Saltbox House

Salt Box And Rustic Houses

All about saltbox houses, find historic plans and blueprints for building your own salt box house, books, and pictures and videos of different houses, and even a section on salt box house B&B's, just in case you would like to take a relaxing vacation in one!

What Are Saltbox Houses?

Saltbox houses are called so because they look like old fashioned salt boxes. Generally a saltbox house is flat on 3 sides, with a large sloped roof on the back. The flat front of the house is to take advantage of as much sunlight as possible, and they are constructed most often in south facing positions.The design of a saltbox house is very versatile, you can find large and small examples, situated anywhere from farmland, to dinky houses perched huddling against cliffs.

Saltbox houses are a colonial style of house, found in a lot of folk art, and primitive art paintings. You can find many saltbox home decor items too, primitive style decor is very popular at the moment. These houses were called so because of their shape, but nowadays the term 'saltbox house' is used loosely for any rustic or primitive house, in the colonial style.


The History Of Saltbox Houses

There are a few ideas on why and how salt box houses originated, the most likely is that it was an easy and relatively inexpensive way to add extra space onto an existing building - this was achieved by extending the roof until it reaches to the first story, and adding a lean-to under this space.

Saltbox houses are a colonial style and were origionally found in New England. They are wood framed houses, which utilize a lot of joinery techniques. Nails in those days were really expensive, so whatever construction could be achieved with joints, was.

You Can Find Some Old Saltbox Houses In The UK Too!

Saltbox houses can be found in other parts of the world too. There is a lovely example of a saltbox house in a the countryside, near Stourmouth, South East England, that I used to pass on bike rides. I fell in love with that house as soon as I saw it.

I was fascinated by this house, you do not see large houses made from wood too often in England, it looked like it had been transported in a tornado from the USA and set down in the UK. During the summer the grasses by this house would turn yellow, I used to stop my bike by it to eat my packed lunch, and I used to sit there looking at the house and imagine I was in America. Now-days you can research a houses history online, so I will be trying to find out as much as I can about the history of the saltbox house that I used to have my lunch by.

Building A Saltbox House

A good place to start it you are considering building your own saltbox house, is the link below. That leads to the congress list of saltbox houses, and has a lot of valuable information, blueprints, and plans, for FREE. These are historical plans so you will be building your very own replica of an original saltbox house, how cool is that?

Lots Of Free Saltbox House Plans From The Historical America Building Survey

Lots of saltbox house blueprints, photos, and other historic information, all absolutely free! The plans for these lovely homes are from the Congress list of saltbox houses.

Free Historical Saltbox House Plans
This webpage has details of at least 70 saltbox houses. Plus at least 18 beautiful and historic saltbox house design blueprints, as well as pictures and information on saltbox houses in general.

Saltbox House Plans Online

Here are links to some saltbox home plans, you can print the files for free, modify them, and get an estimate on how much it will cost to build the house. But you have to pay for the actual blueprints needed to build it.

Plans for a 4 bedroom saltbox house, printable.


A 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, saltbox house, modify the plans online or save to your computer and print.

This saltbox house plan has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.

Floor plans for 4 different saltbox houses.

Pictures Of Salt Box Dwellings

This video has pictures of different types of dwellings, it is very interesting to see the variations on the salt box style.



Make Your Own Lighted Saltbox House Ornament - Free Tutorial With Pictures

I love the lighted, primitive style houses that people use at Christmas, so I was really chuffed to find this free tutorial, which shows how to make your own lighted house. You will need basic woodworking skills, or if you don't have those you can find hardware stores that will cut the wood for you. Then all you need to do it put it together. Lighted Saltbox House

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