This is a brilliant way to add square footage. A minimal, lightweight, inexpensive roof and deck give you an expanded living area (during good weather). The warmer the climate, the better this works. You can barbecue, eat, and socialize out on the deck.
I saw a place in Baja where the gringo owner, who came there only periodically, had built a small concrete block unit with a steel door where he locked up and stored all his stuff. He had a large roofed-over with a split bamboo covering for shade; when he came down to his land, he opened up the unit, pulled everything out (including hammocks), and lived mostly outside.
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:
You see this all over the American South. Sometimes it is a vacation place/ Deer camp but more often it is an old mobile home. The front deck ads a bit of living space. Most of these have more people living in them than large new homes. More people in Mississippi live in mobile homes than any other type in the country by one survey. No wonder the tornadoes can’t miss all of them.
By the way, is that a Coleman canoe in the picture? I have one with a split in the plastic and can’t find a good way to repair it. Any ideas would be welcome.
Lloyd
thought this might interest you.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-28/treelovers-converge-at-local-wood-library-branches/10033194
A steel door is fine. But it’s the lock itself that interests me!