Author Archive

Off-grid straw bale homestead in Colorado

How would you like your own off-grid homestead? This small straw bale house is available and comes with 40 acres of land on Colorado’s Western Slope. Half the land is irrigated farmland while… Continue reading

Trout River Log Cabin

This hand-hewn log cabin is on its third life. After serving as a school and a residence, it fell into disrepair. The present owner has restored the small cabin, preserving a piece of… Continue reading

Cozy 1930 cottage overlooking the sea in Sweden

This cozy cottage just came on the market in Sweden. It is located in Åsa, a wonderful little community on Sweden’s southwest coast. Åsa offers you both beaches and retail shops within easy… Continue reading

Two Birds laneway house | Lanefab

The Two Birds laneway house is somewhat of an anomaly for Vancouver, Canada. Because it is built on a large (for Vancouver) lot of 80′ in width, architect Bryn Davidson of Lanefab Design/Build… Continue reading

Smoky Mountains farmhouse

Alex and Susan sent us these photos of the farmhouse they renovated and now use as a vacation home and rental. The homey farmhouse is located in the Great Smoky Mountains, ten minutes… Continue reading

Lake Tahoe log cabin

This rustic little log cabin sits among towering pines near the shore of Lake Tahoe. It was built in 1929 in Zephyr Cove, a small resort community on the Nevada side of the… Continue reading

A Pueblo-style solar house in Santa Fe

An attractive little Pueblo Revival style home is now on the market in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pueblo-style buildings imitate the traditional homes built by the Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest, who… Continue reading

A writer’s coach house | Intervention Architecture

A writer in need of a home and a work space found a wonderful brick outbuilding squeezed between a couple of grand Victorian houses in Birmingham, England. Intervention Architecture was asked to turn… Continue reading

Tiny beach cottage on Camano Island

An old-timer cabin has gained a new life as a breezy beach cottage on Camano Island in Washington’s Puget Sound. It was originally built in the 1940s as a fishing cabin on the… Continue reading

Tao, a tiny houseboat on Lake Union

Gasworks Park Marina is a community of tiny floating homes on Lake Union, close to downtown Seattle. The full-time liveaboard marina is set up as a condominium. The boat slips are owned individually… Continue reading

Buttercup laneway house in Vancouver

This Craftsman-style laneway house sits in a Vancouver, Canada, backyard. The Buttercup Guest House is one of the hundreds of laneway houses built in Vancouver since its laneway housing program was adopted 2009.… Continue reading

An old stone tower becomes a small house in Hvar, Croatia

In 1761, a group of Franciscans built a windmill on a hill overlooking the port on the island of Hvar in the Adriatic Sea. The passage of time took a toll on the… Continue reading

Wooden Brick House | Jaro Krobot

The old brick house that previously stood on this site was too far gone to save, but architect Jaro Krobot designed a replacement with a similar form. The new house references the local… Continue reading

The Cowboy Cabin | Tiny Texas Houses

A rustic little cabin sits on a beautiful piece of southeast Texas acreage, looking like it has been there for over a century. While the weathered siding and rusty tin roof are decades… Continue reading

Casa em Guararema, a small wooden house in Brazil | Cabana Arquitetos

Perched over a steep hillside on eucalyptus poles, Casa em Guararema overlooks the verdant Itapeti River valley in southeastern Brazil. The pine-clad house has a symmetrical design topped by a distinctive butterfly roof… Continue reading

Sommerhaus PIU | Patrick Frey & Björn Götte

Sommerhaus PIU is a modern prefab vacation home by industrial designer Patrick Frey and architect Björn Götte. Inspired by the Scandinavian summerhouse culture, they created a casual, timeless design that would fit into… Continue reading

Up the Lake and Off the Grid

Margy has written in to describe the small float home where she and her husband live full-time far off the grid and far off the paved road in coastal British Columbia. Thank you… Continue reading

Tiny studio cottage on Cape Cod

Cape Cod is home to many tiny cottages, a lot of which are intended for seasonal use only by the tourists who throng to the Cape every summer. This shingled cottage home, however,… Continue reading

Tiny historic cottage in Denmark

Sønderho is a charming little village on the island of Fanø, off Denmark’s southwestern coast. The village is home to around 300 well-preserved buildings, some dating back to the 17th century and many… Continue reading

The rustic and romantic Firefly cabin

Tucked away in the Cornish countryside, an old carpenter’s workshop offers a unique setting for a romantic getaway. Well, Firefly cabin is actually a recent build but it was designed to have the… Continue reading

A “surf shack” cabin for two brothers | WMR Arquitectos

Two brothers who love to surf purchased a hillside property overlooking the Pacific at Matanzas, one of many places to catch the waves along Chile’s central coastline. They asked WMR Arquitectos to design… Continue reading

A modern cabin tucked into a rocky Norwegian coastline | Lund Hagem

Rocky topography helps shelter this small modern cabin on a fjord in southeast Norway. Others would have been tempted to open up the site by clearing the bushes and blasting away some of… Continue reading

Jardin del Colibri Cottage | Ross Chapin

Conover Commons is a community of small cottage homes in Redmond, Washington. It was built by The Cottage Company, a property developer that has made a specialty of creating “pocket neighborhoods” of six… Continue reading

The Cypress Laneway House | Smallworks

A young couple added this compact laneway house to their property in Vancouver, BC, intending to use it as a “mortgage helper” by renting it out. Because their lot is located on a… Continue reading

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