A lean and mean house...

with brilliant use of limited space.

My wife used to quote her ex-colleague dietitian, a snooty Mrs. P: “Those Wimpy houses? You can’t even swing cat in it!”

I have always fancied small houses, maybe because I used to wish that I could have a tree house as a child. Or, being realistic, that is probably what I can afford nowadays.

The Story Behind Toronto's Little House
It looks like a child's playhouse, but it's not. Believe it or not, fully grown people actually live there. My guess is that they aren't too tall and they don't weigh very much.

Built in 1912 by contractor Arthur Weeden, Toronto's Little House, as it's known, is only about 7′ wide, 47′ deep, with a total of less than 300 square feet of living space inside.

There's an e-mail circulating calling it the "Smallest House in Brooklyn," but after doing a little research, I found out that it is actually in Toronto. It has become a popular tourist attraction and even has its own webpage: Toronto's Little House.

It has a living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bath. They even found room to tuck a washer and dryer in there. Talk about clever space planning! The home was sold for $135,000 at the beginning of 2007 to a couple who renovated it and put it back on the market for $179,900.

Here's the house before it was renovated:

And after:


Even the front walkway was redone with tumbled stone, and a window was added for charming effect. Inside everything looks new. Here's the entry:
The living room:

The kitchen, which comes with a folding table and chairs so that they don't take up space when you're not using them:

Here's the fridge, tucked right in behind the washer and dryer:

And here's the small, but efficient, bath:

The bedroom, with Murphy Bed open (door leads to backyard):
And the bedroom with the Murphy Bed put up:

The back of the house and patio:

The official webpage explains that Toronto contractor Arthur Weeden noticed the unused space between the two larger homes and declared, "In order to use the land, I will build on it" (Toronto Sun Telegram, 1939). After completing the house, he and his wife lived in it for 20 years. After that a family with three children lived there for many years, which is is hard to imagine.