Living Large In Small Spaces - Brockloch Tree House

Fortieth post in the series 

"Living Large in Small Spaces"

Welcome friends to Living Large In Small Spaces. Today's edition is very special to me, for it's the 40th post of the LLISS series. To all of you who faithfully come here for a weekly dose of small but large living, thank you. Your visits and kind words keep me inspired to seek out and share small homes and the stories behind them. And to anyone popping in for the first time, thanks for joining me; I hope you'll make this a regular stop.

I love treehouses. When I was a kid my dad nailed a simple wooden platform up in the niche of an old oak tree and proclaimed it "The Kids' Treehouse". My siblings and I had tons of fun playing amongst the branches and leaves in that cool summer retreat. 

The Brockloch Tree House is a far cry from my childhood treehouse, yet its sophisticated design maintains a bit of childlike whimsy. 

Designed and built by Sam Booth and his company EcoLiving, Brockloch Tree House is located on George and Julie Nicolson's picturesque working farm in Scotland's Galloway region. 

The off-grid retreat is comprised of two corrugated tin and timber-clad pods resting on eleven locally-sourced larch pole legs. A third tiny pod below houses the home's services.

A galvanized steel staircase leads to the entry, which opens into the intimate living space. In keeping with its size, the Tree House furnishings are small in scale.

Two drawers under the double bed and a blanket box at the end of it provide storage. A recessed shelf in the wall gives more visual interest and a place to stow books.

A multitude of tiny windows set into spruce paneled walls provides gallery-like views of nature and a dappled light show.

A larger window above the bed looks out on the Galloway landscape. Overhead a skylight offers starry views at night.

The hand built, freestanding kitchen cabinet with built in gas cooktop, fridge and butler sink is dressed in pastels. A woodburning stove set in an alcove of soft blue tiles heats the space.

The bathroom, across the hall in the smaller pod, boasts its own skylight above the tub.

A compost toilet (not seen in the photos) sits on the wall opposite the tub. The room's pivot door was designed to hide the toilet while creating an en suite bathroom.

This sketch, which reminds me of a Thurber drawing, shows the layout of the Brockloch Tree House.

The flooring is solid oak board in the living area and small oak tiles in the bath. Floors, ceiling and walls are insulated with sheep's wool. 2 x 250W solar pv panels and battery storage provide power.

You can see more of the unique Brockloch Tree House at the Eco Living website here. I received no compensation for featuring this delightful retreat.

So, what do you think of this small space in the trees?

Join me next Saturday for another post in the special series

 Living Large in Small Spaces

See more home tours in the 

Living Large In Small Spaces Series here.

From the comments I've received, many

people have been encouraged by the homes and lives 

shared in this series.

If you live in or have designed a small space 
(approx. 1200 square feet or less),

 I'd love to feature your story, too.

Send me an email and let's collaborate.

(See the "Contact Me" page for my email address.)

Our New Cottage Build - Progress Report #12

Greetings Cottage Friends!

I hope your week is off to a stellar start. It's been awhile since I've posted an update, owed to the fact that we have been working hard to finish the cottage interior. I'm looking forward to the day when I can take you through a complete cottage tour. Make no mistake, though, I'm enjoying every minute of this journey. Thanks for taking it with me. 

June 26 - 29

We spend most of our time working on window and door trim. Dennis builds and installs, I paint.


Here's a look at the completed bathroom window.

And my beloved garden window.

I'm not going to bore you with every window we did, for mercy's sake. Except for the garden window, the casing and trim is the same on all the windows. I'm very happy with the way they turned out.

By the way, please excuse all the labels on the windows. I have to leave them up until the final inspection.

June 30, 2015

Casey Russell of Russell Plumbing is on site to plumb our bathroom.

I chose Delta Victorian in pewter for the shower fixtures.

I used oil rubbed bronze in this same style in our last home and really liked it. However, this time I wanted a different finish while using the same fixture manufacturer/model I trust.

Casey installed an American Standard right-height toilet. Nothing fancy. A reliable commode in a casual style.

Casey completed the bathroom in one day and did a superb job. I want to show you the rest of it when I have it all decorated. Everything is in except the shower door. I ordered it last week and it should arrive this week.

In the meantime, here's my design board for a sneak preview.

There's an interesting story (at least I think it's interesting) behind the fabric swatch. We decided to do a cafe curtain in the bathroom to allow for privacy and still have lots of light. I wondered about what to do for fabric (I'll sew the curtain myself) and then it occurred to me that I had purchased a couple of fat quarters of Atelier by 3 Sisters at my local quilt shop a couple of months ago that could work. I went to my stash and pulled it out, held it up in the bath window and it was perfect -- just the colors and pattern I wanted -- but not enough yardage for the curtain. I contacted Cass at Cattle Country Quilt Shop and asked if she still had some of the fabric. She had a little over a yard left and it was 25% off. I took it all because I know that even if I don't use all of it for the curtain the remnants will be beautiful in a quilt or some other project. Don't you just love it when something like this happens? 

The kitchen cabinets arrive but. . .oops!  They were supposed to be glazed.  Load them back in the truck and take them to the shop for glazing. 

At least I got a peek at them. Sort of.


July 1, 2015

Ryan the Electrician installs the garden window grow light.

And hooks up the electric to the water heater.  Now we'll have hot water for the bath. This was a priority for us, since we need to be out of the motel on July 5.

Bob of BLH installs the dryer vent and hangs the sliding doors on the laundry closet.

July 2, 2015

The kitchen cabinets are here! The kitchen cabinets are here!

July 3, 2015

Dean and Jeff of BLH begin cabinet installation.  There's a lot to do.

July 4, 2015

Happy 4th of July!

July 5, 2015

We move out of the motel and set up our inflatable bed in my workroom.

For weeks we've been enduring a heat wave - daytime temps often reaching 102 - 103 degrees. But when the sun goes down so does the temperature. With the window open it actually gets cold.

Yesterday I received a call from Lowes in Pasco, Washington that our refrigerator has arrived. We decide to take a break from work and drive the 4 hours round trip to pick up the refrigerator. It's a beautiful drive.

The refrigerator had to meet two criteria:

One, it had to be small.
Two, it had to have a bottom -- not top -- freezer.

This refrigerator met both requirements:

Ten cubic feet, bottom freezer. Hard to find both in one unit. 
Thank you, LG.  And thanks Lowes. 

Dennis sets up a temporary kitchen for us on the breezeway.

And I begin work on a kitchen related project.

What's in the tray is for the project.  What's in the beverage container is for me (ooooh, how I love blended konas).

July 7, 2015

The carpet is installed in our bedroom. Remember the crawl space access? The rectangular shape in the carpet covers that. We can lift it up to get access if we need it, and it will be hidden under the bed where it won't be seen.

The color of the carpet is called "Cake Batter". It's a short pile and feels so luxurious under my bare feet. 

Bob of Elgin Electric comes to hook up the dryer.

We move the inflatable bed from my workroom to our bedroom. It's nice to have the ceiling fan while the sun is still up.

July 8, 2015

I wash and dry my first load of clothes and everything goes very well. I think I'm really going to like the Whirlpool compact units. They're much roomier than I had imagined, and pretty quiet.

One pair of Dennis' jeans and 5 t-shirts in the dryer.

Archie from Grain Growers and his helper deliver the LP gas tank. 

No, that big tank isn't ours.

This is our petite tank.

They lift it with the truck's crane and set it in place. Easy-peasey.

Now we're ready to have the heating and cooking stoves installed.

July 9 - 10, 2015

Dean and Jeff have been working several days on the cabinet installation. It's pretty complicated with a stove hood vent that has to go through the roof and other special touches. 

I'll do a complete kitchen reveal when it's finished. For now I'll give you a couple of peeks..

This is the custom stove hood. I gave my design to the cabinetmakers and they delivered a beautiful piece, just the way I envisioned it. BLH will install some molding at the ceiling and at the bottom of the hood to finish it off.

I'm only doing beadboard in a few key places in the kitchen. There is some chicken wire involved and a small amount of open shelves. One cabinet acts as an accent piece.  This is a photo of some of its drawers.

BLH shows me a sample of the countertop they're making for the kitchen. Oh, my word!  I'm crazy in love with it and am anxious to show it to you. 

July 11, 2015

It's been hot and dry here for weeks, and then today a storm blew through, with torrential rain and hail. Wow, what a mess it caused in our outdoor kitchen! 

I worried about my flowers, especially the zinnias and nicotania, but they survived. My tomatoes in buckets were in the tomato barn (which is what Dennis calls my garden shed).

July 12, 2015

We cleaned up the breezeway and porch, stripping off the Ramboard that covered the floors.  It was time to get rid of that stuff and reveal the pretty decking.

Now I want to buy porch furniture!

(I figure I'll get around to painting the porch railing white before the first snow.)

You can see we put a tarp over the railing, as we've had more rain every day. Cooler temps, too, which is very nice.

No hail or torrential rain, though. Just gentle showers so far.

July 13, 2015

Today I mowed the lawn weeds for the first time and with the softened ground we've been able to work more of the soil for planting.

We still have trim work and painting to do. Oh, I almost forgot to show you Dennis' studio.

He elected to stain all the woodwork he made and installed with Minwax Special Walnut. He installed the floor tile, too. I'll show you the whole room once he has it furnished. I think it's a wonderful masculine studio. His man cave.

Well, friends, that's it for now. A couple of you asked me where I get my energy. Some day I'll write a post about that, but the short answer is that I take a vitamin B complex supplement every day. It's really made a difference.

I hope to bring you an update of the completed kitchen very soon. And maybe a few other completions, too.

Have a great week!




If you missed previous progress reports, you can find them here:

Progress Report #1
Progress Report #2
Progress Report #3
Progress Report #4
Progress Report #5
Progress Report #6
Progress Report #7
Progress Report #8
Progress Report #9
Progress Report #10
Progress Report #11



You can find our awesome builder at their website:

BLH Construction.

Living Large In Small Spaces - Shabby Little Country Home

Thirty-ninth post in the series 

"Living Large in Small Spaces"

Welcome to another edition of Living Large In Small Spaces.

I'm so happy you could join me today, as I have a very special guest from Germany: Caroline of the blog My Shabby Little Country Home. I was introduced to Caroline after she left a comment on another home I featured in this series. That led me to her blog, and when I saw her uber charming old world cottage I asked her to come and share it with us.  I'm so glad she accepted my invitation. 

While Caroline's home is somewhat larger than many of the homes I feature in this series, most of the individual rooms are small and Caroline has furnished them to live large.

Please give Caroline a warm welcome. I know you're going to love what she has to share.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Caroline and Bill's Shabby Little Country Home

I met my husband in November 1988 while he was stationed in Mainz, Germany. We got married in 1990. While I was pregnant he had to go to Iraq. He returned after our son was born and due to the troop reduction in Germany we moved to Illinois and bought a house. We all were so homesick that we left the US after only 13 months. We moved into a beautiful and big apartment in an old mill. The rent was sky high, so my hubby insisted on buying a house. 

After looking at I don't know how many houses, we came across our home in 2001. It's located at the foot of the Taunus mountains in a tiny village surrounded by woods. At first Bill thought I was kidding him when I told him "that's the one." He replied that there isn't a straight wall in the house. But that was exactly why I fell in love with it. Our home is a half-timbered house which is about 200 years old.

The size of the house is about 1560 square feet and the garden is about 5600 square feet. 

The house was in poor condition and we invested a lot of time and money. 

As you walk through the front door you are in the hallway which we use as our dining room.

To the left is the front room and to the right is the kitchen and behind it is Bill´s bathroom.

Frontroom

The ceiling in the front room was so low that Bill hit his head on the wooden beam. Since we had a tiny basement under the front room we lowered the floor.

This is where we keep our TV.

Kitchen

On the first floor is our bedroom, office, bathroom and a room in which I do the ironing.

Bedroom

Ironing Room

In the attic story is a big and a small guest room and another small room in which we store our clothes that we don´t need for the season.

Big Guest Room

Small Guest Room

We are still not completely done with our house. My bathroom still needs a full remodel and the hallway floor still needs to be done. Bill had a severe car accident in 2010  with a skull brain trauma, so we cannot do everything on our own anymore. But we hope to get the upper bathroom done this year.

Except for the front room all rooms are pretty small, I think that makes them cosy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much, Caroline, for sharing your lovely home and personal story with us. I'd say you're living very large in your small spaces. We wish you and Bill the very best.

To see more of Caroline's sweet home and gorgeous gardens (oh my, does she have a green thumb), go to her blog My Shabby Little Country Home here.

Join me next Saturday for another post in the special series

 Living Large in Small Spaces

See more home tours in the 

Living Large In Small Spaces Series here.

From the comments I've received, many

people have been encouraged by the homes and lives 

shared in this series.

If you live in a small space (approx. 1200 square feet or less),

 I'd love to feature your story, too.

Send me an email and let's collaborate.

(See the "Contact Me" page for my email address.)

Happy 4th of July!

A Joyful Cottage is taking a break to celebrate America's Independence Day. Living Large In Small Spaces will return next Saturday. Happy 4th of July to all our friends!