Silo House

This house is designed to be energy efficient and reuse and recycle materials. This tiny home uses the exterior walls, siding and the roof of a silo to create the tiny home. It was inspired by the desire to reuse structures, such as siloes or containers to create unique and efficient homes. While me and my family were on a trip, we came across an abandon Silo and this was what sparked the idea to create this house. This home includes 1 ½ bathrooms, 1 bedroom and a loft area with a laundry room and 2^nd bedroom. Other features of this home are a spacious kitchen that is at the center of the house, an eating area, living room, and an entry area that includes coat and shoe storage. This house was designed to reuse parts of a Silo to be more eco-friendly and mindful of waist. This home also includes solar panels to be more energy efficient and independent. It also includes large gutters to catch rainwater for reuse.

The CAD that I used for this project is called SketchUp, it is an architectural software that is available on mac and windows.

Link to my Silo House CAD model

Do some research on what some silo dimensions you want. My silos dimensions are 17’ 5” width 8” thick walls and a 24’ 6” total ceiling height not including the angle of the roof that adds a little bit of height to the silo. (For all the following steps I will be using my silo dimensions for the examples)

In your CAD model first sketch the foundation in the shape of basic circle mine is 17’ 5”. Then create another basic circle that is 8 inches smaller than the previous circle to create the layout for the outside walls. 

Now you need to make the entry area, so you’re going to find one part of the circle that you want your front door to face and sketch a rectangle. This rectangle should be touching the outer most circle. Then you’re going to create a smaller rectangle that should be the thickness of your outside walls (8 inches) away from the outer rectangle.

Now you need to extrude all the exterior walls to a height of 12’. This is going to be the “shell” of your first floor.

Take your first floor “shell” and start adding 2d sketches on the floor on the inside of the home. After you have mapped out all the rooms, you’re going to want to extrude them all 12’ the same height as the outside wall. All your interior walls should be 6” thick throughout the whole home, only the exterior walls are 8” thick.

Once you have all of the walls extruded and in 3D you’re going to want to carve out the windows and doors throughout the whole first floor. The dimensions of the standard doors that I used are 3’ wide by 7 ½’ tall, and the exterior doors are 4’ wide by 8’ tall. The windows were 3’ by 6’ in the living room and downstairs main bathroom and bedroom. In the half bath on the first floor the windows are 2’ wide, 6’ tall and in the dining room the windows are 2’10” wide by 6’ tall. 

After you have all your major features of this house then you can start to decorate the rooms. First, I started with the kitchen. In this room I created the curved island, and curved counter space against the back wall. I also had to make sure to save room for the appliances and other objects that were going to be going in the kitchen. After modeling the kitchen appliances, I then modeled all the cabinet doors and knobs. The last step to finishing the kitchen is to add the hanging lighting above the island as well as the outlets and light switches and other features such as the sink on the island. After all the features are done being modeled, I then went throughout the kitchen and added texture/ material properties to each feature, this was the last step to the finishing of the kitchen.

Then I decorated the dining room. And the first thing that I did was find the center point of the room and created a circle table around that point with the light fixture directly above. I also added a ladder to the second story and some wall art as well as a security panel. To finish the room, I added light switches and baseboard panels, and then colored all of the features in the dining area.

The third room that I decorated was the living room, and I started by figuring out a good spot for the fireplace to be placed and on which wall I wanted it to be placed on. After I completed placement of the fireplace, I decided I wanted to extend the fireplaces height all the way to the celling on the second story, so I extended it to the full height of what both stories are going to be 24’6”. After I finished the basic shape of the fireplace, I added a mantle and the cut out to the opening of the fireplace at the bottom as well as a tv above the mantel. To finish off the living room decorations and furniture I added a couch that was directly across from the fireplace and an arm chair off to the side along with side tables and a blanket basket. Then to finish the whole living room I added base boards and electrical components such as the outlets and lightswitches. The last thing to do was add the material proterties and the textures to all of the features and objects in the living room.

The next area that decorated was the entryway. Here I added a place to put your coat, shoes, and storage that efficiently uses the space behind the door when opened. Then I modeled a shoe rack on the wall across from that. After I was done modeling each of these pieces of furniture, I then added light switches and a light fixture, and mirror. Then added material properties to everything and was finished with the entryway.

This is the main bedroom of the house, and it has its own walk-in closet and on suit bathroom. To start this bedroom, I designed the layout based on how a king sized bed would best fit the space. A few other features included in this room are the laundry jet, security panel, and mirror. To complete this room, I modeled the baseboards and electrical components such as out lights and light switches. Then the last step to finish the room was to add the material properties of all the objects.

This is the main bathroom, and it features a stand-up shower and two sinks on one large vanity. To model this bathroom, I started with the shower, I modeled a drain and the glass wall that separates the shower from the rest of the bathroom, and then to finish it off I modeled the shower head. I then modeled the dual vanity and the lighting fixtures above it, as well as two separate mirrors. On the other side of the bathroom there is the toilet with a build in set of shelves. To finish this bathroom off I then added textures and material properties to all of the objects and features.

 This is the main bedrooms closet; this closet holds 2 large shelves as well as a bottom organizer as well as a access panel for the HVAC/ heat pump system. For this closet I started by modeling the door to the air handling room so that way I could design the rest of the closet around it. After I finished the access panel, I made each shelf and the small organizer beneath those shelves. After I was done modeling all of the components of this closet I then added textures and material properties.

With the first floor complete, you begin to create the second story. To do this you need to create the floor and make it 6” thick. Then you need to create all the walls and extrude them up to 12’ tall. Then you need to make all the door and window holes.

Once you have the second floor laid out you can then go through and start finishing the rooms. I started with the loft area by creating a hand railing and finished it off by adding the baseboard trim and electrical components such as an outlet.

The next room that I worked on was the laundry room. This room is located inside of the second bedroom on the second story, and it features both a washer/ dryer, a large group of shelves and storage as well as a laundry jet system. This laundry room also is connected to the upper HVAC/ heat pump system that is located at the back of the room. The access pane l for this area is like the one on the first floor in the main bedroom closet. When building this laundry room, I started with modeling the shelves and storage areas while also keeping in mind size and placement of the washer and dryer.

The last room that I designed was the second bedroom. This room features a queen-sized bed with a tv, mirror, overlook to the living room and large artwork with a nightstand next to the bed. In this room I started off by modeling the queen-sized bed, and then I modeled the nightstand to the right of the bed and the mirror to the left side of the bed. After that I designed the tv and tv stand at the end of the bed and the artwork that is hung on the accent wall of the room.

The last part to the silo house is creating the roof and the car port. I started by creating the roof that covers the house first. The roof features a large gutter that goes around 3/4 of the roof. The section of the roof over the kitchen extends down into the car port, supported at ground level by two pillars. The roof features 4 sky lights on the lower section above the kitchen. 

The next to last step is to add all the doors and windows to every room throughout the house as well as the trim that goes around them. On each of the doors there is a yellow arrow that shows how the door opens. Both doors that lead to the outdoors are swing doors but every other door in the house is a pocket door. This is because pocket doors save space and walkways when going throughout the home, so this was one of the major features of the home because of how much of an impact it has on really making the space livable.

The very final step is to do the landscaping and other outdoor necessities. For this step I added the rain gutters that run from the edge of the roof to the ground, outdoor lights, driveway, greenery, garden, trees, bushes and walkways. The final major outdoor aspect of this house added during this step is the solar panels in the yard.

This Silo home was by far one of my most favorite projects when it comes to design and thought process. There were plenty of different aspects of this project that I had learned on the way and used research to help make my design more realistic and accurate. I found that this project helped me think outside of the box and create something that fits normal usage while limiting the materials and space used. There are a few things that I can work on, one of them being my instructions. I think that the project really helped me to realize that instructions are not for the weak, they need to involve a set of steps that make sense for everyone. And I felt that I struggled to find the right wording and format to lay out my instructions. One other thing that this project helped me with was problem solving. for the washer and dryer on the second story I struggled to find a good way to add a vent for them. But with problem solving I was able to create a header that spanned across an opening allowing the duct work to pass through it to the outside wall.