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All Photos/exterior/building type : tiny home

Exterior Tiny Home Design Photos and Ideas

Madison points out that the pod concept would make it easy to add an extension if necessary. “We see it as a house that can grow with us—and that we can pay for as we go along.”
The wood-wrapped tiny home features a deck pierced by a tree trunk.
Moss-covered boulders at the base of Colorado Camelot tree house helped to inspire the design for the compact structure.
The Perch at sunset.
The steel structure is suspended two feet above the roof of the existing bungalow, supported by four steel columns, one of which screens utility lines running from the Perch to the house below.
Best Practice added a new roof but kept the existing siding. A fresh coat of paint helps the casita pop, and a new window opening next to the entrance frames a new kitchenette inside.
The two tiny homes were designed by CAST Architecture.
The goal was to be able to squeeze a full bathroom, kitchen, living room, storage, as well as a sleeping space that would accommodate a king-sized bed into the cabin's original tiny footprint.
Black-painted window and door frames contrast with the white-painted steel siding and offer a crisp, clean aesthetic for the exterior of the cottage.
Small, simple, yet fully functional, La Casa Nueva is an off-grid timber camper designed by Ecuador-based architect Juan Alberto Andrade. He created the dwelling as a personal retreat for himself and his partner, Cuqui Rodríguez, to travel throughout the country photographing various forms of architecture.
After Ashley Trebitowski spotted a Craigslist ad for a 1999 Bluebird school bus being sold in Ennis, Texas, for $4,400, she and her husband, Brandon, hopped on a flight to check out the vehicle and drove it back to their home in New Mexico. Over the next few months, the couple overhauled the bus for their family of five with a $30,000 DIY renovation.
The rollable wood-clad walls help the retreat further blend into the surrounding nature.
Norske Mikrohus’s latest project, Rast, is a 174-square-foot-home that promises to get you closer to nature.
Phase Two, currently underway, will culminate with 310 additional homes built on another 24 acres.
Phase One of the Community First! Village began in 2014 and resulted in a 27-acre development with 235 homes for people who formerly lacked housing, including one for Jesse Brown, pictured here.
"The composite structure is extraordinarily durable,
The Futuro House is a spaceship-like tiny home originally conceived by Finnish designer Matti Suuronen in 1968 as a portable ski chalet. Today, there are less than 70 Futuros left in existence.
The design for Tind, the new tiny home by Norske Mikrohus, was inspired by the Norwegian mountains and woods and features slow-growing Norwegian spruce for the exterior cladding.
The cabin is available to rent all year long, and only accessible by foot, skis, and snowshoes. Transport carts or sleds are available to bring in gear.
Completed in 2020, this micro-refuge is located lakeside in Poisson Blanc Regional Park, in the Laurentides region of Quebec, Canada. “Is it a hut or a cabin? A tiny home or glamping?” Asks the park’s website, before providing their own cheeky answer: “All of the above.”
The teak front door of the existing house offsets the stone walls, lending warmth and texture.
A second tiny house is set within an existing structure and contains a kitchen, dining area, and bathroom.
This Beverly Hills kitHAUS is comprised of modernist prefab modules that can accommodate a variety of uses: from yoga studios to home offices, and from weekend retreats to pop-up kiosks and guest rooms.
Wild bush, sand dunes, and scrub surround the circular home on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. The Austin Maynard Architects team was careful to minimize the building’s impact on the fragile landscape.
Made of two 40-foot-long shipping containers that are offset from one another, the Model 6 by IndieDwell offers 640 square feet of living space.
The H4 is HONOMOBO’s most efficient shipping container home. At just over 700 square feet, the home has two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a full kitchen, and one bathroom.
1. Bigger Doesn't Necessarily Mean Better. This idea is essentially the core tenet of tiny home living—that a large home doesn't always mean it's better or more thoughtfully designed. With tiny homes, every decision has to be based on thoughtful consideration. More often than not, efficiency rules, leading to a well-designed home.
With the average tiny home measuring under 500 square feet, these mini abodes often have to be designed radically different from larger traditional houses. We take a look at seven of the biggest lessons one can learn from tiny home design. No matter if you plan to call a tiny house "home" or not, these key tips are relevant to just about any space, large or small.
This 195-square-foot, shingled studio includes a library, reading nook, and workstation—and it’s totally DIY. Creative couple Michael and Christina Hara built the retreat just steps away from their back door, in order to carve out "space for creativity and respite from our chaotic, toddler-filled house," as Michael explains. The project, called the Fish Scale Studio, took eight months to complete, with Haras doing all of the design and construction themselves—for just $18,275.
Michael specified that the corner window be mullion-free so sitting in the nook feels like you are outside. "By being immersed on two sides without any real obstructions, you get a sense like you are out there in the natural world, in the yard," he says. "This is a particularly wonderful feeling, especially during our long, snowy Minnesota winters, where we can enjoy the beauty and stillness of the snow but still enjoy the warmth and comfort of being inside."
The couple finished the exterior siding with shingles made of Hardie board and painted a deep purple. "We wanted an exterior cladding that was durable, low-maintenance, and relatively DIY-friendly," says Michael. "When looking at our options at the local hardware store, the fish-scale shape popped because it was unique, quirky, and not super serious—and yet could create a contemporary look through uniformly using it with woven corners and minimal detailing."
With its stucco facade and steel-framed, arched windows, Plaster Fun House is an architectural anomaly amidst the cottages and 1960s brick residences of Torrensville in South Australia.
The couple built the cabin in Poland and eventually moved it to near the shore of Packer Lake in Austria.
The Busches explore the wooded area that surrounds the cabin together. "We love hiking, climbing, and canoeing in nature," Anna says.
Datscha, the 194-square-foot cabin that Anna and Jakob Busch built with the help of family and friends, is clad with spruce siding and capped with a standing-seam metal roof.
Anna and Jakob Busch enlist the help of loved ones to construct a spruce-wrapped tiny home for $35,000.
The Jungbauers selected pale blue-gray steel for the exterior siding, a low-maintenance and durable material.
Garcia clad the ADU’s exterior with a local Texas limestone, similar in color and texture to the main house, “just to tie the two together visually,” says the architect.
The strip between the glass panels is Ipe, same as the deck, it’s just retained its original hue beneath the four-foot-deep overhangs. The deck is wrapped in a steel channel, in a nod to the steel used inside.
Architect Matt Garcia designed a 540-square-foot ADU for a musician’s 1960s ranch style home in Ashland. The large lot size, about an acre, meant that Garcia could have doubled the size of the new build, but he preferred the challenge of keeping it smaller.
Heather and Kevin Fritz’s first project as Fritz Tiny Homes was a 268-square-foot dwelling sided with standing-seam metal and wood-textured aluminum. "Metal siding assures a maintenance-free exterior regardless of exposure," says Kevin.
The two new buildings create a courtyard-like feel in the small urban backyard.
Architectural designer Grey Shaeffer of Willa Work designed a petite backyard guesthouse at her Portland, Oregon, home for occasions when her mom comes to visit. The siding and decking are a fused bamboo product from Dasso XTR, in classic espresso.
The Binkerds raised the skoolie’s ceiling height two feet so it now measures eight feet, which gives the tiny home a feeling of spaciousness.
Safety is emphasized with video surveillance and 24-hour security. No alcohol is allowed on site and there is a curfew.
The tiny house community also has ADA units to accommodate people with wheelchairs.
The Chandler Boulevard prefabs measure 8-feet-by-8-feet each and can be dismantled and reassembled at least 40 times for storage or relocation.
The prefabs were pre-approved by the state to simplify permitting, allowing for fast-track construction and deployment. The project site, which is fully equipped with utility services and amenities, set up in just 13 weeks.
To live here, residents had to be homeless, 18 years and older and living within a three-mile radius.
Expansive glass walls were paired with a Corten Steel frame to maximize the yard's garden views.
In the corner, framed, machine-sewn vintage fabrics serve as minimalist wall decor. The artwork is the creation of delavegacanolasso and is available for sale on the firm's website.
The interiors are lined with OSB Poplar wood, and insulated with 12cm of recycled cotton.
Architects Delavegacanolasso expand a client’s work-from-home office space by adding a Cor-Ten steel prefab to the backyard.
At night, the large window in the dining area creates a lantern-like effect for the cabin.
An expansive wood deck on the front facade extends the living space and creates an indoor/outdoor experience.
The blackened timber–clad cabin that arba designed in Longueil, Normandy, France, is marked by large glass doors, layered with wood slats that slide open and connect the home to its lush landscape.
With its emphasis on the outdoors, the petite shelter in Normandy offers room to roam.
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