Just shy of 800 square feet, this house, sited in the backyard of a Central District home, was built for just under $200 a square foot including the price of the land. The Central District is a residential neighborhood in Seattle located east of Cherry Hill, west of Madrona and Leschi, south of Capitol Hill, and north of Rainier Valley. It is dominated by large lots with older single-family homes and much of it is zoned multi-family. Sarti bought someone’s backyard for $35,000 and built his house there for about $180,000.

Mod and affordable.

This house is pretty simple compared to the Wingardhs Mill House. The ceilings are 14-feet tall in the living room. There are sparse furnishings, lightly colored walls and honey-toned wood accents that create a sense of expansiveness. The ground floor is one open room containing a living room and kitchen; a half bath is near a side entry on the ground floor as well. The open staircase in the living room leads past a storage area on the way up to a master bedroom, a guest bedroom/office and a full bathroom.

Sarti hired a builder and took the better part of a year off to frame, sheath, side and roof. Once enclosed, he did much of the finish work himself. From cabinets to a kitchen island on wheels that slides under a counter to double as a breakfast bar. Minus the doors, the materials are mass-produced, affordable and practical. Plastic-laminate sheeting, modified expanded polystyrene foam (MPS) flooring upstairs, vinyl tile, aluminum windows and fiber-cement panels.

Despite all the custom touches, his costs were less than $200 a square foot, including land, mainly because he did much of the work himself and served as his own contractor.

There you go, do much of the work yourself and your small house doesn’t have to cost $300 or $400 a square foot.

“PRICES for tiny houses vary by region, but in general reflect degrees of finishing, who does the building, types of materials and design options. In general, count on spending anywhere from $35 a square foot for a very basic structure to more than $200 a square foot for designer models built with specialized or luxury materials.

Manufacturers’ prices do not always include delivery fees, and there can be other costs, including site preparation, foundation work and installation of electric, water and sewer services. “You have to go into this with open eyes,” said Jay Shafer, owner of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. “Zoning laws, land covenants, building permits, restrictions and codes vary within states and across the country, and these impact what has to be done at the site, and how.”

Alchemy Architects

BlueSky Mod

Cavco Industries

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company (one of our favorites!)

Cusato Cottages (maker of the Katrina Cottage)

Modern Cabana

“Most of clients for our private houses have limited budgets, for financially modest or average buildings. As a rule, when designing houses we do not have the funds that would facilitate an extensive construction programme, for the building of really large houses. We have designed many private houses where financial aspects were a significant criterion. Financial limits do not limit our architecture.”

“Visiting the site and thinking about where the building will stand is important for us. We always want to give a house a particular atmosphere, and original individual elements. For the first phase of the design, two criteria are crucial for us:

A simple layout that can be modified and adapted in the future in view of new requirements.
We usually work on the basis of an open inner space, bounded by the outer wall and only divided by parts of the load-bearing structure.

A very simple and easy to implement construction.
In a large percentage of the houses we build, their implementation could be described as “assembly”, with limited needs for drawn-out manual building.”

via Arkinetia

Obviously ARCHTEAM excels at designing simple, modern structures using traditional construction and affordable materials that are widely available. All you green builders out there should chime in on how much you think it would cost to build one. The fact that it can sit on a slab is very enticing.

This house is also featured in Mini House Now (New York, USA) 2006.

We will definitely be featuring some more of ARCHTEAM’s designs in the future!

ARCHTEAM

Photos: Ester Havlová

From the site: “This is a blog for vendors and retailers to join and learn how to take sustainable products from the forest floor to the showroom floor. It’s going to take many “gurus” sharing their market experience to push the sustainable agenda along. We consider ourselves a facilitator of those discussions.”

The real benefit of this site for consumers are the Categories they cover: Cool Products, Cool Materials, Recycling Organizations, Sustainable Retailers, Sustainable Truths, etc.

via Greentips from the Union of Concerned Scientists

The plans for this 352 square foot gem used to go for $2,000 and they have been slashed to $850. Not a bad deal. If you are looking for a small space with abundant natural light and good ventilation - check out the C3.

With multiple windows on both levels, doors that open on three sides to working outdoor spaces, the C3 is a functional work of art. Originally built for a NW client, the C3 is now available to us all in a small package that offers simple construction and easy maintenance. The plans spec a fiber cement and metal panel exterior. The question is: “how much can I build one for?”

The C3 won the Best Product award in Apartment Therapy’s Year End Roundup. The C3 has had great press on materialicious, mocoloco, and TreeHugger.

Watch The Story of STUFF.

Forward this 20-minute gem to everyone you know from students to teachers, CEOs to street sweepers - it may change the way they look at stuff forever.

written by Annie Leonard
produced by Free Range Studios
sponsored by the Tides Foundation and the Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption

*the deal about computer processors isn’t necessarily true…

via Materialicious and Core 77 and Lifehacker

Wingardhs Mill House in Vastra Karup, Sweden is “a manifestation of the Swedish ritual of sauna and bathing.”

Well I think they nailed this one. This house probably cost a pretty penny (therefore not an option for most of the people on the planet) but I couldn’t resist posting it due to the sheer beauty of it.

This place is basically a small vacation house with a sauna and an adjacent pool for the post-sauna-dip. I could live this way. How about you?

Check out the rest of the photos courtesy of Gert Wingardh and shot by James Silverman.

Come back often. We will have things up and running in no time. Oh, feel free to comment and/or send us anything you see out there that looks like it would fit well on Small House Style. Email editor [at] smallhousestyle [dot] com.

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