Smallist

Katrina cottages are becoming a hit. Originally designed as quick FEMA trailer replacements for Katrina victims, Lowes decided to sell them everywhere due to popular demand. You can buy blueprints for $700, or get all the materials you need, starting at $17000. They vary in size from 500 to 1800 square feet, 1.5 to 5 bedrooms.

Is it me, or is this woman’s built-from-scratch 84 sq. ft. home the spitting image of a Tumbleweed tiny house? On Treehugger, the commenters say yes — it’s from Tumbleweed plans, but she built it from scrap. Fair enough.

They’re not selling this model in front of Home Depot yet, but it does have a certain charm. Perfect for smaller Roman gods and goddesses, or your lawn mower. More pics here.

Via BoingBoing.

I was just tipped off to this Metafilter post about this tiny house. For that amount of space, it has an impressive amount of frontage, a nice interior, and seems to be quite livable. The new owner has even added a garage. Thanks, Ken!

I’ve covered most of these at some point, but if you haven’t seen some, here’s a nice roundup of 5 tiny prefabs.

Truth be told, 3000 square feet isn’t that small. That would be about six smallcaves, in fact. But it is sub-McMansion, and this new book serves as a beautiful reminder that bigger isn’t always necessarily better. The author, James Grayson Trulove, previously compiled a book on book of houses under 1500 square feet. Whether some of those are in here is beyond me, but Houses Between 1500 and 3000 Square Feet is an unwieldy title for a book, and not the most compelling concept, so I’d imagine there’s some sub-1500 items featured as well.

Via MetaEfficient.

Your house’s on/off switch. Cute! Wire anything non-essential (ie, not the fridge or tivo) to this circuit, then when you’re leaving the house, your job is done. I think the devil’s in the details with something like this: For instance, would it have the unintended consequence of more lights on when you’re home, since you’re prompted to use the simplicity of the one switch? But the design is nice. Get rid of the two ugly screws and you’ve got near-ipod simplicity.

Via Treehugger.

The Delta Shelter is a luxury weekend cabin on stilts, designed by Tom Kundig. On Monday morning when you leave to rejoin the rat-race, simply crank down the steel shutters and relax in the knowledge that you won’t come back to find it infested with teenagers or Blair witches. Unfortunately this isn’t a mass-produced item; it was custom made for the owner.

Via Freshome

After seeing this funny and engaging TED lecture on suburban sprawl, and being in the nascent phases of a potential relocation, I decided to look up livable, walkable small towns in America. This list by ePodunk is promising, although their methodology is certainly eliminating well-designed bedroom communities near larger cities. They basically looked at whether people walked to work or not. Here’s the data rejiggered with Google Maps.

Incidentally, ePodunk is also a great place to find vintage postcards of small towns.

Via Treehugger, an 8′ wide house with solar power, rainwater collection for toilets, and something called a “ground source heat pump.” That last may be unfamiliar; it’s a design which uses long tubes running into the ground to use the Earth as a giant heat sink, keeping the house cool in summer and hot in winter. More at the Independent.