Hi Lloyd 🙂

I’m a long time reader and lover of your wonderful books — thank you so much for sharing the treasures you find and inspiring so many builders out there. You have a great eye for beauty in natural and built form.

Here is a structure I built inspired by works I have seen in your books (Home Work is still my fave!).

Thanks again for bringing positivity and sharing the joy.

Be well.

Ben Anderson,
Wollongong, Australia

Cuttlefish Cottage: Latest build. About 50 tons of soil on the roof, all glass (apart from louvres) was destined for the crushers, so I built windows and doors to fit the glass. Mud brick walls covered in local white clay ‘paint’ I made, all furniture & kitchen from hard rubbish piles or off ‘Gumtree’ (like Craigslist), local made steel beams (we have a steel mill in town). All hardwood timber from salvage, e-crete floors (using clan, fly-ash & recycled aggregate), trombe wall, passive solar design, vegetable garden on the roof (makes amazing watermelon!!!), solar hot water, amazing ‘landscape tanks’ for retaining walls and water storage combined, outdoor kitchen for our market garden (check out ‘Popes Produce‘ on Instagram/F-book) and heaps more!

So Hello Lloyd. Here is my last creation. A gazebo? An arbor? A little barn? A playground? (I don’t know the name in English for a small timber frame like this!)

It’s a timber frame type king post truss and hammer arch truss — mixed! I made it by cutting the trees, and then using a portable Woodmizer sawmill. I used only chestnut trees because they are so easy to work with — it’s my favorite wood.

For making the curved pieces, I sawed two sides with the sawmill, then the curved faces with a beautiful old 1947 Guillet bandsaw. Next, I drew the axis of my frame with a chalkline and defined the top and the visual sides. Then I traced the axis and levels of my frame on the floor of the workshop with a chalkline, pencil and colored chalk. I placed the pieces on the lines and with a carpenter’s plumb bob (flat and empty in the middle), I drew the assemblages — this is called piquage.

When all the wood was traced, I  machined and cut the pieces — the tenons with circular and hand saws, drill, and chisels, and my mortises with a special mortise-machine. Then I made a mise à blanc (dry run), then the finishing touches, the sculptures. I planed the wood’s edges with a draw knife and used lime and water to create a beautiful brown old-style color.

Now to erect it! For the heaviest beams, we used a long aluminum ladder with a system of four pulleys and rope.

This structure is in “Layotte,” a high-quality restaurant in southwest France, where I made two other structures in the same style. The first one 18 years ago with a twisted roof — 12 meters long, 2.5 meters on one side and 5 meters on the other, so the roof is totally curvy! The table too has a trapezoidal shape, that makes a strange vision! You are welcome to eat in my country!

–Yogan
instagram.com/yogancarpenter
yogan.over-blog.com

I apologize for the paucity of posts, but working on our next book, Rolling Homes, has been taking all my time.

I’ve avoided posting any of the material from the book because it won’t be available until June or July, but here’s an exception.

Serendipity materializes at the last moment!

We’ve been working on this book for about a year and half now and were down to one remaining page to fill.

Flash back to 2016 when someone (anonymously) sent us a photograph of this perfect little vardo — one of those rare little structures where everything is perfect. It’s a delight. Like the creations of Lloyd House or Louie Frazier, all the elements are working, and I’ll say to myself, “Oh yeah!”

I posted it on my blog, asking if anyone knew where it was or who built it. No response.

Two days ago (six years later), I get an email from Bulgaria and Cen tells me that he is a mystery builder. Voila!

Here are the details from my new friend and kindred spirit in Bulgaria.

–LK

Originally built as a play space for my daughter and as a guest house, my camping karutsa design has a long heritage and has taken both me and my family on a wonderful journey.

Karutsas, pulled by horses or donkeys, were part of a way of life now disappearing in Bulgaria.

This one was built from recycled materials, and sleeps 1-3 people with comfort and style. A twist on its larger gypsy cousins, its distilled and refined design is a pure joy to be in. Once you enter, you don’t want to leave.

Insulated and weather proof, you can relax comfortably inside, you can view nature, read a book, or just be.

Deceptive from the outside, the inside space is light and airy. The step-up, step-in, sit-down porch, shelves, hooks, and storage compartment provide a nautical style living system. The outside kitchen and bathroom with tarp increase its overall usability.

This prototype has been just that. Its latest incarnation is evolving into what I hope will become a true relative of its Bulgarian cousins. A true modern hybrid, yet sympathetic to its origins and ethos.

They say form follows function — these wagons are like the Canadian canoe: just about impossible to improve upon, yet the design can be tweaked.

As we move into this new sustainable era, I hope to see my new lightweight designs again traveling the Balkans. A rolling, tiny home, fit for purpose, fit for use.

I owe a great deal to you, your work, and passions, Lloyd, and may it long continue — your books now give just as much pleasure to my children as they still do to me. I can’t count the number of people I have lent them to here in Bulgaria — a constant volley of wow and wowwwwww every time.

Thanks again, Lloyd — the biggest hugs from us all in Bulgaria. You are welcome here any time.

–Cen

We spent a year salvaging the big door and over half the windows, which we designed the cabin around. The rest of the design was informed by our lack of capabilities and by the constraints and logistics of the site and property. The build then took another year.

The solar-powered cabin was 280 sq. ft. plus a 100-sq. ft. loft. The deck tripled our square footage with the intention of opening the two large doors most of the year. The redwood timbers and siding came from a neighboring sawyer and the interior was mostly plywood with exposed doug fir timbers. Shelves were made from slabs of madrone we milled — trees cleared from the cabin site.

A hundred feet down the trail was an outhouse and the weekend property, shared among friends, also featured a series of suspended tree decks, elevated outdoor shower, wood-fired hot tub, and host of camp activities.

Unfortunately, it all burned in the fires of 2020. Cleanup was a group effort and a minor amount of rebuilding has happened since then. We built a new outhouse and just this last weekend a tiny A-frame, just big enough for a bed for two.

Here’s a little more context: Read More …