I started 3 days ago. My M.O. is to open the file drawer and start picking out folders (there are 50-60 now) to work on.

I pick them out randomly and start doing layout— with scissors and removable scotch tape. No stinkin computers at this stage.

I print out the text in 3 & 4 columns, adjust photos to desired size on copy machine, and do rough layouts.

This is turning out to be really fun. We’ve accumulated material for maybe a year and now, the book is starting to assemble itself, in random manner. Organizing will come later.

Note: contact us if you know of small homes (400-1200 sq. ft.) that would work in this book:

smallhomes@shelterpub.com

We are especially interested in any kind of homes in cities and towns.

I’m just starting to work my next book, Small Homes, and still swamped catching up with all the notes I made to my recent trips to NYC and Oregon. My problem right now is too much “content.”

An example is Foster Huntington’s quite incredible compound built on a knoll in the Columbia River Gorge, about 45 minutes northeast of Portland. I wish I had time to do a feature article on this treehouse/skate park/hot tub complex that has a 360° view, which includes the (white) tip of Mount Hood and the Multnomah Falls (500+ feet tall)—I’ll get around to it eventually.

In coming days I’ll put up photos from my visit with Foster. If you’re interested, here are a couple of links to Foster’s latest projects, a film on Vimeo chronicling the months of treehouse construction, as well as his KickStarter campaign for a book on the same subject, which has already generated (ulp!) $58,000 (his goal was $30,0000).

https://vimeo.com/129335481

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fosterhuntington/the-cinder-cone-build-book

Bilateral symmetry includes the landscaping. I would bet that the owner of this house is very orderly.

I went there on a hot afternoon to get tickets to a free concert that night and wandered around in the cathedral. I don’t like it. It’s just big, is all. Huge, tall, imposing. It doesn’t have the grace of say, the Wells Cathedral, or the King’s College chapel at Cambridge. It’s one of those Chistian monuments meant to impress its parishioners by sheer size. Worship us you dumb shits, for we are indeed mighty—and give us your money. (There are certainly other aspects to this mighty edifice, such as its tapestry collection, bronze doors, organ, concerts, and certainly its present day stone masons that seem commendable, but this is just my untutored human reaction to the feeling I get standing in the main vault.)

The high stained glass windows are really too high to see, and I much prefer geometric shapes (like these) to biblical scenes in stained glass.