NeahCasa

Small Houses

Housing costs can be brought down by utilizing less space per person.  Less space certainly does not necessarily mean poorer living conditions.  Consider the concept of "enoughness."

By the same token, various options of sharing space can reduce individuals' costs and impacts. There are lots of adaptions or add-ons possible for mixed generations, caregiver situations, working at home, and studio space. 

NeahCasa is planning to do a tour of small homes locally in Summer 2008.  

Stay tuned!

Seed Houses

Sometimes it works to start out VERY small in order to get a legal, code approved living space on a piece of land.  Then additions (and corrections) can happen as time and resources allow. 

Ginger Salkowski and Brian Schultz just did that on their land in

our Nehalem River Valley. They included a lot of innovative

technology too. Check out their website for lots of details.

When NeahCasa was first getting started we got word of these sweet 30's era

motel cottages in Seaside being torn down for condos that the owners wanted

to have moved. They would be perfect seed houses and we had a couple of potential takers.  We did a lot of work trying to get them moved the 25 miles down to our community but in the end we were thwarted by the Arch Cape Tunnel and new ODOT regulations.   We still mourn them a bit.

Resources:

• Tom Bender’s work in general and new flexplex plans.

• Ross Chapin's well designed house plans offer one example on reducing design costs for small houses as well as creative cottage neighborhood patterns. 

•  Sarah Susanka's Not So Big House website is another good source.