Budget Breakdown: An Architect Couple’s $173K Home Is Inspired by Swedish Summer Houses

"For us, it was about designing a home for the life that we wanted to live," says Marika Drolet-Ferguson. She and her partner, Mathieu Boucher-Côté, who are both architects and cofounded design firm Nordais, had spent years living nomadically when they decided to settle down and have a child. Between teaching gigs and artist residencies, they’d often return to Marika’s childhood home in Tracadie-Sheila, New Brunswick, so it made sense to them to build something there; it was just a matter of asking themselves what a permanent home might look like immersed in the beauty of the Acadian Peninsula.

"We were questioning the best way to return to this land while minimizing the environmental impact of materials, so we spent years reflecting on what we could do," says Mathieu. Early concepts included sketches inspired by their travels through Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, as well as Marika’s graduate research in the Netherlands. A key influence was the Swedish sommarhus tradition they encountered while doing an artist residency in the country in 2016. "Everyone just disappears to their sommarhus in nature or by the sea. They’re disconnected from technology," says Marika.

Today, Marika, Mathieu, and their three-year-old daughter have a sommarhus of their own, of sorts, having built a 650-square-foot addition off of Marika’s parents’ home that provides direct access to the peninsula’s bounty. The addition, which holds an open-plan living space, a kitchen/dining area, a bathroom, and a small loft, shares the eastern wall of the original 1980s residence and connects through a basement, where the couple carved out a bedroom and extra storage. Because New Brunswick winters are well below freezing and summers hover around the mid-70s, "we aren’t in a situation where we can live in a tiny house and be happy in there for what, thirty years?" says Marika. The footprint, with the added basement area, felt like a big enough space for them to grow into (and be stuck inside of when the weather is untenable) while still matching their goal of a compact, energy-efficient build.

Editors’ note: The dollar amount in the headline is in USD. Figures below are in Canadian dollars.