Continental Magazine profiles the small house movement ten years after Sarah Susanka’s seminal work, "The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Live". It traces the history of the small domicile ethos, from the Minimum House movement during the Depression to post-WWII Levittown tract homes to the weeHouse, starting a 341 sq. ft available online.

Closer to home, the Cuyahoga Community Land Trust wants you to consider a little green house—a green cottage to be exact—which are being built in the Cleveland EcoVillage. Live in the lap of efficiency. These locally designed 1,200 sq ft. homes will heat for as little as $35 a month and are within easy walking distance to the W. 65th Rapid station. (Read David Beach’s coverage of the Green Cottages here)

Energy efficiency block grants—what's best?

Stimulus funds for energy efficiency are heading our way: Cuyahoga County will receive $5.5 million and Cleveland $4.5 million to invest in energy efficiency. Where can we see the most bang for the buck? Should this money be used to think about a house as a system and invest in projects that otherwise wouldn’t get funded, or should it make a serious dent in low hanging fruit like a massive light bulb replacement program? At roughly $10,000 each, would Deep Energy Retrofits on 1,000 homes (making them so energy efficient that they don’t need a furnace) be a smart investment of the $10 million? Or would replacing 68.5 million incandescent light bulbs with $1.50 energy efficient compact fluorescent bulbs seem like a better investment?