The Boston Globe covers a class from Green Mountain College that built a 8x12 cabin for under $2000 using all reclaimed materials.
According to the Globe:
Students settled on a rectangular building with one low corner to create a curved roof that rainwater can pour off of and be collected. A sloped back wall helped make the home feel more spacious and a loft, furnishings and lighting fixtures were also designed and constructed by students. Sheep wool was even added for insulation into the window casing. Construction took two months.
Can you really live in 96 square feet? Well, according to this house tour on Apartment Therapy, a family of four and their dog do quite well in this 180 square foot cabin situated in British Columbia's Gulf Islands.
Like a lot of small projects, economics played a big role:
We started off with grand plans. We thought we'd take out a small loan and pay a local company to design and prefab a bigger cabin right away. We even went so far as to have the plans fully engineered (we still have them; they're awesome). The entire thing cost us about $3,000. But then the economy started to deflate and we realized we didn't want to have a loan hanging over our heads. That's when we decided to start over with a new, more modest plan and DIY the whole thing, with the help of our aforementioned awesome friend Stefan.
Initially, we made the deck way too small. It was only 4 by 10, and it made the cabin feel claustrophobic. We realized that we needed to expand the outdoor space so that we could just throw the doors open and have one large 10 by 22 foot area.
Here is what they learned:
Even out in nature, kids need toys. Don't get me wrong. Our boys are happy to do their fair share of digging, playing with sticks, pestering insects, throwing rocks and whathaveyou. But after a while they want to kick back and chill out with a pile of Legos. We've built up a discreet stash of toys for these occasions. We've also realized that even kids need their own space, which is why our next project is a sweet little playhouse in the trees.
The purging is neverending. Things creep over to the cabin from our home in the city, and every so often we have to do an audit of what gets to stay. (In fact, John wanted me to point out that the Ikea Bekvam stool you can see in the top photo has been brought back to the city. That's how ruthless we are. Even poor little stepstools can get cut.)