Progress on Tiny Homes Book

Last week we reached a critical point with this book: all pages done and accounted for. It’s the first time in over a year that I haven’t had the stress of putting together more pages.

As I’ve mentioned before, I do layout with a small color copy machine, scissors, and removable scotch tape, I print out color contact sheets (maybe 6 to an 8-1/2 X 11″ sheet of cheap Epson paper), lay them out on the layout table, then blow up or reduce on DCP-9040CN Brother copy machine.  I print out text in 2 and 3 columns. then scotch-tape the photos and text to 18″ X 12″ layout sheets. Some of them that look great as is go directly to MacMeister Rick, others go to nomadic artist David Wills, who adds his painterly touch in tuning up design.

I like doing the first step in a kind of old-fashined way. Maybe a bit like the sound of vinyl records. If I’m not mistaken, there’s almost a movement these days to look back at pre-digital art and design and music and see what’s missing. It’s not that “…the old is new again,” it’s more that the old is being reexamined for layers of richness that get filtered out in the bits and bytes process. Anyway, I start by hand.

I’m still shuffling pages, like a deck of cards. It’s assuming its own form, its own order. Pretty exciting for me, after all this time. In fact all of us are looking at this evolving book. Pretty unique!

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:

7 Responses to Progress on Tiny Homes Book

  1. Lloyd…I recently found your blog and want to send you a huge thank you! Your ideas and inspirations just hit home with me, and I am now a loyal reader. I lived and traveled on a sailboat for many, many years and now as an aspiring Santa Cruz Mountains homesteader I await your Tiny Homes book eagerly for ideas and inspiration for my guest cabin. I find the art of creating small, well designed living spaces to be so satisfying and fun! I now start my early morning each day with a steaming cup of coffee and fire up your blog on my new (and first) Mac. Fire crackling, just enough smoke in the room to smell good, Hagrid the Rooster shouting out his welcome to the coming day, wife and kids still sound asleep….life is good Lloyd and to find others who understand and celebrate that it is the simple things that are the most eloquent and full of satisfaction is just wonderful. Again, thank you for your efforts

    W

  2. Excellent – looks great! Glad you’ve reached this milestone and will move on to publishing soon!!

    C

    P.S. Hope some tiny chicken coops and greenhouses made it in there. : D

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