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Floor Plan of Tinyleaf by GO’C

Whether it’s cross-country skiing in the winter or trail running in the summer, the 330-foot home’s minimalist design encourages Catherine to be outside in the surrounding landscape throughout the year.

The home is accessible year-round, although snowy winters and road closures make the trip from Seattle a bit longer during the colder months.

Floor-to-ceiling glazing and a linear skylight help welcome the landscape within the cabin’s small footprint.

“It needed to be a sleeping niche that could become very dark,” says Pulcrano of the bedroom. A porthole window offers light when desired, and curtains encircle two sides for when it’s time to create total darkness.

The central kitchen and living/dining room sit below a massive dome skylight, which Jamie Goldsborough and her partner, John Slater, call one of their favorite parts of the house.

Columbus, Indiana, resident Nick Slabaugh tasked Chicago architect Grant Gibson with creating a low-cost home on a small lot near the city’s downtown. Its design references local architectural landmarks. Gibson says the building’s "low profile with a bulging roof element

Missy Wilkinson and Philip Stalcup share their home with a rotating cast of characters, including Elise (Philip’s longtime partner), Elise’s boyfriend, and various friends. A non–cookie-cutter family called for non–cookie-cutter designs, but they were mindful of maintaining a local New Orleans influence on their vibrant home. “You have a modern house alongside traditional neighbors, but when you look at the street, it sits well together,” explains Aya Maceda of Alao, the firm that designed the building.

Bucking the trend to tear such buildings down, Julie Anderson and Amy Dantzler worked with architect Bryan Libit to preserve a 1960s A-frame in Manhattan Beach. The home, with its original stained-glass panels and balcony design, is now listed as a historic landmark in the city.

With a small budget, an open mind, and perhaps a little help from your friends, there’s nothing stopping you from building your own tiny home.

The little house has a firepit surrounded by a steel bench that McWhirter designed, and the couple grow vegetables in raised beds. They “sped up the process a little bit,” McWhirter says, on the corrugated steel fence’s patina by using hydrogen peroxide, vinegar, and salt.

Before: John and Kelly Rainey bought a 92-acre ranch in Texas Hill Country in 2012, which came with this 1908 cabin. It is thought to have originally been a kit home that was so modified over the years, it looked more East Coast than Texas Hill Country. The couple worked with Jobe Corral Architects to strip away the changes that didn’t fit with the cabin’s historic character, such as the excess trim, decorative columns, and brickwork on the exterior.

The Anza Airstream was designed to feel more open than other trailers, with little upper cabinetry.