My Year Of Building A (Tiny) House

In snapshots, our Future Cottage construction recap: more wood choices (endless), more chic tile, more expenses...and, hey—we officially have a SAUNA🔥.

This past Thanksgiving weekend, we had a few extra days upstate, which meant I finally had some real time (not just five minutes to check for trapped birds) to sit in Future Cottage and figure out where we really are. This tiny modern straw-panel cabin we’ve been building for the past year—and dreaming about for much longer—has become something of a new addition in our family, another soul in need of constant attention as well as endless sheets of plywood. I have never built a house before. I don’t even know many people who have. But when your partner is an architect, it makes the prospect seem not only possible but inevitable. I don’t write about Kevin very much, mostly because it horrifies him to hear me (even remotely) gush, but watching this project go from a blank plot of land to a smooth slab of concrete and now rising out of our minds and conversations into an actual structure feels exceptionally Big…despite its smallness❤️.

I honestly have no idea how he does what he does and with so much focus and skill and constant adapting. We really are flying by the seat of our pants (anyone in the throes of even the smallest construction is:). But I will tell you this: It’s remarkable to witness someone you care about living out a dream, all 650 square-feet of it…I suppose, for living out even more dreams.

Since this will be my last Future Cottage update before we head over into 2024, I wanted to catch us up on the latest of what we’ve been doing (pipes and insulation…the THRILL!) and what’s coming (a tiny deck and some equally petite appliances). Mostly though, I wanted to remind you—and me, too, friends—how brave it is to build something. Big things, tiny things, unthinkable things (please do THINK them!). Building something from nothing is definitely not the path of least resistance and perhaps nothing short of a magic trick. Literally willing a thing into being. And sometimes that thing you want to create takes longer than you think it will…a LOT fucking longer. But then, one day (not so) suddenly, you step inside a small house you’ve been building with everything you have and for as long as you can remember, and discover you have actual ROOMS framed out and a sleeping loft almost ready for sleeping:).

It’s not exactly magic. It’s 10,000% determination and hard work and delays and tears and miracles out of the sky and selling off your favorite legendary Marni coat to pay for just the right kitchen sink and hustling to make every damn detail spring forth into existence. But when I see these 13 or so snapshots below and remind myself of how far we’ve come, it definitely feels that way…like magic, that is✨.