Budget Breakdown: A Family Builds a Tiny ADU for $46K—and You Can Purchase the Plans
After developing a backyard house with the Yeons, D.C. area firm Aroom is now selling its playbook for the design that includes easy-to-follow Ikea-esque drawings.
After developing a backyard house with the Yeons, D.C. area firm Aroom is now selling its playbook for the design that includes easy-to-follow Ikea-esque drawings.
Sarah Yeon is attached to her family’s Fairfax, Virginia, home. She and her husband, Abraham, bought it when they moved from South Korea in 2009 and raised their three children here. But more recently, after being locked down in the ranch-style residence during the pandemic with the kids, two of them now in their 20s and one heading into high school, she realized that they all needed more space. Buying a bigger house had crossed her mind, "but I loved my neighborhood and neighbors; I wanted to stay," she remembers.
The ADU’s stainless steel cladding makes it resilient in all types of weather. "The D.C. metro area has four distinct seasons—it rains a lot, snows a lot, and it gets hot in the summer—so we wanted to create a unit that was adaptable and sustainable," says David Lee, founder and CEO of design studio Aroom. The steel contrasts the primary residence in brick and light-blue siding, but the Yeons loved the idea of a refreshing and modern look for the backyard unit.
Photo: Aroom
Renovating felt like "too much of a hassle," says Sarah, but their backyard had plenty of space for a detached unit, especially since they could get rid of the kids’ dilapidated playground, which hadn’t seen use in years. Around the same time, Abraham, a chiropractor, happened to have a new patient who was getting their design business off the ground. Suddenly, the patient, David Lee, and his business partner, Sungjin Kim, had their first customers for their design firm, Aroom.
"It’s a bit of an optical illusion depending on what angle you’re looking at it," says Lee. "It sort of looks rectangular or tilted, but spatially when you’re inside, you’re not getting a flat ceiling."
Photo: Aroom
The unit is positioned about 30 feet away from the house, which is far away enough that you can’t hear the kids if they’re being loud, says Sarah. (Her son recently hosted a karaoke party for 10 friends in the studio but it wasn’t disruptive, she says.)
Photo: Aroom
See the full story on Dwell.com: Budget Breakdown: A Family Builds a Tiny ADU for $46K—and You Can Purchase the Plans
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