Christine Stucker and James Veal joke about their cabin being a former “mouse hotel,” and they’re not referring to its diminutive size. Uninhabited for at least a decade, the 700-square-foot structure—sitting at a corner of their property in Easton, CT—previously hosted a large population of mice who had chewed through the floors, walls, and carpeting. “It smelled so bad in there I had to wear a mask,” Christine recalls. “The real estate agent assumed we were going to tear it down.”
But the husband-and-wife duo saw its potential as guest quarters, an office, and a creative laboratory for their architecture and interiors firm, Stewart-Schäfer. “We wanted to have fun with it,” James says. “But also not throw a lot of money at the renovation.”

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