After taking a second look at the Pioneer House I realize that it's not going to work for me in its present form, but all is not lost.
The problems I see with the Pioneer House is it's a bit too small and given it is a European design there are a few funky things like the bathrooms; one was a half bath with toilet and sink and the other was a half bath with shower and sink. Then the house has a formal entryway which is really a big waste of space in what is a tiny house.
What I need to do is to come up with my own design that's bigger, has no entryway and has one full bathroom. I'm going to look at designing a 700 sq ft ADU since the City Of San Jose has removed the school and parkland fees for ADUS less than 750 sq ft.
So how do I come up with an ADU design?
Well, I'll start off by using the Wikihouse components used in building the Pioneer House. But to use those components I need a CAD program and for Wikihouse the default is SketchUp.
SketchUp was free years ago but no longer. There is a free Web-based version but given how slow it is I'm not sure how that is a viable option for anyone serious about CAD design. There is SketchUp Pro which seems to be the program you need to purchase if you're at all serious about 3D design.
The cost for SketchUp Pro is $299 per year or you can buy the "classic" version for a one time charge of $695.
With SketchUp, I can use the Wikihouse components and design my own 3D ADU. Here's an example of the Pioneer House framing using SketchUp:
Now I just need to download a 30 day free trial of SketchUp and get started!
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