Here’s What It Cost to Build 10 of Our Favorite Homes of the Year
Every homeowner or designer who shares their project with the world is being wildly brave—after all, they’re putting their most personal spaces out there for all to see. But the bravest of the brave are those who open up not just their doors, but their spreadsheets, divulging the real-life costs that go into each and every architectural detail.
Our Budget Breakdown stories are perhaps the most intimate content we publish—and in 2024 we shared an unflinching look at the finances behind DIY renovations, backyard tiny homes, and once-in-a-lifetime new builds. The numbers here can be as inspiring as a photo of a soaring ceiling or artful backsplash, showing just what your dollars can do. As the year wraps up, we’re looking back at the stories that had us dreaming big, even when the budgets were small.
An Art-Filled Chicago Cottage Gets a $53K Makeover
As avid folk art collectors and art historians, homeowners Louisa Potthast and Tyler Roberts sought a space that synched with their passions and their lifestyle. With this renovation—done for $52K—they created room for their treasures while showcasing their personal style.
"We knew the new multifunctional millwork would be very transformative for the small space, because it’s in the center of the room," explains designer Xiaoran (Sharon) Xu, one half of Studio Becker Xu. "We struck a line through the space that felt more purposeful, and it’s part partition, part storage, and part display." All of the appliances are built into the millwork and the budget-friendly countertops are a Formica solid surface.
The owners of this rental cabin in upstate New York were tired of beige, so they looked to a palette of pinks. Garden Plum paint from Behr Marquee covers the cabinetry, and Kelp Forest tiles from Zia further enliven the kitchen.
To deck out their vacation-rental property, Nicolas Potts and Emma Pilkington Mead crafted a cushy, rose-hued space. In the kitchenette, a comfortable upholstered daybed sits above the breakfast nook.
To transform an underused garage into a guesthouse, homeowner Kille Knobel hired the L.A. firm MR Studio, a growing architecture practice led by Emily Mohr and Jonathan Rieke. With a construction target of about $230,000, they sought to "maximize space and effect on an efficient budget," says Mohr.
While Kille didn’t get a separate bedroom, MR Studio was able to fit a California king–sized bed into a sleeping niche, complete with its own integrated curtains for privacy, at one end of the unit.
Seamus McGuire saw something special when he went into this 1910 home in the Touro/Bouligny neighborhood of New Orleans. "Walking through this house, I noticed it actually has a 12-foot-6 ceiling," he says. "I started seeing the potential." Five interior fireplaces and a giant porch didn’t hurt, either.
Bold color is everywhere in this shotgun-style house. The breakfast room’s storage was purposefully designed for the children’s belongings.
Built by Fritz Tiny Homes and delivered by crane, the compact ADU brings new potential to a compact lot in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. In the kitchen, poured-in-place concrete counters complement rift-cut white oak flooring and cabinetry.
Set on purchasing a prefab tiny home—withs wheels, for ultimate flexibility—homeowner Jyotsna du Ciel searched the internet for just the right designer/builder. She discovered Fritz Tiny Homes and knew at once they were the company for her. In her new tiny home, which took just two days to assemble, the primary bedroom features a massive window and rift-cut white oak built-in shelving.
Building this home was a chance for John Redington to marry his professional career with his work as an artist and historian devoted to vernacular Texas sheds and barns. (Side Angle Side served as the architect of record, and John was the project’s sole designer—he likens the scenario to a band member recording a solo album without leaving the group.)
The single-story home evokes John’s love of old sheds, with its long, thin form and corrugated aluminum siding. Yet it’s also wrapped in windows and sliding glass doors that fill the interior with natural light and encourage natural ventilation. The combined kitchen and dining room, featuring two pieces of family-heirloom furniture, feels spacious thanks to a vaulted ceiling. The walls and ceiling are clad in Douglas fir.
Gwen Vriesema found himself short on space when he began working from home during the pandemic, but he didn’t want to renovate his 1950s thatched cottage in Oosterbeek, the Netherlands. The solution? A tiny prefab dwelling from Swedish company Manta North that strikes a sharp contrast with his historic existing home.
The Weekend unit from Manta North features a small bed and a desk for working. "Although the new prefab was intended solely as my office, it is now also frequently used as a hang-out and sleepover spot for my daughter and her friends when I’m not using it," says owner Gwen.
Kyle Hovenkotter and Tiffany Rattray designed a wall of storage in the living area to serve as a revolving display of souvenirs and found objects—either from their travels abroad or shopping trips around the city. A wide window makes the room feel like a tree house.
It took a little over a year to build the property, which prioritizes natural light in nearly every room. "Even on a cloudy day, our home still feels bright and airy," homeowner Tiffany Rattray says. The white walls and tall ceilings are punctuated by wood detailing and skylights. The minimalist exterior complements the interior, with a fun play on materials and intersecting lines.
"The goal was to open it up as much as possible," says architect Olivier Leiken, who renovated this Parisian cottage for his own family. "We changed almost everything." They added windows, an extension with a living/dining area, and insulation. They removed walls, replaced flooring, and implemented a palette of bright white and soft green punctuated with loads of texture and as many plants as possible. The 1930 house in Montreuil welcomes in sunshine, and it has a soothing palette. "Plants, sun, and coffee—what else does one need," says Leiken.
The homeowners enlarged the kitchen with a 32-square-foot glass extension that harnesses sunlight from the adjacent courtyard. They installed oak in the living and dining rooms, and Tarkett Crocodile green linoleum in the kitchen.
Homeowners Heather Thompson, a literary specialist in Lake Oswego School District, and Sam Gaty, executive director at a nonprofit that supports documentary filmmakers, loved almost everything about their spacious, light-filled 1965 ranch house in Portland, Oregon’s West Haven neighborhood. But the one pain point was the kitchen: a cramped, dark space with a bad layout. An appliance update turned into a full-on remodel in this Portland, Oregon, family’s home. ada
An adjacent family room, previously blocked from the kitchen by a row of hanging cabinets, was reclaimed for a breakfast nook. The custom table and wraparound banquette seating has turned the kitchen into the heart of the home. The round window brings a bit of daylight into the breakfast nook—all the better to illuminate the rich tones of the wallpaper from Little Greene.
Inspiring Budget Breakdowns From 2023
A Live/Work Space Wrapped in Custom Millwork for $219K
Homeowners Tomasz Wagner and Amy Tran are photographers living in Vancouver, Canada. When they moved into this live/work space, they envisioned a cozy, compact home with a creative studio. Design firm &Daughters got to work cladding the home in maple plywood, stained a rich honey tone.
Amy and Tomasz’s desks are tucked away on a rounded platform enclosed by Japanese noren curtains, which provides a semiprivate area to meet clients or host industry-related events. "The office was a splurge," says Amy. "I knew I would be spending a lot of time there, and I wanted our work environment to be cozy. I’m happiest when curled up in a blanket."
The Theresa Passive House is a case study in resilient, health-conscious design techniques. Trey Farmer, an architect at Forge Craft Architecture and Design, and Adrienne Farmer, owner of interior design office Studio Ferme, collaborated with architect Hugh Jefferson Randolph to transform a worn, leaky, and loud 100-year-old house into a resilient haven.
The design team specified durable, easy-to-maintain, nontoxic, recyclable, natural, and regenerative materials. The kitchen island is engineered quartz, and the cabinets are from a local cabinetmaker.
Seeking to preserve what their home had while improving it with a $150,000 budget, Mandy Palasik and Adam Vest were intent on working within the existing footprint and maintaining the structure’s load-bearing walls.
After enduring a scammer contractor, the homeowners of this light-and-airy Los Angeles bungalow decided to finish the project themselves. The result is a fresh, modern space that nods to history (it was built in 1926).
This Yosemite cabin had classic A-frame style with 20-foot-tall windows, a rock wall fireplace, open-beam knotty pine ceilings, and a lofted sleeping area. Homeowners Aria Massoudifar and Sam Salehyan were confident that they could turn it into their dream retreat in the Sierras.
The homeowners spent $125,000 refreshing the ’70s home with finishes and decor that make it feel like a beloved family retreat.
The owners of this Barcelona apartment wanted to give their apartment a fresh, open-concept spin. "With these types of projects, you really have to make two budgets," explains Adrian Elizade of Forma Arquitectura. "The first covers the peeling away of what you don’t want. And the second is—based on what you find underneath—for what you decide to keep, and what needs to be restored or replaced. So in that sense, it’s like archaeology."
The renovation focused on the kitchen, where tile and brickwork play backdrop to considered, bespoke carpentry and microcement to create a minimalist yet warm kitchen area.
Audi Culver and Ivy Siosi had never built a house before, but as the founders of Siosi, a decade-old furniture company known for its use of domestic, sustainably sourced hardwood and simple, Scandinavian-influenced forms, they were up for the challenge. A large parcel a few miles from downtown caught their eye, and when the owner split it into four smaller lots, they snapped one up.
After Audi and Ivy built their workshop, Ivy drew up plans for a simple, 1,450-square-foot house, and the duo decided to act as general contractors, assisted by Loren Wood Builders but doing most of the labor themselves.
Madison and Mark Talley of Tall Architects moved from a camper into their self-designed, self-built space in 2017. The couple and their three-year-old son, George, have happily made the tiny house a home in Vancleave, Mississippi. Madison points out that the pod concept would make it easy to add an extension if necessary. "We see it as a house that can grow with us—and that we can pay for as we go along."
"We didn’t design it as a tiny house. We designed it as a super-efficient house we could pay cash for," explains Mark. "If that makes it tiny, so be it, but it wasn’t a marketing thing—this is all we need, and all we can afford."
Even with multiple structures across their 10-acre property in Maine, Diana Arcadipone and Scott Berk only had one bathroom. This 560-square-foot guesthouse by architect Leslie Benson gives them a second, as well as space for visiting family and friends.
Site restrictions limited the structure’s footprint, so Benson included a loft with the plan. Although the intersecting roof planes give the exterior a contemporary twist, Benson notes that the cladding (a blend of corrugated metal and stained cedar clapboards) keeps the guesthouse not only materially cohesive with the other buildings on-site, but also camouflaged against its arborous setting.
Architect (and homeowner) Danny Lim envisioned the space between the ADU and the house as an informal place to gather. "It creates a sort of courtyard sensibility, which works for our intergenerational family dynamics."
Danny fitted the kitchen into an alcove outfitted with Ikea cabinets and Semihandmade fronts. The refrigerator is by LG. On the jute rug from Armadillo, chairs from Threshold join a table from Inside Weather.
After a decade of working for the military, Amber Schleuning settled down in a 1962 home in Austin’s Riverside neighborhood, where there was a pocket of midcentury builds that had survived recent development. "It felt like an area where time was standing still a little bit," she says.
She kept the front facade intact, as well as the large picture windows in the back and exposed beams at the living room ceiling. But she swapped other hallmarks of the 1960s build, like the too-small galley kitchen, for a bigger footprint, large island, and more storage.
Avalon Rossi used reclaimed wood, plaster built-ins, and four sets of French doors—a lucky score—to recast an 800-square-foot San Diego home. The kitchen now has much more counter space, thanks to the new layout, with a quartz slab Rossi found on "super sale." The pantry doors are repurposed, and the backsplash is a terracotta tile that the designer has had in storage since 2017.
Avalon wanted to simplify and add character, so she kept the stone floor in the kitchen and introduced it throughout the home—a decision made easier on the budget when she found a crate of similar stones discounted at a stone yard. "They were completely mismatched and all different sizes," says Avalon, who sorted through them and carefully selected pieces to be used for the new floor.
The 1930s home in London that architect Grant Straghan remodeled for himself and his family is enlivened by blue-green cement tile exterior cladding.
Inspired by David Hockney’s painting A Bigger Splash (1967), Grant outfitted his daughters’ bathroom with dark- and light-pink wall tile. "The girls chose pink, but the tones reference the Hockney painting," the architect says. "The square theme continues throughout."
"One visit over the winter, and we drove up to find four feet of snow covering the driveway and stairs down to the cabin," interior designer Amy Pigliacampo says. "There was no way to even park the truck!" The most expensive part of the renovation was updating the roof and siding, at a total cost of $56,953.
The living room sofa is from Article, and the coffee table is from Burke Decor. The rug is vintage, and the fur chair was found at Urban Outfitters.
Four Minneosta housemates turned their dingy garage into a cozy coworking space by scouring Facebook Marketplace and local salvage centers. By locating such treasures as decades-old Douglas fir flooring from a decommissioned munitions plant, they remade the 600-square-foot space into a homey creative commons.
Around a hearth made of black bricks and a Jøtul stove found on Facebook Marketplace are vintage leather loungers that a friend pulled out of storage and an Iranian rug given to Kyle and his wife, Elsie, by another friend. The light fixtures are vintage finds from Bauer Brothers Salvage.
Drawing on a simple material palette of plywood and corrugated metal, architect Rafe Maclean designs a certified Passive House on a steep, challenging lot in Dunedin. Maclean designed around the existing trees on the property, including a native Kõwhai tree, which is why the house is called the Kõwhai House.
Pine plywood grown in New Zealand covers the interior. "It’s quite economical and also quite warm," says Maclean. "I find the patterns on it quite interesting to look at."
Shin Shin Architecture executed a complete gut renovation and redesign for a 1923 L.A. bungalow, transforming the structure from a single-story, single-family residence into a two-story home with a separate accessory dwelling unit (ADU) that can be rented out for added income. "We needed some sort of passive income stream in order to afford the investment," says Melissa. "We saw that as part of our financial model."
The sunroom in the ADU boasts a clear polycarbonate ceiling with millwork adding storage and concealing the washer-dryer.
Designer and artist Briana Babini decided to turn a neglected Atlanta building into the kind of home she’d always wanted. She subcontracted the electrical, plumbing, HVAC, drywall, roof, and insulation work but took on all the rest herself, which freed up money in the $122,000 budget for choice splurges among more affordable finishes.
Briana restored original details like the gridded windows while upgrading systems and reimagining the interior. In the living/dining area, she removed a header and wing walls to open the space.
Kelli Hix added this 500-square-foot guesthouse to the back of her 1930s bungalow in Nashville, Tennessee. The guesthouse is clad in vertical white vinyl siding, and Kelli had decking constructed out of engineered wood and cedar.
Kelli embraced simple raw materials like marine-grade plywood and let them shine. "I made a design rule for myself for this project: no material should imitate another material. If it’s plywood, let it look like plywood. Let’s celebrate that."
Wayne Turett of The Turett Collaborative designed his own energy-efficient holiday home in Greenport, New York, as an exercise in experimentation. A thorough landscaping package cost roughly $50,000.
The architect’s wife wanted the home to be full of natural light, so glass was used liberally. They spent $55,000 on windows and skylights, plus $14,500 on doors.
Drew Stuart and his ex-wife Kristin never wanted the ease of new construction. When they were searching for a place to raise their son in the Catskills years ago, they were committed to undertaking a renovation. It would be the more difficult route, of course, but considering that Drew is a founding partner of INC Architecture & Design, they were excited about the creative possibilities.
Stuart got the idea to install cork countertops and flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms after visiting friends in the Hamptons.
Read more Budget Breakdown stories here.
Published
Last Updated
Get the Dwell Newsletter
Be the first to see our latest home tours, design news, and more.