A 900 Square Foot Plymouth ADU, Built for Abby and Raya

Why did the Creightons build an ADU in Plymouth?

Abby Creighton and her partner Raya had moved back to the South Shore, where both families live, and were renting the third floor of a 200 year old building in Kingston, hot in the summer with no difference between the temperature inside and out. They wanted to buy. Every house in their range needed a new roof, a new septic or new windows before it was livable, and one they toured twice was slowly sinking: set a pen on the floor and it rolled to the far wall.

Terry, Abby's mother, suggested an ADU in the family's yard. Abby's first answer was no. She wanted a home that felt like hers, and living in her parents' yard did not sound like that. Then she toured a BuildX home tour in Plymouth, saw how much privacy there was between the ADU and the main house, and started to come around. Raya needed one visit. She called Abby from the parking lot: we are building an ADU.

How did a 70 foot setback change the plan?

The town website, the assessor's site and three different mapping tools all said the setback was 30 or 40 feet, so the first plan put the ADU just off the driveway. Buz called the Plymouth zoning officer to be sure. The real number was 70 feet. The only spot that worked was the back right corner of the lot, the steepest ground on the property, a place the family had already ruled out as impossible.

The plan was flipped rather than redesigned, so only one window and one door face the main house. A 180 foot driveway now runs across the front. Terry moved her entire vegetable garden. And because the new site was wooded, the family took down close to a hundred trees themselves, every weekend through November, so the crew would never be waiting on them. Terry's name for that month is Creighton CrossFit.

Buz's read on the finished house: the corner they were forced into is a better location than the one they chose. Terry agrees. It looks great there.

What was construction like for the Creighton family?

Michael, the project manager, emailed every Friday at a minimum and was on site nearly every day. He told the family when each permit was applied for, when it was approved, and when an inspector was coming, so they never pulled a permit or chased a town office themselves. Live cameras on the site let them check progress from work. Nick, the excavator, cleared trees within two days and stacked the logs where Terry wanted them.

Then the winter hit. Two large storms, an early cold snap that threatened the foundation window in December, and a blizzard that left the Creightons without power for four or five days while the upstairs of the main house dropped to 37 degrees. BuildX could not work the site, so they lent the family a generator instead to run the refrigerator and a heater. When work resumed, the garage held two and three foot snowbanks that had to be cleared before the floor could be poured.

How long did the Plymouth ADU take to build?

Ninety-eight days, against BuildX's 100 day commitment, in the worst winter the area had seen in years. The foundation went in, the snow came, the crew caught the breaks in the weather to get the frame up, and from there it was clear sailing. Terry told Michael she was not counting the days and did not want anyone out there in a blizzard on her account. The pressure to make 100 came from inside BuildX, not from the family. Abby and Raya moved in on Mother's Day, Terry's request for the holiday.

Does 900 square feet feel small?

Not with nine foot ceilings and oversized windows in every room. Storage is built in everywhere: a lit six foot closet in the main bedroom, a lit six foot linen closet in the bathroom, a pantry off the kitchen, an attic floored with plywood before the ceilings went up, and the two-car garage below, with the space behind the stairs left open at the family's request. The second bedroom is Abby's office, with a queen bed for guests.

The detail visitors remember is the built-in. During framing, Terry and Kevin noticed a void behind the stairwell wall that would otherwise have been sheetrock. Terry texted Buz on a Sunday night with the idea of a shelving unit there, deep enough on the bottom for a printer. The family was at the end of their budget. Buz called back within minutes, agreed it was a good idea, and made it happen. He has since adopted it into the standard garage-under plan.

What changed once Abby and Raya moved in?

They have their own driveway, their own door, and curtains on the one side that faces the main house. Abby says that when she is inside she can forget the main house is there. The insulation is tight enough that the spring peepers and the frogs, loud all night at her parents' place, are silent with the windows closed. The heat pump holds the temperature for hours after it is turned off, which mattered after a Kingston apartment where inside and outside were the same in July.

The family sees each other most days, briefly, on purpose. Whoever picks up the mail delivers it. Extra food means a text and a walk across the yard. When Abby is done for the day, she goes home and shuts the door. When they were 25 minutes away in Kingston, Abby stopped by a couple of times a month. Now, she says, the relationship is stronger. And the day after move-in, Terry's car went back in the garage where it belonged, after seven months of the couple's belongings living in the bay.

Can an ADU be a first home for an adult child?

Yes, and this is the build that shows how. Abby and Raya rent the ADU from her parents and build equity toward owning it. There is no PMI, because there is no separate mortgage. Trash pickup, the base water bill and the internet are shared with the main house. It is new construction, so there is no roof, septic or window bill waiting in year two. Abby's advice to anyone considering it starts before the plans: have the conversation with your family first, about how close is close enough. If everyone is on board, build.

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