Budget Breakdown: An Architect Couple’s $173K Home Is Inspired by Swedish Summer Houses

"For us, it was about designing a home for the life that we wanted to live," says Marika Drolet-Ferguson. She and her partner, Mathieu Boucher-Côté, who are both architects and cofounded design firm Nordais, had spent years living nomadically when they decided to settle down and have a child. Between teaching gigs and artist residencies, they’d often return to Marika’s childhood home in Tracadie-Sheila, New Brunswick, so it made sense to them to build something there; it was just a matter of asking themselves what a permanent home might look like immersed in the beauty of the Acadian Peninsula.