tiny but mighty
Bainbridge Island design duo delivers elegant, tiny homes built to last
Words by Kristina Avramovic Oldani
Luxury, ready-made cabins from Tieton Cabin Company are an invitation to live with less and connect to the outdoors. Photo: Sam McJunkin
A REIMAGINED FRUIT PACKING WAREHOUSE IN TIETON, WASHINGTON, IS HOME TO THE LATEST CREATIVE ENDEAVOR BY BAINBRIDGE ISLAND-BASED DESIGNERS BELINDA AND JEB THORNBURG
Tieton Cabin Company (TCC) builds 100 percent prefabricated cabins that can be delivered by boat, truck or helicopter and craned into place. The tiny cabins, which range from 250-450-plus square feet, are durable structures designed to be simple, timeless and functional.
The company completed their first cabin in 2023, trucking it three blocks from their factory to a garden lot on Tieton’s town square in a procession of quirky vehicles led by Jeb in a vintage, cherry-red Fiat fire truck. Following him were a forklift holding a massive, papier-mâché sugar skull aloft, a tuba player dressed in a Highland High School kilt and Tieton arts champion Ed Marquand, wearing a fez. A crowd looked on as a crane lifted the 27,000-pound cabin from the bed of the semi, clearing the tops of several trees, and lowered it onto its foundation. Before the day was over, the cabin was installed and lit from within and the work crew celebrated around a crackling fire.
The cabins are a natural progression of the Thornburgs’ design evolution over 25 years. Their firm Indigo Architecture + Interiors has a roster of custom-built homes on Bainbridge TCC is, in the Thornburgs’ minds, the logical continuation of their interest in design that hits a market sweet spot: luxury but ready-made; high-design and high-quality but right-sized.
To accomplish the efficiencies they were after with their cabins, the company recently completed its Factory Assembled Structures certification, which certifies Tieton Cabins as meeting the International Building Code (IBC) as well as the Washington State Energy Code (WSEC).
“We really designed these pre-permitted cabins to address the inefficiencies and delays we’ve encountered in the building permitting process throughout our careers,” explained Belinda. “Our cabins meet all building codes and come certified as such, so there are no on-site building inspections necessary. There’s still site planning that has to be done, but by building our cabins entirely off-site and to state and international codes, we take control of construction timelines, which can be notoriously protracted.”
The factory-built process helps control costs, which can easily balloon on traditional site-built construction projects, while also acting as a quality control measure. “We have always said there are three legs of a stool – cost, quality, and time – and you can only have two, so choose your priorities. Now we are debunking that old adage. With our cabins you get cost, quality, time and beauty,” said Belinda.
The heft of the cabins have a calming, grounding quality, she adds. That heft comes from the cabins’ wall construction— cross laminated timber (CLT, also known as mass timber) manufactured by Mercer Mass Timber in Spokane, using regional forest byproducts. CLT is known for its structural, insulating, and acoustic properties in addition to its sustainability credentials and aesthetic qualities. It is an obvious material choice to the Thornburgs’ early adopter mentality.
FROM ORCHARDS TO ART:
TIETON’S LATINO DRIVEN CULTURAL REVIVAL
Located in Central Washington’s Yakima Valley with its abundant fruit orchards, the town of Tieton (pop. 1,560) is home to a small but vibrant arts and cultural community influenced by a large Latino population. If you make the three-and-a-half hour drive from Kitsap County, be sure to visit a few of the Thornburgh’s favorite locales:Stop by Panaderia Santos for a concha, a delicious Mexican sweet bread baked fresh each morning. They’ll still be warm if you get there early enough. Pairs perfectly with a latte from El Jefe Coffee, a few doors down.
Fill up on a burrito at Fernando’s Mexican Food, open for breakfast, lunch, and (early) dinner.
Visit the Oak Creek Wildlife Area Elk Feeding Station to view herds numbering in the hundreds at mealtime, daily.
Take a Saturday morning tour of the Mighty Tieton warehouse, home to Tieton Cabin Company, the studio of Tieton Mosaic, and a collection of sound sculpture installations by world-renowned artist and Tieton local Trimpin.
Quench your thirst for local quaffs on the steampunk-esque patio at Shorthead Brewing.
Explore the shrub-steppe ecosystem on a trail in Cowiche Canyon.
Take in the world and work of local artists at Boxx Gallery.
Feast on an imaginatively prepared local bounty at Nomad Kitchen Company.
Plan it just right and catch the dancing horses at one of the many events on the town square. / mightytieton.com
