Like many homesteaders before him, Utah resident Lamar Alexander is of the 'teach a man to fish' school of micro-home design. Not content to build his own utilitarian little one-room shack and set up in it, Alexander also runs a website called Simple Solar Homesteading and has authored a number of e-books on the subject, all in the name of gathering more potential homesteaders into the fold. If he's a teacher of sorts, his cabin is his greatest teaching tool, designed as a freestanding home that can be copied easily and implemented wherever, beholden to nary a building code. With only a 14x14' floor plan, it still has space enough for a full loft, kitchen, bathroom, dining room, living room, and office space. And it's handsome, too!

But getting down to brass tacks, Alexander's cabin only cost him $2K to build, so for purposes of comparison, much less than one Japanese-inspired cottage and a Finnish designer's DIY cabin, and a bit more than one couple's many-windowed West Virginia retreat. The cabin is powered by solar and wind systems, and also includes a system for harvesting rainwater. Propane is used to heat the place, though the feeling of not having a mortgage is probably also good for warmth.

· Author Builds Tiny Solar-Powered Off Grid Cabin for Under $2,000! [Inhabitat]

· All previous Micro Homes posts [Curbed National]