The Plan, and the Design

We are building a cottage in our backyard. The City of Seattle allows for the construction of DADUs (detached accessory dwelling units) in backyards of lots that are 4,000+ sf in size. Our lot (barely) qualifies, and we had been considering investing in real estate somewhere in Seattle. However, the prices of housing and commercial properties have skyrocketed over the past several years and we could not afford to purchase anything. However, we could build a rental property on our own land!

After discussing the pros and cons at length, we decided to go for it. We interviewed three architects and decided to work with Matt Hutchins at CAST Architects. They have experience designing backyard cottages and their offices are located really close to our house.

Matt and his colleagues generated several designs for us and we chose our favorite. After receiving construction bids from a couple of builders, we realized that even construction costs have escalated dramatically and we would have to scale down the design. Again, Matt did a great job of keeping the spirit of the design intact while scaling down the size and complexity.

Here is the final design, from three different angles:

From the southwest

From the northeast

From the northwest

The location of the cottage within the yard (it is in the lower right)

The cottage will be built by Joe Syverson of Viking Construction and a number of subcontractors.

Our plan is to rent the cottage after construction is completed at the end of summer. Maybe we will rent it out through AirBnB. Years from now, perhaps when the boys are in college, we will move in to it and rent out the big house.  But mostly, we just like the flexibility of having a second housing unit on our property!