Tiny House Planedennig Is Unbelievably Tiny, Still Has a Small Play Area for a Child

The latest build from the established French maker is proof that creativity is precisely what sets a good tiny house apart from all the other. Baluchon boasts plenty of experience on the market, both in terms of turnkey builds and custom projects, but it’s the latter that impress. Tiny House Planedenning is a good example in this sense.

Delivered to the owner last year, Planedenning (which means “little planet” in Breton) is located in central Brittany and serves as a permanent home. It is incredibly small even by tiny house standards, but it still manages to pack in every creature comfort of home, and then some – like a small play area for the owner’s son.

Planedenning was designed for a parent-child duo, so it had to include that very special feature. It makes use of an old Baluchon find to increase available space: taunt netting connecting the lofts at each end. This netted area can serve as anything from a play area, to a less conventional work space, or even an extra berth for sleeping. As long as you’re not afraid of heights, of course.

Access into this 6-meter (19.6-foot) long tiny is done through the kitchen. The house sits on a double-axle trailer, and has spruce framing with cotton, linen and hemp insulation in the walls and the ceiling. The cladding is red cedar with UV saturator, and the interior is all wood, as well. As with most Baluchon tinies, there’s a certain rustic feel to the place, which adds to its coziness and compensates for the restrictive footprint.

Another similarity with other Baluchon projects is in the fact that, while most areas are downsized, the kitchen and the bathroom are kept life-size, to whatever extent possible. The kitchen, for one, features a wood-burning stove for heating (the unit also has electrical heating), a two-burner hotplate, a Whirlpool oven, a Klarstein fridge, hot water tank, and a sink.

Storage space isn’t impressive, but as another compromise, there’s a four-person table with seating and plenty of cooking surface. In a very surprising move, the staircase to the first loft, which houses the parent’s two-person mattress, is integrated into the kitchen block in the form of floating stairs.

The living room next to the kitchen is only big enough for a three-person couch and a tiny table. An integrated shelf to the side can serve as a (mini) desk for a laptop. Up next is the bathroom, with a dry toilet with a stainless steel bucket and chip compartment, the only wardrobe in the tiny, and a shower with a small hip bath. From what we can tell, there is no sink in here.

The “main” bedroom is accessed, as noted above, by means of a staircase integrated into the kitchen block. The area is just as small as you would expect of a house this small, so there’s nothing else in here except for the mattress. A taunt net connects this bedroom to the child’s bedroom, which is just as small and bare, except for a few more colorful items scattered around.

The Planedenning features a Lunos dual-flow CMV and air extractor for ventilation, and Legrand switchgear and LED lighting, in addition to the wood stove and electric heater, and that’s about it. While movable, it’s not equipped for any type of off-grid living, but Baluchon offers a certain degree of customization on all its models, including custom builds.

Without a doubt, the Planedenning is Spartan in features and comforts, but it is also a good example of what downsizing really looks like. Some feel like you’re not entitled to speak of the benefits of downsizing when you live in a proper home that just happens to sit on top of a trailer, which you don’t even move around because it’s too big.

Downsizing with help from Baluchon doesn’t come cheap, though. Prices from the maker range from €50,000-55,000 ($56,800-62,500) for a half-built home, to €80,000-95,000 ($91,000-108,000) for a turnkey one.