This tiny home built in a Seattle backyard was designed to maximize sunlight in one of the rainiest cities in America — see inside

This comes about four years after Seattle first rolled back restrictions on these units in 2019, in an attempt to ease the city's housing shortage. 

Source: Seattle Times

The unit was designed to connect the homeowners to the outdoors as much as possible, Hutchins, who is a principal at Cast Architecture, told Insider. The Washington city doesn't get much sunlight. It's cloudy for most of the year, and it either rains or snows for about 40% of the year. 

This unit cost $212,500 from start-to-finish, which included design cost, building costs, permitting costs, and furnishing costs, Dwell reported earlier this month.   That's a fraction of the cost of a typical home in Seattle, which was $835,000 in June, according to Realtor.com.

"These are similar in size to the starter house that we used to build," Hutchins said. "They have all the amenities and livability of a small house." 

It has a overhang that allows those that live in the house to sit outside no matter what the weather is — something designed especially for rainy Seattle, Hutchin said. 

Source: Dwell 

That's more than the total amount of single-family homes built in that year.

Source: Seattle Times

So far, the total number of permits issued has tripled since the law went into affect, Hutchins said. 

"We went from building roughly our permitting roughly one a day to three a day," he said. 

A bill modeled after Seattle's ADU laws has been making its way through the state's legislature. If passed, there could be a swell of ADUs in the state, Hutchins said. 

"It's great for people that are downsizing, aging in place, building for a family member," he said. "If your city doesn't allow it, you should have them look at what these units really are, and get them approved."