# @dwellmagazine on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DV0-r5skUyG
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/59404765-dwellmagazine-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/2f8b7ae698.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-03-13T14:22:14.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Dwell (@dwellmagazine) — https://gondola.cc/dwellmagazine

## Caption

Their dream home can wait—first, they built a tiny cabin for $40K. When Lauren and Joey first considered buying land, they were set on building a home from scratch in the woods somewhere between where they both grew up. They began sifting through prospects in 2017, but after years of coming up short, the couple reintroduced themselves to a man who owned a lot they had originally passed on. He told them about another option he owned nearby, which hadn’t been listed.” They bought it from him in 2023 for $72K, but the sale ended up being delayed for two years. An upside, if you can call it that, was that this gave the couple time to plan their future. “We knew building our eventual home would likely take another 10 years financially,” Lauren explains. She’s an interior designer at hintspaces, and while they saved up money to build their forever home, Lauren got to work on designing a 180-square-foot hideaway. “The idea was to build a cabin that we could use intermittently, and then once we have the main house, to turn it into a studio or guest space,” Lauren continues. Joey has building experience, but this was the couple’s first ground-up project. They were determined to figure it out together, and besides a few weekends with friends and family, plus a half-day of site work with a laborer, the couple did the bulk of the build themselves. “I feel so much more ownership in this cabin knowing that we built it by hand, rather than if we hired someone to do it,” Joey says. And while maybe they’re not in their dream home just yet, in the meantime, life is good. “When we can just sit in our cabin with our dogs, doing crafts after going on a hike, it feels really magical,” Lauren says. “It’s just us, on this land that we love.” See the couple’s entire #BudgetBreakdown at the link in our bio.
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Photos by Joey Parent
Story by kellydawsonwrites

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## Tags

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