Brian Schulz recently completed his forest house in the Oregon Woods. He built the home himself, and the design and concept of it were inspired by the traditional Japanese Minka homes, which are built using local materials and steeply sloped roofs to create affordable, open structures. For his house, Schulz used salvaged materials, along with those sourced from within 10 miles of his new home.
The finished tiny house is a 14-by-16-foot home, which coexists perfectly with its woodland surroundings. It cost only $11,000 to build, which was mostly spent on concrete, shakes and insulation. Schulz, who teaches traditional wood kayak building for a living, completed the house in about a year and a half, working in his spare time.
Schulz salvaged a lot of the wood he used to build the house from the bay while kayaking, which he then milled on-site by himself. For the corner posts he repurposed blowdown trees from a friend’s forest. Inside the house, the kitchen counters were milled from a fallen tree he’d collected and kept for 8 years, while the stair railing is made from alder poles that were cut from beside the house.
There are three tables in the house, which were all cut from cedar found on the beach and made in 2 hours. The flooring was made from low-grade reject fir, and using various bits of scrap wood for the trimmings.