Jessica Helgerson Interior Design is a premier firm with an impressive portfolio of high-style residential and commercial work. For her own tiny cottage home, however, Jessica experimented with making the most of just 540 square feet. Using almost all reclaimed materials, Jessica and her family created a home with just two living spaces – kitchen, living, dining, all happen within sight of each other, with a sleeping room and bath tucked just around the corner.
This is a modest mansion with a character all its own – sofas double as guest beds; walls double as bookshelves; and attic space doubles as a sleeping loft.
Efficient, yes – but it’s the homegrown style that caught our eye. There isn’t a speck of drywall anywhere – the walls and ceilings are faced in siding from on-site barns. The floors are Oregon white oak. The roof is “green”, planted with moss and ferns gathered along the Columbia River Gorge.
No video games, no TV, just kids, beds, and books. Pull the brass handle on the wall at the foot of the beds and a closet appears.
This double slipper tub is the only extravagance in the house.
The outdoors has to work as an extension of the indoors for a house this small to work, and that’s a part of this tiny cottage home’s planning. A broad deck and a big yard get as much use as the house.
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