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Watch the Northern Lights from the comfort of your warm bed at Panorama Glass Lodge Iceland. Designed by the Estonian company ÖÖD Homes, the two 200-square-foot prefab cabins are thoughtfully made for small-space living. Each has a bedroom, living room, bathroom, and kitchen.

Hilary Severson and her sons play outside their home, designed by architect Solomon Berg. Set amid mature maples on three acres south of Portland, Oregon, the house has a gabled, standing-seam metal roof and rough-sawn and smooth cedar siding.

“Everything needed to be approachable and simple,” says Hilary. “The house reflects who we are.”

Hilary and her husband, Jimmy, opted for a functional, restrained material palette. In the dining room, Rejuvenation pendants hang above a table by Hedge House and chairs from Hay.

The oak island and cupboards offset the kitchen’s black IKEA cabinetry.

“It’s a human-scaled house. It’s not intimidating or fussy. It feels good,” explains architect Solomon Berg.

“Everything needed to be approachable and simple,” says Hilary. “The house reflects who we are.”

Instead of designing a completely open plan, Berg separated the public rooms with a freestanding fireplace wall made of Mutual Materials bricks in Coal Creek. An Emmy sectional by Egg Collective for Design Within Reach faces a Lars chair from Room & Board

A see-through entry hall joins the living areas with a bedroom wing.

The couple’s bathroom features a mineral composite tub from MTI.

Before moving here, the family lived in a tract home with a “postage stamp yard,” says Jimmy, who heads a commercial construction firm. Now, on weekends, he likes to ride his dad’s 1977 John Deere tractor and mow the fields. “When I come home, I get to shut off from my day job,” he says.

Stafford Residence floor plan