This 2,100-square-foot kit house manufactured by Lindal Cedar Homes is located in British Columbia,... [+] Canada

In the late 1800s and early 1900s one could purchase the parts of a house from a catalogue. The components would then be delivered to the homeowner  by train. Most often the homeowner would put the house together themselves according to detailed instructions. Depending of course on the ability of the builder, many of these houses were very well built and still standing today.

Those catalogue kit houses were very inexpensive, by today's standards, but are no longer available. Sears, Roebuck and Company successfully sold pre-cut mail-order houses through their catalogs from 1898 through 1930. Aladdin Ready Cut houses also successfully sold kits from 1906. It is said that the Aladdin Company's houses in 1918 accounted for 2.37% of all housing starts in the United States. These houses provided much needed housing for workers during the industrial revolution. The Great Depression brought the end to the boom in demand for these catalogue homes, although Aladdin continued to produce catalogues until 1987.  

The parts of this Lindal Cedar house were delivered by flat bed truck and unloaded with a fork lift... [+] to be erected on site.

T he modern prefabricated kit homes came along in the mid-1900s post WWII. Lindal Cedar Homes, one of the companies at the forefront of this type of construction, began operations in 1945 delivering do-it-yourself (DIY) prefab exterior home material packages. Today they ship much more sophisticated homes locally and internationally, most often constructed by professional contractors.

The kit homes of today, in general,  are beautiful, more diverse and way more sophisticated than they were in the earlier days.

The components of this house were built in Washington and shipped to Japan where it was constructed.... [+] This is a custom-designed mountain retreat, located in a prestigious neighborhood in Japan. It is the third house the owners purchased from Lindal.

Components of  kit homes today are cut in factories in ideal controlled environments by professionals who build a multitude of houses each year. The prefabricated parts are shipped tightly packed and unlike modular components, they are not shipping "air" along with their parts, making it easier and less expensive to ship to further distances. Michael Harris of Lindal Cedar Homes, one of the companies at the forefront of kit house construction says the company can ship a 3,000-square-foot house on one truck. Their houses are  shipped from Washington State by train to the East coast and cargo ships to Japan and other parts of the world. Harris claims that with kit homes consumers have more flexibility and predictability than with other types of construction.

This 1,000-square-foot Sedona, Arizona house was built by Zip Kit Homes.

Another company producing kit houses is Zip Kit Homes, located in Utah and Idaho. Owner Chris Jaussi says he tried several other types of prefabrication before beginning to build kit homes; he found kit homes to be the most efficient way to build. He says that typical houses today are being built the same way they were 50 yers ago and haven't modernized their method of production as other industries have. He claims that in building his homes he creates 80% less waste than a typical site built house would. He sites the advantages of building in a controlled environment with more automated machinery, four times faster than site-building and with less waste as important factors in the success of his business.

Kit housing has come a long way from the early days when kits were sold in catalogues. I continue to believe that kit housing along with other forms of prefabrication are the future of home construction.