Wood-Tex Adirondack Cabin

This 16' x 28' Adirondack Cabin is much smaller and more affordable than the Wood-Tex Gatlinburg Cabin I posted previously (see that post by clicking here).   The 16' x 28' figure includes the covered porch which looks to be about 16' x 6'.  That makes the enclosed space only 16' x 22', which equates to 352 square feet.   That's pretty small, but it could be a great vacation get-away, guest house, in-law flat, rental apartment, or even a full time residence for the right single person or couple.  A sign on the inside of the cabin said you could buy it and have it delivered within 100 miles of their Himrod, NY store for $21, 600.  That's less than the price of most new cars.

Front of Wood-Tex Adirondack Cabin

 The inside is divided into three spaces, great room, bedroom, and bathroom.  The big covered porch is effectively a fourth space, albeit an outdoor one.  It wouldn't be too tough to turn that covered porch into a screened-in porch or three season room to extend the useable space a bit.

Tiny Home for the Homeless: Project Update.

Back on October 6th, I began a blog post about a project I am involved with through Rochester Greenovation, in Rochester, NY.  I loaded the post up with so many photos, videos, links, new developments, and so on that I thought it best to start a new post about it instead of adding more to the original one.  If you'd like to follow the story from the beginning, you can click here.

 Tiny House Project sign that greets visitors to Rochester Greenovation.

Just as a quick refresher...  The idea behind this tiny house project is to build a prototype tiny home for a homeless person using mostly materials that would otherwise wind-up in a landfill.  The tiny house prototype itself is a work in progress, but the progress thus far has been more in the exchange of ideas between group participants than in the actual building of the structure.  The merits of various materials, sizes, shapes, heating methods, and amenities have been the focus of a lot of the discussion.  The initial idea of building on a trailer has been scrapped for a couple of weeks now.  

750 Square Foot Seattle Area House Boat

One interesting variety of alternative housing that is often overlooked is house boats.  Today's feature is a very attractive house boat I found for sale in the Seattle area.  This is a small home, but not a tiny one.  With one bedroom, one bathroom, living room, dining room, kitchen,  fireplace, high ceilings, and decks, this 750 square foot floating home feels positively spacious.

Nice 750 square foot, one bedroom, Seattle area house boat.

Katrina Cottages / Cusato Cottages

If you've ever seen a Katrina Cottage,  chances are you were looking at one of designer Marianne Cusato's designs.  Other architects and designers were involved in developing Katrina Cottages, but Cusato's designs are the most iconic.  There are currently 14 Cusato Cottage  models, with floor plans ranging from 308 to 1,807 square feet.  Marianne Cusato designed eight of them, while Eric Moser,  Andres Duany, and W.A. Lawrence designed the others. The number in the the model name is the number of conditioned (heated and/or cooled) square feet.  For example, the model KC 697 has 697 conditioned square feet.

Sample front elevations from Marianne Cusato's Katrina Cottage designs.
All images on this post are courtesy of cusatocottages.com

The cottages range from one bedroom with one bath and minimal kitchen, to five bedrooms and three baths, with ample kitchens and even home office space.  The largest plan still has considerably less square footage than a typical new home built today.  In my view, that's a good thing.  Keeping the square footage down also helps keep costs down, conserves resources, reduces both the literal and the carbon footprint, and is just plain good practice because building smaller is building more sustainably. 

Energy Efficient Folding Homes by Blu Homes

Blu Homes makes these impressive folding homes inside a giant building.  They say that by ordering your home from them, you will save significant time and money compared to a stick-building on site.  The time savings stem from the fact that the homes are built indoors and are therefor not subject to problems and delays caused by unpredictable weather.   Blu Homes aren't cheap, but they appear to be very high quality.

Blu Homes least expensive model, "The Origin", starts at $130,000.  Two are shown here.  They come in studio, one, and two bedroom variations, with dimensions of 18'x24', 18'x36', and 18'x48' respectively.

Once the home arrives to your site, it is craned onto the foundation you had built for it.  Then it is unfolded, set-up, and ready for occupancy within days.  These may be folding homes, but they are sturdy and intended for permanent habitation.