Budget Breakdown: A Tech Professional Heads to Texas and Builds a Tiny Off-the-Grid Cabin for $25K
Best of all, the simple shelter is available to rent for short stays.
In Texas, where everything is bigger, Ryan McLaughlin is placing his bets on something small. Specifically, a simple 160-square-foot cabin that he hopes city-dwellers will book for $149 a night to get away, find some focus, and reconnect with nature.
Ryan McLaughlin watches the sunset from the deck of the 160-square-foot tiny home he built, with no prior experience, at his parents’ horse ranch in Georgetown, Texas. Soon, the trailer-mounted cabin will be moved to a vineyard, where it will operate grid-free and be available to rent for short stays.
Photo: Benjamin Rasmussen
A fiberglass door covers a void in the wall that holds a solar-powered water heater, a propane tank, and wood for a fire bowl.
Photo: Benjamin Rasmussen
Ryan, a Texas native, spent many years in Seattle as a digital product designer, but by 2017 he was looking to move beyond pushing pixels around a screen to something more three-dimensional. On weekends, he would escape to cottages in Washington’s evergreen forests, where the pace of life gave him time to think. He wanted to bring that meditative experience back to his home state. When a coworker introduced him to Seattle architect Sean O’Neill—who, like Ryan, is a fan of Scandinavian and Japanese design—he knew he had found the person to help him make his dream a reality.
A Hem table and Muuto rug center the living area.
Photo: Benjamin Rasmussen
See the full story on Dwell.com: Budget Breakdown: A Tech Professional Heads to Texas and Builds a Tiny Off-the-Grid Cabin for $25K
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