Posts filed under 'house plans'
Kudos to Lowes for selling and promoting “Katrina Cottage” house plans. Small house plans aren’t easy to find, and having a quality plan would certainly make the building process easier. Hopefully more people will build compact homes after they see these plans prominently featured in Lowes ads.
The blueprints are priced at $700, and if you buy your materials from Lowes they’ll rebate the cost of the plans. 3 small 2-bedroom plans are available that are 544, 612, and 697 square feet. Other plans range in sizes up to more than 1,800 square feet for a 5-bedroom model.
I like the attractive traditional style of all the plans, and the 544 square foot one looks particularly easy to build. If that plan was available when I built my house, I probably would’ve used it. The 697 square foot plan is a real beauty.
July 29th, 2007
I just bought the annual Houses issue of Fine Homebuilding magazine, and there’s a house in there that could be a sibling of my house (article begins on page 83). The designs definitely come from the same family tree … both were inspired by the Charleston Single House.
Quoting the article: “The Charleston single, a popular architectural style during the 1800s, made efficient use of narrow building lots. Pushed all the way to one side of the lot, a typical single makes room for two-story, side-loaded porches that encourage outdoor living. With few interior walls and lots of doors and windows, the Charleston single promotes natural lighting and cooling cross ventilation, important in a hot, humid climate.”
You can see photos of the magazine house online. It’s in a South Carolina subdivision called New Village Homes. Of course the homes share the major design features of a Charleston Single House: narrow end to the street and side porches (although mine has the traditional 2-story porches and their’s doesn’t). But the designs also share the bump-out on the porch side and the high windows on the other side.
Great minds think alike. 
June 5th, 2007
Now that the house is nearly complete, I thought it would be a good time to post the floorplan online. Better late than never.
This should help you get oriented.
January 18th, 2007
It’s difficult to find plans for small houses. Mainstream house plan books and magazines rarely offer plans for houses under 1,500 square feet. Fortunately, there are some online sources for interesting small house plans, some as tiny as 200 square feet. Take a look at my guide to small house plans.
March 29th, 2006
