If, and there are the stories in the main part of John's website, a legally blind man and a 17-year-old girl can build a cabin, then maybe you shouldn't sell yourself short by saying--"we have to build a kit house."
My guess is that kit houses are
not going to take as many trips to the big box store as a non-kit house, but some of the emergency ones may be weirder.
These aren't kits, exactly, but they are packages made with good materials, a couple of people here are building First Day Cottages. They seem very happy with the planning and building support, and especially with the materials that they've gotten.
http://www.firstdaycottage.com/John's plans on the main part of the site are fine. Easy to modify (as long as you're not talking about making them
w-i-d-e-r), especially as far as what goes where. I'm not sure if anyone has built them "as is." Quite inexpensive. and then you've got us
(Why would wider be a problem? because that involves recalculating the loads, etc., maybe some serious structural changes. Actually putting on a third or fourth story would too. Longer's not a really big deal, it's just more of the same.)
"Need 1000sf"
Because y'all think you need it, or because you've got regulations to deal with? Big difference. You do need room for your own projects, to have "space." But Linda Smiley and Ianto Evans (the cob gurus) are apparently living in their sub-200sf "Heart House" quite happily after some years (they do have another building, but AFAIK, it's not what anyone would call anything but small). Their kitchen is small enough, intentionally so, that you can reach everything just by turning around. It looks as though it might have all the comforts of home, though--if not great for two people to cook together.
I don't think I could live in sub-200 sf happily (I whine about 200 sf). At least not with places to put all my books.
But I'm getting an 80sf studio this fall. Yay! Might even (after three years) get it closed in and with heat.
One place to start is just spending time--lots of it--on your land. All over your land.
And somewhere in there, with your place in mind, going here.
http://www.patternlanguage.com/smallhouse/begin.htmI got a couple of new books on small house thinking yesterday. but I'm not going to fish them out of the book pile right now--got to get up really early tomorrow morning.