A 150-square-foot cottage with a view

HELSINKI, Finland — Jussi and Riina Palva, environmentally conscious architects, liked the idea of a vacation home. But the thought of driving two hours to get there — or even packing — was less appealing.

"It's no use to use Friday to travel all day and pack it all up on Sunday," Jussi Palva said. "You only have one day."

So they created an eco-friendly urban getaway: a 150-square-foot cottage on the west side of the city, about a 10-minute bike ride from their three-bedroom apartment.

Their tiny seafoam-green house sits among the faded 1950s-era cottages in the Lauttasaari Recreational Park, a forest of towering evergreens and pines on the Baltic Sea. The cottage, which can be traversed in about five paces, cost about 30,000 euros (or $42,000) to construct and was completed last June.

Since then, the couple and their two children, Anni, 2, and Ilari, 5, have been spending most of their weekends there.

Jussi Palva, 37, got the idea for the little house two years ago when he spotted a dilapidated cottage while walking through the woods. The couple, who are principals at Verstas Architects and were part of the International Architecture Exhibition at the 2010 Venice Biennale, bought it for 15,000 euros (or about $21,000), with the intention of renovating.

"I thought to myself, if we're going to do this, it has to be perfect," Riina Palva, 34, said.

But they soon discovered that it was too far gone to rebuild. The interior was black with mold — or, as Jussi Palva put it, "It was rotten." So they demolished it and started from scratch. Because city regulations limited the size they could build to 150 square feet, "we just looked at sailboats and how they manage their interiors," he said. "There's a lot of space for everyone."

That nautical influence can be seen in the rope ladder to the loft bed, which dangles over the couch, and in the birch veneer cabinets made by Paattimaakarit, a Finnish woodworking company that builds ships and boat interiors.

The kitchen, in the front of the cottage, has large windows facing the sea and a sleek oak counter with two steel stove burners bought at a local hardware store. The house has electricity, but no running water, though there is a hose just outside that they use for washing up.

The living room sits on a platform, so things like shoes and firewood can be tucked in the space underneath. A sectional sofa, built by Paattimaakarit, hugs three sides of the room, the back of it lined with Marimekko pillows. With the addition of an extra section, it turns into a bed where the couple and their youngest child sleep; their 5-year-old sleeps in the loft bed.

Vinyl Storage Sheds As An Alternative To Building Your Own Shed?

Advertised and instantly think how much easier it would be to just buy one of those instead of following firewood storage shed plans and building your own. There is no doubt that many manufacturers make high quality prefab storage sheds that look amazing and are built to last a long time. Once you get past the initial wow factor of the window shopping, if you ever do, that’s when the realization of comparing those to building your own comes into play. You are a wise consumer so it’s only natural that you would want to consider all the factors that will in the end help you determine the cost effectiveness of vinyl storage sheds versus building your own firewood shed. What I’ve done here is save you the time of digging up the info.

Now let’s consider these things for a moment. Those lower priced vinyl storage sheds you have been looking at do not include these features, I know because I have scoured the internet. This is going to leave you with a choice of either buying the add-ons then having to modify the low price prefab storage sheds or splurge for one that has all of these features built in. Also in my searches I found that you are going to easily reach the $2,000 range before you see the quality you will want in a smaller size. To properly store 2-3 years worth of firewood you will more than likely be up in the $3-$4K range before construction.

Despite all of this pointing to what will be a huge price hike rather than using firewood storage shed plans and building your own there is 1 advantage to vinyl storage sheds. Less maintenance if it’s the right quality from the start.

One last thing you might not know that i found out is that when shipped to you it will be your responsibility to get the shed unloaded from the truck on the normal shipping price. It will cost you more to have the driver actually complete the delivery and bring the boxes to your yard if that would be a problem for you.

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