Yearly Archives: 2013

Prefab Laneway House: 12′ x 20′

Prefab Laneway House:

Prefab-Vancouver-Laneway-House

Prefab Vancouver Laneway House

Designed as a place for visitors to rest their travel-weary bones this Guesthouse concept could easily be adapted as a Laneway House for the Vancouver marketplace.

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Gambier Island Homesteaders – Remote Island Living

Q&A with Gambier Island homesteaders James and Lara

Gambier island perfect for  a Modern-Shed by Westcoast Outbuildings Inc.

Gambier Islanders Homesteaders – James Spouler and Lara Kehler

Gambier Island

January is that time of year where people take stock of their lives and ask that all important question: “What am I doing with my life?” Usually this results in a few trips to the gym and then it’s back to business as usual. But for some, it leads to something more radical.

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Backyard Bedroom: Home in a 96 Sq/Ft box

Backyard Bedroom Kit: A Teenage Dream

Backyard Bedroom Kit: Our customer came to Westcoast Outbuildings with a problem. Their children were growing up right before their eyes. Brother & Sister once happy to share a single bedroom, it was now rapidly becoming a dysfunctional situation.

Vancouver Backyard Bedroom

Modern-Shed: Backyard Bedroom installed by handy client.

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Backyard Office & Storage By Modern-Shed

 A Backyard Office Close to Home.

Backyard Office Kit by Modern-Shed

Mixed Use: 7′ x 22′ Backyard Office / Storage

SEATTLE — Chris Hansot was used to paying $400 a month for an office in Queen Anne he barely used. It got him thinking about a Backyard Office.

The software salesman travels regularly for work around the Northwest and Canada, but when he needs to get projects finished, he needs the privacy and space to do so.

Chris found himself working more and more from home, in order to be close to his wife and four kids — a 6-year-old boy, two twin 8-year-old girls, and a 10-year-old boy.

He has another office in Bellevue, but he hates going there, he said.

After four years paying monthly rent on the Queen Anne office near his home, he finally made the decision to build something even closer to home, a backyard office.

“I thought, ‘Why am I paying money for this?’” he said. “I need a place to go and have my own space.”

Chris looked into building a garage with a home office attached, but he was surprised at how costly a home addition could be.

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Frank Lloyd Wright please design me a dog house for Eddie.

Frank Lloyd Wright… Please design me a dog house

In June of 1956, Frank Lloyd Wright — a man posthumously recognized as “the greatest American architect of all time” by the AIA — received an unusual letter from 12-year-old Jim Berger, a boy looking to commission the design of a home for his dog, Eddie, by the same architect who designed his father’s house 6 years previous. Incredibly, Frank Lloyd Wright agreed and, as seen below, supplied a full set of drawings for “Eddie’s House” the next year. Construction was eventually completed by Jim’s father in 1963.

frank lloyd wright

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright

Unfortunately Eddie hated his new home. It was demolished in 1973.

The full exchange of letters can be found below, along with a photo of the completed dog house. It was the smallest structure ever designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and possibly the least used.

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Vancouver Backyard Studio

Vancouver Backyard Studio

Vancouver Backyard Studio

Vancouver BC: Backyard Artist Studio

Our client had a dilemma, he had just moved into a cute little East Vancouver BC bungalow  The upstairs was the perfect size for he and his wife and their two cats. In the basement was a revenue generating bachelor suite.

That meant no room for his design studio!

With the size of his lot there was no room for a full-fledged addition to the house. Read more ›




Modern-Shed: Ultimate Fan Cave

Modern-Shed Fan Cave

Seattle Seahawks Modern-Shed Fan CaveSeattle Seahawks Modern-Shed Fan Cave

Seattle Seahawks Modern-Shed Fan Cave Seattle Seahawks Modern-Shed Fan Cave

Modern-Shed SEATTLE — When Joe and Lisa Sakay moved into their new home in the Leschi neighborhood of Seattle this past June, they both felt as though the home was missing something.

“For some reason, the house didn’t have a basement or an office, a space where I could go and work and watch football,” said Joe Sakay, an attorney who puts in many hours over the weekend. “I needed my own office space to get my work done.”

In addition to work, however, Sakay has been a “huge” Seahawks fan his whole life.

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Prefab Houses & Construction: Everything you wanted to know!

 The Versatile Prefab House

The Versatile Prefab House - Dwell Magazine

Click to view this info packed FREE Special Edition

Ever thought about owning a Prefab House? If you are as passionate about prefab houses and construction as we are they you’ve gotta check out this FREE Digital Issue of Dwell Magazine.

Page 4: Prefab 101

Everything you wanted to know about prefab houses but were afraid to ask! We’ve tapped the brain behind popular Web resource FabPreFab to explain the birds and the bees of manufactured housing.

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