PITTSBORO - A newly redesigned Chatham Cottage, handcrafted by Central Carolina Community College students enrolled in the college's Sustainable Technologies program, will be auctioned off Saturday, July 9, at noon, on the college's Pittsboro campus.

This year's one-bedroom, one-bathroom house is 672 square feet, including the front porch, and was custom designed with architect Mike Spinelli to be attractive and offer a sense of openness for the smaller space. The living room features a cathedral ceiling and there are accent walls designed with recycled wood.

The cottage's compact size will comfortably fit a single person or couple and is an ideal option for a guest house, vacation rental home, or office space.

Sustainability is a central element of the high-performance design. In addition to incorporating Energy Star rated windows and doors, the house has high insulation values -- a measure of how well the building retains heat and cool -- and is ready for homeowners to install solar panels and a solar hot water heater. If homeowners choose to incorporate solar utilities and the house orientation and exposure are correct, it is possible to operate the house with net-zero energy consumption.

This is the fourth in an annual series of small houses built by students studying green building and alternative energy. The Chatham Cottage was constructed under the direction of CCCC Green Building Instructor Jeff Gannon and was supervised by licensed local contractors. The Chatham County Permitting Office has approved all stages of construction.

Compact home designs like the Chatham Cottage are becoming extremely popular, even spawning a number of TV shows including Tiny House Nation, Tiny House Hunters, and Tiny House, Big Living. Sara Lambert, CCCC's Business Outreach Coordinator in Chatham County, believes the reason could be that homeowners are looking for simpler living and a less-expensive home that doesn't require a lot of money to operate.

"The Chatham Cottage is nice because it combines compact living and cost-effectiveness with strong aesthetic qualities," Lambert said. "This year, we worked with an architect specializing in small housing, and what's been designed is quite beautiful and very unique."

Lambert said the Chatham Cottage is not only a valuable project for students -- giving them hands-on experience in green construction techniques -- but also a showcase for several Chatham County industries that assisted with the project. The house incorporates windows from Builders First Choice of Apex, terrazzo tiles from Floorazzo of Siler City, recycled wood for the wood feature wall from PalletOne of Bonlee, hardware from Wood Technology/ConSet America of Pittsboro, and flooring from WrennWood of Siler City.

Proceeds from the sale will benefit the Chatham Cottage project.

CCCC will launch a new Building Construction Technologies program this fall, pending approval by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. An extension of the college's existing Sustainable Technologies program, the new initiative prepares students for a growing job market in the construction industry. Its centerpiece degree, the Associate in Applied Science in Building Construction Technologies, extends the college's long experience in training workers and entrepreneurs for fields that are both Earth- and consumer-friendly. Certificates and diplomas are also available.

The auction begins at noon behind the Sustainability Building on the college's Pittsboro Campus, located at 764 West St., and opens with a minimum bid of $40,000.

The house, which is on temporary pillars and must be removed from the premises after the sale is complete, is now on display at the auction site. It can be viewed by appointment by contacting Gannon at 919-545-8032 or jgannon@cccc.edu. Additional details are available at www.cccc.edu/thechathamcottage.

For more information about auction bidding procedures, contact Andrew McMahan at 919-545-8036 or by e-mail at amcmahan@cccc.edu.

For more information about Central Carolina Community College, visit www.cccc.edu.