High design, reasonable price, from Poland

Someone needed to bring the humble single-wide manufactured home into this century and a young architect in Poland, Lech Włoskowski, may have accomplished this with considerable style in his modern, minimalist design of the JB “Silver Moon,” a 581 sq. ft. singlewide.

I’ve teleported it via PhotoShop from Poland to my neighborhood, and also added some quick skirting in Photoshop, because I think it is hard to visualize how good a mobile home can look when there is space underneath. In the video by the manufacturer you can see the original image I captured the still from.

Unless you speak Polish, if subtitles aren’t showing, click on the CC in the lower right corner after making the video above full size.

Don’t expect these to be shipped to the US or appearing here anytime soon. It is made in Northern Poland and can probably be shipped to neighboring countries within a reasonable distance. That would cost extra, of course, depending on how much distance. Here is the JB Homes company's website.

Clad from roof to sides with unique aluminum “slates” (by PREFA Italia), they remind me of armadillo armor, and give the home a modern, unique look, but also reflect the slate roof tile which has been used for centuries in Europe.

This small manufactured home has style inside and out, and some flash with the creative use of LED lighting, both direct and indirect. But it’s the simplicity and beauty of the modern interior which make it a special standout to me.

The windows are all energy efficient triple-glazed. Except for some high-priced (over $90,000) small manufactured homes in Canada, triple-glazed windows in North America would be a costly extra in a manufactured home, if it were even an option.

And these windows are not cheap looking, but instead the size and placement one might find on a custom home, especially the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall windows which cover an entire end of the house. Ordering a custom window like that from the Home Depot would cost a fortune.

The video tour of the inside, given by the architect, reveals that it is clean, sleek and modern, with enough warmth from real wood in the ceiling and the tasteful wood pattern in the vinyl floor to give it a cabin feel, but a modern, stylish cabin.

For a compact home, the use of space is excellent. Even where the materials are not expensive, like the Kerradeco wall system, which is PVC, it is aesthetically pleasing in a way which most drywall alternatives aren’t. For one thing it needs no batten strips. For an added cost, the walls can be done with natural wood paneling, as they are in this more conventional model by the same architect:

Back to the Silver Moon…The bathroom is small but stylish. The vanity, with the subtle indirect lighting under the top, is a gem of understated elegance. I see some things in this little home which are more aesthetically pleasing than the modern décor done in some $10M+ Manhattan apartments.

There are two minor things which I could complain about. One is the curtain on the end wall window. That would be a challenging window to cover, but a curtain somehow doesn’t go with the modern look of the rest of the house.

Another small flaw is having the toilet next to a secondary glass entrance door, which in itself is a little unusual since a home’s second door is rarely in the bathroom. But that window in the door could be frosted or covered with a pleated shade, like a Roman shade.

The pleasing interior design is no one-off happy accident. Before designing this home, Lech W. (architect) did more conventional-looking small manufactured homes you can see here at the Letniskowo YouTube site, and they all have beautifully designed interiors as well. The kitchen in each home is different, and I like them all.

Major manufacturers in the US like Clayton and Cavco need a talented architect/designer like this to get the kitsch out of their manufactured home designs. A clean, modern design goes well with smaller manufactured homes in particular. This Silver Moon is not a home that would appeal to people looking for the most space for the least money.

Several years ago, when I first started blogging about manufactured homes, the Clayton i-house was a good attempt at updating the single-wide. It had a nice modern interior and the unique roof line made it open and airy inside. But the water-catchment roof and some other design features, like bamboo floors and Andersen double-glazed windows, drove  the price too high for most manufactured home buyers to consider. For those reasons, along with it being introduced during the real estate meltdown, it flopped. Not having a 2nd bathroom, except if you had enough money to splurge on the guest house, also contributed to its abysmally low sales.   

Before LED lights started becoming standard in this decade, the architect’s use of lighting in the Silver Moon would be considered over-the-top, but LED makes it possible to do elaborate lighting without the high cost, so why not?

The building envelope is different from most US manufactured homes, as I believe the framing is steel, and it has about 7 inches of spray-foam insulation in the roof and walls. You can tell by the thickness of the window frames that the walls are nice and thick. Spray foam is better done the way this company does it, which is to spray the cavity before applying the cladding. That way there are no hidden gaps.

Although this home has two bedrooms, it’s in the overall size category of a lot of one-bedroom manufactured homes in the US. The smaller bedroom has two narrow beds, like you will find in Europe, but it could fit a standard single bed, and a small desk.

The Silver Moon is priced at $67,300. When you consider that tiny homes with 200 square feet less, and thin walls and double pane windows can easily run nearly this much, that makes this reasonable. The similarly sized, more conventional looking homes by Letniskowo, with double-glazed windows and less expensive heating systems are substantially lower priced.

In the UK, this home would be considered a "static caravan," meaning it is meant to be towed to a property and placed like a manufactured home would be. It is not an RV or meant to be towed from place to place. However, if it had to be moved, it would be easier to move than a large single-wide. 

In the US, you can get a cheap park model home which is smaller, only 400 square feet, like an inexpensive model without a loft, for around $25,000, but it’s going to be very cheaply made. This home is priced about like a higher quality one-bedroom manufactured home of a similar size in the US but has a lot more style and better energy efficiency.

It seems like it would make the perfect cottage or primary home for those looking for something about twice the size of many tiny homes.

What do you think of the design, exterior and interior?