Small House/ Big Land

The NYT carries a story today on a boom in small, prefabricated houses: Think Small.

The writer asserts that people are increasingly looking for low-impact structures that are well-made and can be placed on land they've purchased. This is an idea upon which I spent a good part of December and January dwelling, as I rented various pieces of earth-moving equipment. There are all kinds of great kits you can buy to build small dwellings that appear to be within the grasp of even an amateur like myself. The kits range from simple blueprints to complete bundles of material and hardware delivered by truck to any location you choose. I would love to buy a piece of land in the mountains and take four months or so to camp there while building a small cabin. At the end of the process, you could probably sell it at a modest profit, or keep it if finances allowed. If I could rewind the financial decisions I have made over the last year, I would give this serious thought.

The NYT piece offers a few links, and in my mental meanderings I ran across a few more. Here's a list for the curious:

• Tumbleweed Tiny House Company
• The Katrina Cottage (available from Lowes)
• weeHouses (rotten web site)
• ModernCabana
• BlueSky Mod
• Cusato Cottages (designers of the Katrina Cottage above)
• Cavco Industries
• ShelterKit Inc.
• CountryPlans.com
• Summerwood Products
• Spirit Cabins
• Backroad Homes
• The Wilderness Cabin Company
• Spirit Elements
• Cabana Village
• The Kit Guy

Comments

[Branko Collin]

Sears used to sell kits until the 1940s, although they weren't small. (Search for "Sears homes".)