Last June, Mr. Blankenship of Ozark, AL constructed five small homes that are each only 500 sq. ft. They are 1 bedroom, 1 bath, with a nice front porch, living room and kitchen. According to the people living there, they are extremely well insulated and they can have their dogs there without any additional charge.

These were all constructed as rentals. (The housing market being what it is.) Each small house has a concrete parking area out front that is sufficient for two vehicles each. They are conveniently located within a block of the downtown area. They can walk to City Hall, the supermarket, the dollar store, the Methodist church, a couple of restaurants, and an art gallery.

The builder poured all the slabs in one day and once they started framing, they had all five of them framed, drywalled, and painted within 3 weeks. They have silver-colored metal roofs. And each home is painted in a different pastel color so it is easy to find which one is yours. The homes all have very small yards for minimal upkeep. And, it took less than 3 weeks for them all to be leased out for the year.

Mr. Blankenship was familiar with the local planning commission, wrote up the appropriate paperwork, talked with the commissioners, and had no problems getting it all approved. He is now considering building some more of them.

So, in a round-about way, I’ve covered most of the vital concerns: planning, location, construction, renting (just under $500 a month).

Recent Update: I managed to get a few interior photos of just one place … and drew a floorplan (NOT 100% to scale) to give you the idea of the layout. I understand that all five have the same layout. Even though the roof-lines and exterior colors are different. The guy I visited with says that summer or winter — his monthly electric utility costs are only $50 a month. The rent is $500 a month. All appliances, including the vertical stack washer/dryer, come with the place.

The guy who built these also built seven 1,000 sq ft shotgun houses on the intersecting street that rent for $750 a month. – Royal

Thanks Royal for doing all this research and for getting permission to shoot an interior of one of the rentals. These look very livable and maybe others can duplicate this process across the country.

We searched plans for a while and couldn’t find anything that worked for us, so we drafted our own design.  It’s a frame built house on a block foundation with Hardiboard exterior siding (to protect from termites, carpenter bees and other varmints) and a tin roof (Galvalume).

We used local subcontractors to do what we could not and the rest we did ourselves. We found some artisans nearby to build and install the cabinets and they did a great job. The open cabinets on each side of the sink give the illusion of space. The lower cabinet drawers give ample room for cookware and other storage.  

We placed a picnic styled table in the center of the kitchen and the benches slide underneath when not in use. My wife, Jackie, found the restaurant style sink with extra deep bowls at a store in Atlanta for around $400 – actually cheaper than a drop-in sink from Lowe’s. The kitchen counters and bath are white tile. Some friends of ours installed it and it is very beautiful. The flooring is hand-scraped maple from simplefloors.com in Atlanta also, which was on a terrific sale at the time.  The total cost of the floor with installation was about $2,500.

We used recessed lighting throughout the cabin with dimmer switches in each room except the bathroom. This gives much more visual space which would ordinarily be taken up by standard light fixtures and ceiling fans. Here in the deep south, folks really love their ceiling fans and we received a lot of criticism for omitting these. However, we stand by our decision and the result really speaks for itself.

Jackie found a cool glass block window on the Internet for around $60 and we put it in the shower for some natural sunlight. It has a little screened section in the middle that opens to the outside. We also bought a ceramic niche for the shower for soaps and shampoos and this saves precious space in a 5′ x 7′ bathroom.

Given the small living area and children, we also wanted the rooms to be more soundproof than in standard construction. So we insulated the interior walls and installed solid core doors in the bedrooms, bath and laundry closet. These measures cost a little more but are well worth it. The laundry closet is next to the refrigerator and contains a stacked washer/dryer unit. The solid core door greatly reduced sound of the washer and dryer. For hot water, we have a tankless water heater that we placed beneath the house in the crawl space. The deck is 11′ x 16′ and in spring, summer and fall gives added living space.

The oven/stove is heated with propane gas and has a 250 gallon tank outside the cabin.   For heating and air conditioning we have a two ton heat pump unit and we are very comfortable as long as we have electricity – power outages are very common here. We have an outdoor shower (hot & cold) next to the deck, however, the shower surround is another pending project we’ll hopefully finish before summer begins.

My wife and I (mostly my wife), with invaluable advice from my father-in-law, Bill – a retired homebuilder, acted as our own two-headed general contractor. We lost a little sleep but saved some money in doing so. The total cost of the cabin (excluding drive and stairway to the lake) was less than $40,000.

Thanks for letting us share. Jon and Jackie Wesson.

The Rural Studio is a design-build architecture studio run by Auburn University whose goal is to teach students both social responsibility while also providing safe, fine constructed homes with inspirational design for poor communities in rural west Alabama.

The project known as the 20K project is an ongoing project now into it 6th year. The project is based on trying to design and build and create alternative forms of housing on an extremely tight budget.

The project is based on the 20K limit to design and build a house for $10,000 for materials and with a proposed labor cost of $10,000, therefore not exceeding $20,000.

In the beginning four teams were put together to design four 20K houses. The four houses were completed and they are: the pattern book house ; the loft house; the roundwood house; and the bridge house.

Each team approached the design to fit in this tight budget and had a calendar year to complete the home. Currently four new clients have completed and paid for homes owned with the help of HERO.

Joey Fante a future architect showed his 20K project that with his team: Ryan Stephenson, Kait Caldwell, and Aimee O’Carroll designed and built the Loft House as part of the 2007/2008 thesis class at Rural Studio.

To view more photos visit arch daily and Rural Studio.

Photo Credit: arch daily