To: “‘Lloyd Kahn'”
Subject: RE: Tiny House story
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:57:02 -0000
Hi Lloyd,
This story on BBC news today:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16348594
Gareth.
I met Louie about15 years ago when a mutual friend brought me over to his shop. As we drove up to about the prettiest building I’d ever seen, Louie came out through the door with an old tattered copy of our 1973 book Shelter, told me to crouch down with him in the doorway. “Look,’ he said, pointing to the Mandan Lodge on p. 4 of Shelter, “I built this building from this painting in your book.” Wow! He turned out to be one of my 2 favorite builders in the world (the other is Lloyd House) and one of my very bestest of friends. He is the featured builder in HomeWork.
Louie’s a master craftsman. Everything he does is finely crafted. He’s a constant inspiration to me to do things better. It’s a treat for me to come up to his place. We walk along the riverbed, look for mushrooms, go out on his sailboat, drive along the coast (one day along the ocean listening to Leonard Cohen), have wild duck dinners, visit interesting people, and have whatever adventures we can conspire up.
This is where I stay when I visit; it’s a a circular room adjacent to the shop, desk on the left for my MacBook Air. I set up my Sirius radio and get in some writing while looking out at the vineyard, apple orchard and redwoods. Fire burning in little woodstove right now this cold sunny afternoon.
(Photoshop junkies: The Photomerge function didn’t work here, so I just pasted them side by side.)
Note: This is getting posted out of sequence. Such is life.
I bailed from my job as an insurance broker in San Francisco (and from my generation) in the mid-60s. In 1964, I bought a lid of weed (really a tin Prince Albert can) from a tattooed sailor in Mill Valley, smoked a bit that night and went totally on to the right side of my brain. Boy! My days in the business world were doomed.
Things were happening in SF, the world was changing, and after a trip riding the rails and hitchhiking to the east coast, I returned home, quit my then-well-paying job and went to work as a carpenter. 1965. What a relief to quit wearing suits, which I hated, and to now go to lumber yards and drive around in a pickup truck scavenging building materials.
I left the culture of my age group and dove into the cutural revolution. People 10 years younge — what they were into resonated with me. My high school and college friends stayed on the business track, with its attendant economic rewards. I’m the only long-haired guy from the Lowell class of ’52. So it’s with interest I go to the occasional luncheon reunions. Here were maybe 15 guys and I felt a genuine affection for a bunch of them, in spite of economic and political differences. Some deep roots here. When we grew up, we thought the whole world was like San Francisco, the whole world like California. (Were we wrong!) Next year in October we’re having our 60th (ulp!) reunion.
Read More …
Pintarest is an “online billboard.” Somehow it’s got all (most?) of my blog photos from the last few years, organized like a scrolling poster. I don’t remember if I signed up for this, but I think it’s great. (Many photos are posted numerous times, probably because I went back and corrected certain posts.)
https://pinterest.com/source/lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.com/
Also check out the “architecture” category: https://pinterest.com/all/?category=architecture.
“We are a French-American family with two little ones, building our eco-home in the Dordogne countryside. Kevin is French, a carpenter and green builder (as well as a translator), Elizabeth is American and a full-time mama and formerly a psychotherapist in California. We have a delightful 3 year old boy and baby girl. We are very interested in sustainable living and growing, permaculture, meditation and community. And you!
*please note: We would love to host volunteers with building skills, especially skills in carpentry, wood-working and roofing!”
https://www.workaway.info/87851944d974-en.html
(Brad Kittel’s Tiny Texas Houses are featured in Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter.)
Story by Ray Bragg, photo by Billy Calzada in San Antonio Express-News, December 25, 2011
“LULING – Although Brad Kittel runs a construction company, he’s really in the deconstruction business.
As owner of Tiny Texas Houses, located on hilltop that overlooks Interstate 10, he builds homes that are a fraction of the size of the modern McMansion. His basic sales pitch: sometimes a little is more than enough.
Read More …
“Keith purchased his 1977 Bedford Bus back in 2007 with the idea of living in it off-the-grid full-time. Living off the grid is nothing new to Keith. He has been at it for the last 21 years, living mostly on boats and finally making it to land with the purchase of his bus named “The Flying Tortoise.”
The Flying Tortoise has a slew of unique features to help make living on his 131 square feet bus more comfortable and certainly more interesting. After looking at some of the images of Keith’s bus, it’s apparent that alot of thought and creativity have gone into his tiny home.…”
https://tinyhouselistings.com/creative-tiny-house-off-the-grid-bus-on-steroids/
Keith’s bus is featured in our new book (set to hit bookstores late January), Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter
https://youtube.com/watch?v=o2mhdidocTM
Thanks to Rick Gordon
I went clamming a few days ago and after an hour of shoveling, returned home with one horseneck clam. (The limit is 10.) Anyway, it worked out pretty well. I’ve learned that if you put horsenecks in a bucket of fresh water, they die right away, and within a few hours you can just peel the skin off the neck, leaving you with a nice piece of white meat similar to calamari. I chopped this up finely with a knife and added cocktail sauce, lime, worcestershire sauce, it was really good, like a shrimp cocktail. Then I cleaned out the body of the clam, and steamed it in a little water, parsley and garlic, and that was good too. The soft parts of the clam tasted like oysters.
