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Tuesday, July 19, 2011

The Bolt-Together House 1972- a prefabricated tiny vacation house HIT from Jeff Milstein

For any newcomers to the site (Make Mag, etc.) our NEW, very-expanded edition of our Tiny House/Cabin/Fort/Shack Design book is available for order at the end of this post...)- at a REALLY discounted price. Thanks! 
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I've been asked many times before by people "Just what IS your favorite small house style of design?", or "What's the coolest tiny home you've seen?"....in interviews, in casual conversations.....

Realtor's Photo- from Deer Island, New Brunswick (if the new owners EVER see this post, we'd LOVE to come up and film/interview you guys for our show! PLEASE don't buy this place for the land and tear down the cabin!)
Well, one of the reasons I hesitated on posting these photos and this info, is because the cabin in this blog post was actually recently for sale, and Dustin, Dawn (my brother and my sister-in-law) and I were actually contemplating buying it so that we could shoot a documentary film on it, and occasionally use it. The price (and its WATERFRONT, ON an island in New Brunswick)- a mere $18,000.00. The ultimate reason on us passing and making an offer was that it was just too far away- AND we already have our off-grid cabin in Vermont (See "Tiny Yellow House: Vermont Cabin" episode on youtube).

A shot of the micro-loft
THIS is definitely one of my favorite cabin designs and concepts- and it ties right into the Lester Walker book (link below) which was my FIRST tiny housing book I was gifted at age 10- back in the mid eighties. I STILL haven't tired of this book, and as I've slowly been piecing together a "Deek's Top 15/20 Tiny House Design Books" for an eventual post here, Walker's book will easily be in my top five. Again, check it out below....

Lester's book has some schematics and measurements/multi-views of how to construct this simple cabin. 

Exterior- overall length is just 16'- (four sheets of plywood/T-111)

Dustin "Dr. Demolition" Diedricksen actually had a chance to step inside this place on his way to Nova Scotia a few weekends back and has quite a bit of footage he filmed showing the interior, exterior, and surrounding landscape of this cool little cabin. Once he gets it edited down, we'll toss it up on my relaxshacksDOTcom youtube channel.
The History on this cabin design- Architect Jeff Milstein came up with the pre-fabricated concept of this vacation house (in 1972, which could be fully built for $2500.00), and released the idea through Family Circle Magazine- it not only became a huge hit, even with a cult-following to this very day, but still stands as THE best selling blueprints that the magazine ever carried- selling out its 25,000 copies.



And my book (above- Lester Walker gave me a very positive write-up/review on it as well- which didn't suck).  -Derek "Deek" Diedricksen