From Mike Litchfield:
“Just came across a site that you might find interesting, that makes high-quality sliding door hardware–aka barn door hardware. Of course, sliding doors require less room to operate than hinged doors in space-starved houses, especially if it is an oversized door. Problem is that most barn door glides aren’t precise and can jam. These guys feature a lot of stainless tracks and all the wheels have ball bearings. Looks like cool stuff.”
Click here.
“This tiny home may not look like much but it stands as a true powerhouse, braving decades of abuse from the most unrelenting natural elements. It’s perched atop a rock in the middle of the Drina River, near the town of Bajina Basta, Serbia, and neither weather nor water has been able to knock it over.…” From Inhabitat here.
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“…The planning stage is my favorite part of any project, and this porch was no exception: I thought about an upgrade for some years before we finally decided how we wanted to fix it. When someone gave us a slue of pallets, we had our solution: Fix the porch with pallet wood. Most folks, when they first see our pallet-wood porch, think we just laid whole pallets on the porch. Well, no, that’s not how it happened: My husband laboriously and patiently took the pallets apart and de-nailed the boards. Then he planed them.…”
Click here.
Just got this from Germany. I don’t know about fire or vermin hazard, but it looks like it was used extensively at one time.
“An insulating material consisting of dried eelgrass held between layers of cloth or paper; once used as thermal insulation, now little used.
Read more: https://www.answers.com/topic/cabot-s-quilt-1
dear mr. kahn,
we love your books, they are great inspiration for us.
we want to ask you: have you ever experienced insulating houses with eelgrass?
we are great fans of eelgrass, it is possible to collect it from the coasts almost all over the world. in danmark and in some other countries there are roofs thatched with eelgrass/seagrass, they protect the houses for several centuries.
Lloyd,
Thanks so much for your stunning support for small abodes. I’m looking for an instructor to teach a hands-on workshop intensive on how to build a tiny timber-framed house on a trailer.
Location: my organic farm in the Berkshires
Timeframe: Summer, 2013
Any suggestions?
Cheers!
Eli Rogosa
Mystic Sheaf Bakery
Colrain, Massachusetts (near Shelburne Falls)
growseed.org
413 624 0214
“…The creative explosion ignited by the back-to-the-land builders of the 1970s was memorialized by many photographers, most notably Art Boericke and Barry Shapiro, who produced a best-selling book, Handmade Houses: A Guide to the Woodbutcher’s Art. In centuries to come, historians will probably note that the era of the hippie builder was the last chapter of a century-long period in American history — namely, the closing of the American frontier.”
https://shltr.net/hippiebuilders
Thanks to Mike Litchfield for heads up on this article.
This is a book I wished I’d had when I started building, but it is also one that’s extraordinarily useful to more experienced builders. Mike Litchfield was the original editor of Fine Homebuilding; in 1982 he published the first version of Renovation, and it’s been updated periodically, this being the latest and 4th edition. Popular Science called it “The most comprehensive single volume on renovation ever” — totally true.
What differentiates this book from others of its ilk is that the author has gathered all this information in the field, interviewing carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and contractors, finding out what’s important, what works, what’s new. These guys love to talk about what they do well, and in this sense, the book is one of collective wisdom. It’s at the same time highly useful to professionals, but also one that’s invaluable for homeowners and people of the fixer-upper persuasion.…
See Full review on Cool Tools here.
On November 29, I posted a link to a large New York Times article on SunRay Kelley. In retrospect, it’s not really good or fair reportage on SunRay; it doesn’t do him justice. Part of it is East Coast reporter snark about West Coast free-spiritedness. Part of it is that the reporter just didn’t get SunRay— that he’s not only an artist, designer, architect, and inventor, but a master builder. His mortise and tenon joints, even with gnarly lumber, are tight. He’s a carpenter whose buildings soar. There’s a joy and a spirit in both builder and buildings. The NYTimes reporter missed all this and focussed on a bunch of trivialities.
And there was a very weird interview with SunRay’s ex-wife, who came up with some mean-spirited comments. This shouldn’t have been included in the article. Cheap shot, ex-wife-wise and journalistic-wise.
SunRay’s way better than you’d get from this account. In my opinion, there’s no other natural materials builder in the world who’s combined such ecology, design, and craftsmanship in so many buildings on the American landscape.
Just settin it straight…
For anyone interested in SunRay and his work, we have posted a PDF of the 27 pages we did on him and his work in Builders of the Pacific Coast in 2004. (We do—ahem—a way better job on builders than does the New York Times.)
For the real SunRay, click here. (To get this in Acrobat, you may have to right-click and save linked file in downloads folder.)
Here are just a few or so… Like you I get caught up scrolling and seeing all kinds of stuff… Solar energy articles from the 30’s… gotta love it huh?
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Camping Trailer PM May 58 pg 149
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I thought this comment was important enough to bring front and center.
scott has left a new comment on your post “Learning To Be A Carpenter”:
Check out the Timber Framers Guild @tfguild.org . There may be a project in your area in the near future. They also have an accredited apprenticeship program through individual shops.