If you like the idea of uber-downsizing, but aren’t excited about squeezing all your earthly belongings into a tiny home, here’s news you will appreciate: Denver companies are experimenting with a happy medium—cottages that are bigger than tiny homes, but much smaller than many traditional homes.
Consider, for example, wee-Cottage. wee-Cottage “isn’t a tiny home,” notes the company’s website. “wee-Cottage was designed to allow for standard-sized furniture, appliances, and cabinets. It’s a detached, single-family home with the perfect-sized backyard.”
The company offers four, two-story floor plans, ranging from 1138 square feet for a two-bedroom layout to 1546 square feet for a three-bedroom layout.
The homes are currently being built in Central Park (starting at $520,000); Rogers Farm in Superior, CO (starting at $595,000); and Erie Commons (coming soon in Erie, CO.)
Another company, Urban Cottages, is taking a different tack, while also aiming small. The company’s goal is to build several diminutive, single-family homes on lots typically used for one home. The goal is to protect existing bungalows from being scraped off and destroying the historic character of many neighborhoods.
Urban Cottages owns a small home at 2255 S. Gilpin St., according to the Denver Business Journal, as well as two adjacent lots in the neighborhood near the University of Denver, a spot that’s been popular for developers looking to scrape and build larger single-family homes.
“We’ve proposed that we add three additional small homes to that lot rather than scrape it and build something bigger,” managing partner Chase Stillman told the Business Journal.
The four homes at the site would offer approximately 4,500 square feet of living space total. The added homes would each be two stories, with two to three bedrooms each.
Urban Cottages feels a sense of urgency about their proposed plan. “If we don’t work to find a way to offer alternatives to scraping and building, they’re going to be gone. And there’s not an alternative specifically in Denver,” Stillman said.
The company is also looking at Lakewood, Englewood and Greeley for potential Urban Cottages sites.
Photo Courtesy of wee-Cottage