Arch Cabin Home: How One Woman Downsized and Built Her Own

Tiny Home Tours

Sep 1

5 min read

Renee spent years chasing her tail to keep up a big house she thought would be a palace. Instead she found stress, bills, and rooms she barely used. When her two daughters grew up, she looked at all that space and knew she was done. What she chose next was not a typical tiny home at all. It is an arch cabin, a curved steel dome she designed the inside of herself, half off-grid on rainwater, and it cut her monthly bills by more than half.

a steel arch cabin home on a rural Texas lot

What Is an Arch Cabin?

An arch cabin is a steel, arch-shaped kit home. Renee loved the shape from the start. "We have been conditioned to believe a home should look and have the shape," she says. "I think a home should be where your heart is." Hers arrived from Arch Cabins as a bare, beautiful dome with no floor plan at all. Because the curved steel does the structural work, it needs few interior walls, so it opens into a bright space with ceilings that reach 18 feet 4 inches at the peak.

She Designed the Whole Floor Plan Herself

The empty shell meant Renee had to draw the entire layout, and she did, night after night, redrawing until it worked. "Was I a builder? No," she says. "But can I measure? Yes." She kept a tape measure on her hip, worked out how much space she actually lived in, and built from there. She did a great deal of the work herself to save money, and she is clear about what that gave her beyond the savings: "You achieve things that you never thought you could do. It's just taking that step."

A Kitchen Built Around a Full Oven

The kitchen is the heart of the home and full of her own touches. She upcycled a bifold door from Habitat for Humanity, painted it, and hung it as a cabinet. She left the shelves open, a habit from years living in Europe, so her family's pottery (her mother was a potter) is on display. And she refused to shrink the two things that matter to her as a cook: she kept a full oven and a full refrigerator, trading away some counter space to fit them. "I have no regrets," she says. Even the walk-in pantry is clever, tucked into the space underneath the staircase.

an upcycled open-shelf kitchen inside an arch cabin

The Living Room, Bedroom, and Loft

The open plan was a deliberate choice; she did not want partition walls chopping up the space. In the living room she built her own bookshelf from lumber she stained, and cut and stained the trim running up the stairwell. Her bedroom is plainly utilitarian, a queen bed, a nightstand, a built-in shelf, and a walk-in closet, because her energy goes elsewhere. Up top is a loft under those soaring ceilings that she mostly keeps for guests and, especially, for her granddaughter, who loves both the loft and running up and down the stairs to reach it.

the high arched ceiling and loft inside an arch cabin home

Off-Grid Water: How Rainwater Harvesting Works

This is the part Renee most wants people to ask about. Her land has no water, and drilling a well in her part of Texas now runs about $100,000. So she researched rainwater harvesting instead and built a system for under $10,000: two 2,500-gallon tanks ($4,000), an on-demand pump ($900), PEX plumbing and fittings (a few hundred dollars), and a commercial UV filter ($300).

The tanks collect off her garage roof, and one good rain fills all 5,000 gallons. Living alone and conservatively, but still washing clothes, showering, and running a dishwasher, that lasts her about five months. On the rare stretch with no rain, a 5,000-gallon delivery costs about $600. "As the water gets low in the tanks," she says, "we have a rain that brings it back up again."

rainwater harvesting tanks beside an arch cabin garage

What It Cost

All in, Renee puts the finished home between $111,000 and $115,000. The Arch Cabins kit itself was $18,000, covering the metal, rib framing, insulation, hardware, and siding, though not the end-cap walls that hold her front and back doors. A contractor handled the end caps and interior drywall for about $79,000, a number she admits was higher than it should have been because the builder made costly mistakes. The rest she paid out of pocket, customizing as she went. Her 5-acre lot at Twin Caverns Ranch is part of a development where lots average around $120,000 and, importantly to her, there are no restrictions on going tiny.

The number she cares about most is the monthly one. Downsizing took her from roughly $4,200 a month to about $1,600. "That's critical at my age," she says, "and everybody can do it."

A Note From Our Sponsor, Wildgrain

Disclosure: this video tour was sponsored by Wildgrain, and Renee shares her own experience with it below.

Renee likes her meals hassle-free, and Wildgrain fits that. It delivers par-baked sourdough, pastries, and pastas that arrive frozen and bake in 25 minutes or less, made with simple ingredients and slow fermentation. Every box is customizable, and for each one ordered, Wildgrain donates two meals to a food-security nonprofit.

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What She'd Tell You

What downsizing taught Renee is what actually matters to her: the outdoors, planting, time with family. "I don't want to work to live," she says. "I want the freedom of being able to do what I want without that ball and chain of all these bills that I brought on myself." Three years in, she has a quarter of the things to be responsible for and, by her account, a great deal more happiness. Her advice is simply to step back and look honestly at how you are living, because you might be happier with less.

FAQ

What is an arch cabin? An arch cabin is a steel, arch-shaped kit home. Renee's came from Arch Cabins as a bare dome with no floor plan, which she designed herself. The curved steel structure means it needs few interior support walls, so it opens up into a bright, high-ceilinged space; hers reaches 18 feet 4 inches at the peak.

How much does an arch cabin cost? Renee's arch cabin kit from Arch Cabins was $18,000, which covered the metal, rib framing, insulation, hardware, and siding, but not the end-cap door walls. All in, with a contractor for the end caps and drywall plus her own customizing, the finished home came to roughly $111,000 to $115,000, not counting the land.

Can you use rainwater harvesting instead of a well? Renee did. Her land had no water, and a well in her part of Texas would have cost about $100,000, so she built a rainwater harvesting system for under $10,000: two 2,500-gallon tanks, an on-demand pump, PEX plumbing, and a UV filter. Collected off her garage roof, 5,000 gallons lasts her about five months, and when it runs dry a water delivery of 5,000 gallons costs about $600.

Can you build an arch cabin yourself? Largely, yes. Renee, who does not consider herself a builder, designed the entire floor plan and did much of the interior work herself to save money, from upcycled cabinetry to a bookshelf she built and trim she cut and stained. She hired out the parts that needed it, like the end caps, drywall, and tile.

How much can downsizing save you each month? For Renee, a lot. Downsizing into her arch cabin cut her monthly bills from about $4,200 to about $1,600. She is candid that going tiny does not erase every bill, but says letting go of things she did not really need brought far less stress and far more freedom.

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