Small House Bliss

Small house designs with big impact

Tag Archives: owner-built


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The Sea and Sky Cottage on Cape Breton Island

The Sea and Sky Cottage on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

photo by Stewart Applegath

The Cape Breton landscape is dotted with small gable roofed houses, often shingled and with minimal roof overhangs. The Sea and Sky Cottage was designed by architect Craig Applegath and artist Stewart Applegath to resemble those vernacular houses. However instead of the small, closed-off rooms that would be found in older houses, this updated version has an open floor plan and a ceiling that vaults up to the roof ridge.

The cottage sits on an exposed grassy bluff with sweeping views of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Bright red shutters protect the windows from the storms that regularly sweep in from the Gulf, bringing winds of up to 130 km per hour.

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AnnaMarie’s Cottage

AnnaMarie's Cottage

Reader Steve Vandewalle has sent us photos of the small cottage he built for his wife. He was able to take a lot that was considered “unbuildable” and carve out a building area just big enough for a compact one-bedroom home…chalk up another advantage for small houses! Steve is a real craftsman; the fireplace, the kitchen cabinets and a couple of light fixtures were all hand-built by him. We’ll let Steve tell you more……

AnnaMarie’s Cottage

After rebuilding two older homes, the idea of building from the ground up was very appealing. We bought the land at the end of our street and I set out to design and build MY idea of the perfect cabin. Building the cabin was such a positive experience that when the lot across the street from our home became available we bought it—cheap, because it was “unbuildable”—too small to install a septic system and the required 100% reserve area. But, the view was awesome. We had to tear out and move a driveway, re-arrange things, and ultimately ended up with a 20′ x 20′ building site.

The structure had to comply with ‘green building’ standards, wildland fire resistive construction standards, seismic, wind, snow load, and slope challenges too. Toughest standard of all—the entire design had to be my wife AnnaMarie’s idea of the perfect cottage.

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Casa T2, a simple copper-clad house in Italy by Antonio Ravalli

Casa T2, a small house by Antonio Ravalli

This small house in the Italian coutryside was designed to be simple and cost-effective. It is covered, walls and roof alike, in copper shingles, making for an eye-catching building that at the same time is compatible with its rural setting.

The house sits on a small parcel whose limited building area was further constrained by the presence of trees. As the client wished to keep all the existing trees, architect Antonio Ravalli designed the house to sit between them. The trees also influenced other aspects of the design. Ravalli positioned the windows to provide views of the trees as well as to take advantage of their shade. To avoid problems with gutters getting clogged by leaves, the house was designed without them.

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Weekend Fun: Dave Fosson’s “ManCamp” in the Ohio woods

Dave Fosson's "ManCamp"

Where we are, the morning air is crisp, there is a thick layer of leaves underfoot, and the days are getting short. On cold rainy days, we’d like nothing better than to stay inside by a warm fire, sheltered by a cozy cabin. Reader Dave Fosson and his son Nic also dreamed of having a cabin:

I was recently asked where we found our cabin plans. The simple answer: we didn’t have any plans, we only had our dreams. It’s been about 3 years since Nic and I visited this site and stepped off what we thought would be a good cabin floor plan. I was thinking 16′x16′ but Nic was adamant that this would be too small. As we increased the size by placing sticks at each corner, now satisfied, Nic began sharing his ‘must have’ cabin list; 1) a manly fireplace; 2) a sleeping loft; 3) skylights; 4) a kitchen; 5) a porch; 6) lots of windows; 7) a metal roof; 8) a screen door to slam shut in the summer. His vision was much more elaborate than mine; I was just thinking about a simple, rough, single room cabin. With nothing more to go on but his wish list and vision, we began to build…

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The C3 Cabin by Vandeventer + Carlander

The owners of this small house on Camano Island in Washington originally intended it to be a vacation cabin. After using it a short while, they soon decided to make it their full-time residence. Given the location and the quality of the space, that likely wasn’t a difficult decision to make. They built the home themselves from a design by architect Tim Carlander of Vandeventer + Carlander Architects. He was faced with a number of requirements: The cabin had to be built on an existing 16′ by 22′ foundation, provide privacy from nearby neighbors, take advantage of an existing garden, and be easy for the clients to build.

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Weekend Fun: Tiny rustic cabin

Tiny rustic cabin, exterior with fiberglass wall

This small vacation cabin is located on an island not far from Vancouver, Canada. Tammy and John wanted a getaway place for their young family. They had initially considered building larger but settled on a 10′ by 12′ size…big enough for comfortable camping, but small enough that it did not require a building permit and would not be a burden on their finances. A large deck almost doubles the living area. The materials cost about $7,000 and it took two weeks of long days for John and a family friend to build.

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Eagles Pass, a classic Cape Breton Island cottage

Eagles Pass Cottage, exterior

Eagles Pass is a small seaside cottage on Cape Breton Island in Canada. Designed and built by owner Stewart Applegath in a traditional Cape Breton style, it has minimal roof overhang, mostly small windows, and classic shingle siding with white trim.

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A low-impact woodland home by Simon Dale

a small sustainable house by Simon Dale

© Simon Dale

Simon Dale and Jasmine Saville are concerned about the affects of fossil fuel use on the environment. To minimize their own environmental impact, they designed their own low-impact home in Wales. Simon and his father-in-law built it with the help of friends. In Simon’s words:

The house was built with maximum regard for the environment and by reciprocation gives us a unique opportunity to live close to nature. Being your own (have a go) architect is a lot of fun and allows you to create and enjoy something which is part of yourself and the land.

Main tools used: chainsaw, hammer and 1 inch chisel, little else really. Oh and by the way I am not a builder or carpenter, my experience is only having a go at one similar house 2yrs before and a bit of mucking around in between. This kind of building is accessible to anyone. My main relevant skills were being able bodied, having self belief and perseverance and a mate or two to give a lift now and again.

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