjustable, removable table for the passenger seat.

Charging module to allow phone to tilt on the dash for navigation.

Wet bath with closet hanger for wetsuits, open shelf for shampoo bottle

No more fiddly shelf doors

Add fuller length mirror

Bug screen & black out shade mode

Bathroom remodel plan

Since we got our house in 2011, there was always a leak at the master shower bathroom. Apparently it's common to have this issue during transport of a manufactured home. They initially tried to reseal the shower, but it didn't solve the issue. We now have water damage on the wood veneer.

We've stopped using this shower as our primary shower some time ago. But overtime, due to some usage, the water damage is extensive, we should fix it at some point. It is hard to get contractors here in the bay area though -- a project has to make enough money for the team to be worthwhile for them to do.

This is the current layout of our bathroom.
Constraints: the windows by the bathroom are really tall and go to the top of the tub. The window by the toilet is small and high. :

This is what we are currently considering. More like a Japanese wet bath. 2 shower heads could be fun and efficient. The tool we were using didn't have a good version of glass sliding doors so please excuse the exterior sliding windows used in the interior space ;-) . we will explore installing a sun tube for the toilet room. :

the new layout is actually not the best use of space in terms of storage. we currently use our bathtub as cat litter areas. we don't however store very important stuff under the sink, so we could make the under the sink cat litter area. (not great for resale. but whatevs ;-))

open for feedback and ideas~

Dream 19' 4x4 Pop-Up Top Bed RV

After 2 more years of exploring with our Winnebago Travato, we have an updated dream RV design up! Based on Sportsmobile's 4x4 camper van option this our version:

If we are rational, we probably won't get an updated RV until autonomous RVs become available, however if we were to spec an RV today, these would be our specs (some more dream than others):



Bathroom

• wet bath in the back with window + can [pull/separate] hot water shower head outside from the back
• hand held bidet shower if main shower is not removable
• compost toilet (ideally can be serviced from the outside)
• waterproof toilet paper container
• would be nice to combine hot water w heater (i.e. winnebago's revel system or truma systems, although if we don't need propane that would be preferred)
• 15-75G water tank (we got it to 60G w a water bag so storage to put water bag)
• Hanging rack for wet suits (need to be able to carry weight of wet wet suits)
• Ventilation
• Heavy curtain to close off bathroom

Kitchen

• fridge (potentially w separate freezer compartment; similar size as in the winnebago travato 59g; could go a bit smaller)
• Microwave
• reverse osmosis water filter
• maybe 1 induction burner cooktop (or space for one)
• Paper towel rack
• Power outlets
• Both people can be prepping and cooking at the same time

Interior

• electric pop top for bed on top (power outlets at that level)
• 2-3 person couch w seat belts (optional could fold down) + dining table that is usually up (power outlets in that area)
• To allow one of the passenger to lay down, nap, w seat belt on while the other is driving
• Husband is 5’ 10”
• Nice if the dining table could extend out to the driver (extra extra bonus, passenger) seat
• swivel slide recline cab seats
• hanging closet
• A place for a cat litter (perhaps, w air vent/ventilation)
• Winter insulation
• Red LED lighting option throughout (for stargazing)
• Max air fan
• Powered windshield curtains (perhaps)
• Waterproof floors
• Air conditioner (perhaps)
• White/black board
• Mosquito net door on sliding door

Exterior

• large outdoor fold down table (does an outdoor capable induction burner exist?)
• outdoor light on both sides of the long end -- also prefer can turn red
• marine awning (for strong winds)
• awning lights (also can turn red)
• awning style windows
• outdoor outlets (esp on passenger side)
• Moveable ladder
• exterior lock box
• bike rack

Equipment

• front winch
• at least 5k lbs tow hitch
• Wired for L2 electric vehicle charger
• Small air compressor
• Leveling jacks
• Cell booster
• Ham radio antenna cable lines

• Top down camera view
• Recordable dash & rear cam
• Adaptive cruise control, lane following

Electrical

• 960w of solar (3x320w panels) + charger
• 13.3kwh of LiFePO battery (don't need a black water tank due to compost toilet)
• 3000w inverter
• engine can charge house battery while driving
• Power outlets are usable while inverter is turned on

This is how our current 2014 winnebago is set up:

We mostly cook on the fold down outdoor table.