This is the story of a couple who built a 400-square-foot backyard cottage in their Seattle backyard and then moved in.
Also, they rented out their big house. Genius, right? Sounds pretty smart to me! What do you think? By the way, this story is brought to you thanks to Jenna at Tiny House Giant Journey.
This is the story of Bruce Parker. He’s a Seattle architect who specializes in small backyard cottages, also known as ADU’s (accessory dwelling units).
Bruce Parker, a Seattle Architect specializing in backyard cottages, discusses the high home prices, city legalities, and the potential benefits of building a small house on your land.1
This is a tiny house built out of bricks! It’s quite nice, isn’t it? Being in the United States, it’s actually kind of rare to see something like this… A seemingly new structure that’s, well, pretty small of a house.
Well, the reason this website exists is to showcase interesting examples of tiny and small homes in the hopes that it is entertaining for you and that it will somehow and in some way inspire more small homes to actually be built. Cool, right? So this is the Wentworthville Granny Flat Tiny House in Australia by 5 Star Granny Flats. Enjoy!
This is one couple’s fisherman’s tiny cottage in Ballard. It’s a backyard tiny home they built which was featured over at the Seattle Backyard Cottage blog. I love backyard tiny homes like this because they’re a wonderful way to (legally) get more small and tiny houses built.
This home is bigger than it looks! But even at 1,100 square feet, it’s actually still considered a small house for a lot of people and I thought maybe you may still enjoy it? If not, head back to the tiny house section!
But since tiny doesn’t work for everyone (and life constantly changes), I think it’s important for us to explore small homes too! That’s why I started The Small House Newsletter (and we’ve had a small house section for years). So this is the Columbia City Cottage. It was designed for a family of four and includes three bedrooms and two bathrooms. What do you think?
This is the story of an 800-square-foot cottage in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood. It was built thanks to a new ordinance which allowed small backyard cottages. It was built by a family who wanted grandpa to get to be closer to his grandchildren. Pretty cool, right? It’s the Magnolia Backyard Cottage by Microhouse.
Ben and January live in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood and were excited when a new Seattle ordinance allowed them to build a backyard cottage behind their home. “We wanted to build a place for my father to live when he retired, so he could be closer to his grandchildren Leo and Francis.” Said January. In the near term they planned to rent the cottage and ultimately decided to use it as a vacation rental through VRBO. This has proven to be quite successful helping fund the construction of the cottage.
Jon and Rita wanted to build a recording studio that would also serve as a guest cottage for friends and family. We worked with them and an acoustical engineer to create a simple yet elegant backyard cottage. The cottage contains the recording studio, a kitchen, bath and a loft like bedroom.
