Small Open House Plans & Cabin Floor Plans From

This house was featured in Fine Homebuilding magazine, as well as its book, More Small Houses, Yankee magazine and Maine Boats & Harbors magazine. This little shingled house that sits on a peninsula in the Bagaduce River at the end of a long hay field is, more so than any other in the architect's collection, an experiment. It is the house the architect and his wife built for themselves, and it is an experiment about fitting a house to your life like a glove. The owners spend a lot of time in the summer on an old wooden sailboat that has very tight accommodations, and they love it. They love the cozy, at-home feel that they get when they are settled in down below on their boat with the tiny wood stove and paraffin lamps. So when they decided to build a new house they thought about what they could do to create the same feelings in a house, but still have it be light and airy, efficient and connected to their wonderful piece of land.

The first thing that they realized was that they could do without the traditional living room. They used the living room for sitting around and talking, listening to music, reading and watching T.V. All this could be accomplished with about a 10' x 11' niche with a built-in seat. If this niche projected into the view and had glass on all sides it would be all that was needed. The kitchen needed to be bigger with two distinct work areas to accommodate two people cooking at the same time.

The bedroom is located upstairs, designed to be big enough for a comfy reading chair so that it can serve as an alternate living space if one wants to get away and be private. It has a vaulted ceiling that peaks at 9'8", and slopes down to 6'4" at the edges. There's also a wonderful bathroom on the south that is big enough to have a sort of greenhouse for soaking up the sun and long showers in the winter. Taking a shower in the jungle! The rest of the second floor is a nice sunny landing at the top of the stairs and a big walk–in dressing room with storage on shelves, hanging or in drawers, but not behind a lot of expensive doors. The second bedroom on the first floor is on a prime sunny southeast corner, making it also ideal as a dayroom or office type space.

Foundation Info
This house was originally designed to have a basement foundation. However, if you prefer a crawlspace or a slab foundation, these are fairly simple and inexpensive changes that your builder can often make for you. If the basement design is not displayed in the Floor Plans, it's because it is unfinished.

Please Note
Due to licensing agreements, this home may not be built in Hancock County, Maine.