In the first newsletter for The Ladder, I revealed my dream of buying a cottage in Ontario (and even shared a photo of a listing example in my price range). A few weeks later, an architect sat me down and said, “Love your newsletter. But FYI, that cottage you were looking at is in no way structurally sound.” She told me she’d been thinking of buying land and building a small prefab cabin on it. She showed me photos of modern cabins that were not only stunning but safe — yay! And you know I love an A-frame moment.

It got me thinking: Maybe instead of buying someone else’s inflated cottage, I should look for a sliver of land on a river somewhere and build my dream cabin there.

For years, I’ve been curious about the tiny house movement. I’ve slowly whittled my possessions down to the basics. In my kitchen, for example, I have just one chef’s knife, one cooking pan, four dinner plates, and so on. On the design side, I’ve found creativity follows budget and space limitations. I also love that tiny houses are more environmentally-friendly and they force you to live simply: Less space means less stuff, which means less time spent cleaning and doing maintenance projects. Plus, it feels possible within my price range.

So for this week’s article, I answered one of my personal burning questions: Can you actually live in a tiny house in Canada? Turns out, there are some bylaws and building codes to work around, but it is one hundred percent doable. Here’s how: