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 corner, the backyard cottage actually faces the side street. Smallworks Studios/Laneway Housing designed the cottage in a traditional style so it would fit in with the streetscape of the established neighborhood.

The cottage has a gable-roofed storey-and-a-half design with two bedrooms in 670 ft² (62.2 m²) of floor space. The open living space on the ground floor has just enough of an L shape to tuck the kitchen a bit back so you don’t really see it from the sitting area. The jog in the floor plan makes room for a small inset front porch. The front door opens just off the kitchen, and a narrow coat closet was included at the end of the kitchen cabinets. The ground floor also has a powder room and a laundry closet under the stairs.

At the top of the stairs there is a nice little home office nook with built-in desk and storage. Down a short hallway are the bathroom, master bedroom, and a second bedroom which is very small but would be fine for a nursery or occasional guest use. It might also work for a young child if the home office space was turned into a play area instead. All the doors on the upper level are space-saving pocket doors.

If you’d like to stay in this laneway house while visiting Vancouver, you can rent it through Airbnb.

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Photographs courtesy of Smallworks Studios/Laneway Housing and The Cypress Laneway House / Airbnb.

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