Cottage in the Meadow

This new home in northern Vermont tells a story that comes full circle from where it began. Many years ago, CDG designed a home for a wonderful family with children. The children grew up in a home designed specifically for their family’s goals and desires: encouraging connectivity, comfort, and balance. Fast-forward to today and these children are now adults, one of whom approached our team to request a custom-designed home that would have many of the same qualities he grew up enjoying.

This three-story 1,400 sq. ft. home has a compact, “just big enough” footprint; its spaces are laid out efficiently, simply, and comfortably. The interior color palette of the home is light and earthy. Timber posts and beams, cabinets, and floor finishes add complementary warming tones to the living spaces. Natural light streams through the tall windows on each wall. A deck and screen porch extends the living space into the meadow.

A “just big enough” home takes advantage of efficiencies between adjacent spaces and forms to create a truly human-scaled structure, enabling us to live well and more sustainably, within a smaller than might be expected footprint. "Just Big Enough" is CDG's take on the design philosophy presented in Sara Susanka's book "The Not So Big House", framing the smallness of a house as a redeeming quality that drives both the design of the space and how we live in it. This simplicity was appealing to our clients and inspired a joyful and collaborative design process with them, and general contractor Tell Gregory.