I have trouble remembering exactly how we started down this path, but the gist of it is that we had built and moved a couple times, going from a small house (1200 sq. ft.) to bigger to bigger again, ending in a 3000 sq. ft. house with a full basement. After our daughters left home we generally used exactly 3 of the rooms in the last house. I tell this story to people and that seems pretty common, We decided we wanted something smaller, more efficient, both in size and energy use, but didn’t have a firm idea of how that would take shape. Several years earlier, a house burned a couple blocks from where we lived, pretty much to the ground. After it got cleaned up, all that was left were the remnants of a foundation and a 6′ plank fence charred from the fire; the owner painted “for sale” and a phone number on the fence, and it sat that way for years. I thought about that lot occasionally, looked at the dimensions online, figured rough scenarios for siting a house, which amounted to drawing in the setbacks and placing the building on them, on all four sides. Between 2008 and 2011 we weren’t ready to move and didn’t have any extra cash for buying property, but when we started to think much more seriously about a move, that lot was still sitting vacant; the portion of the fence with the phone number had fallen and was gone. Figuring it was probably still available, I started to really work out a plan that would work on the lot.
The criteria that drove the plan: We wanted the house to be super efficient, net zero as a goal, but achieved primarily through efficiencies, there wouldn’t be much roof area for solar so the house needed to require very little energy to operate. The design needed to meet the zoning requirements; I didn’t want to have the uncertainty of requiring variances in order to build the project. I really wanted the house to be maintenance free once it was finished, no painting, no cleaning gutters; I like building houses, but have learned over many years and several houses I do not like maintaining them. And here is a big one, though it would be small and have only one permanent bedroom, our girls would be coming home from school for breaks and we have good friends who visit from Atlanta often, there are five of them; the house would have to sleep nine comfortably. Last we wanted to do the whole thing, land and all for around $100,000. We’ll see what “around” means as we get further into it.
Each of the criteria will be the subject of its own future post, but now I’ll show a couple photos of the lot before construction. I’ll add the plans and a perspective drawing at the next post.
small house small lot 