Originally, Nicolas Potts just headed to Saugerties, New York, on weekends. But over the years, the idyllic forests around the upstate town became too hard to resist. His time in Manhattan started to dwindle, and trips to the Catskills became more frequent. Now a full-time Saugerties resident, Nicolas and his partner, photographer Emma Pilkington Mead, are enticing others with a new vacation rental. Just across from their home on a one-lane road is a tiny cabin: a simple wooden and black metal box with a sloped roof and a carved-out porch beckoning visitors in.

The 475-square-foot house is a collaboration between Nicolas (a self-described jack-of-all-trades now wearing his interior designer hat), Emma, and architectural designer Christos Athanasiou. The latter was introduced to the couple by a mutual friend who identified kindred goals: Nicolas had an aging rental cabin in need of replacement, and Athanasiou was cofounding MiniMax, a prefab business specializing in small structures. “I don’t see large homes as sustainable with respect to affordability,” Athanasiou says. He sold his first prefab to Nicolas.

In their collaboration, the two took wildly different approaches. Athanasiou opted for understatement—he points out with pride sleek details like the gutter, concealed behind the roofline. The cabin’s exterior neither blends in with nor distracts from the scenery, instead letting the surrounding forest pull focus.

$69,530 Labor	$11,028 Foundation	$70,000 Prefab Unit Cost
$1,115 Kitchen	$16,242 Electric	$3,246 Plumbing
$63,354 Building Materials	$7,291 Roofing	$1,500 Bathroom
$3,200 Demolition	$9,634 Landscaping	$6,036 HVAC
Grand Total: $262,176

Inside, however, Nicolas and Emma crafted a cushy embrace. A deck leads into a plush living room with a fur rug and a built-in couch covered in fluffy pink fabric. A kitchenette connects to a breakfast nook, which has a rosy upholstered daybed. Warm colors, fuzzy materials, and diffuse lighting throughout create a sort of cocoon, but high ceilings and large windows make the compact space feel bigger. Emma’s hand-painted squiggle on the ceiling draws the eye up to the real hideaway: A set of retractable stairs in the living room leads to a lofted sleeping area that overlooks the rest of the house.

For the decor, the couple drew inspiration from the architecture. “It’s got these angles and this pulled-up corner point—everything’s slightly different, so I didn’t want to do your standard interior,” Nicolas says. But the thrifty, tiny-house ethos runs throughout. Nicolas and Emma constructed the built-in birch dining nook themselves, using two-by-fours and plywood. The chandelier is an upcycled lamp with glued-on tassels. In total, the project cost $262,000.

The couple keep the home open to change. They’ve recently replaced shower tiles and the kitchen countertops and painted over a mural. “I don’t think we’ll ever just settle on a design and leave it,” Nicolas says. But, with their DIY approach, they aren’t breaking the bank even with the adjustments. “Every time our friends come to our house, they’re like, Oh, we’ve changed something,” Emma says. “It’s in our nature to let a space evolve.”

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: MiniMax / @minimax.living

Builder: Potts Projects / @pottsprojects

Interior Design: Potts Projects

Prefab Manufacturer: Steco Centar

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