We got the proofs back last week, and I almost cried when I went through it page by page. Sounds dumb, I know, but it was overwhelming to see all the pages, in collated order, full size, 4-color for the first time — after a couple of years working on it. I’d only seen rather low-quality, reduced size printouts up until now. And you know what, it’s ahem, a beautiful book.

People, home builders from all walks of life, a great variety of designs, materials, locales. It may very well be the most useful book we’ve ever done. Tiny homes are great for some people, but too small for most. Here are 65 or so homes in all, a cornucopia of ideas for people who can’t afford high rents and bank mortgages, and want to build or remodel (or contract out) their own homes.

Check out the “sneak previews” on TheShelterBlog:

https://www.theshelterblog.com/?s=sneak+preview

Book due out April, 2017. More details to follow here.

Small Homes – the book

I’ve got pretty much all the pages laid out. Rick will be back from Hawaii next week and build the rest of the pages in InDesign. The book is looking better each week. Here’s a little hidden waterfront cottage (under construction) on Vancouver Island, BC (the shakes for the eaves were steamed and bent).

Material continues to come in for the book (400-1200 sq. ft. homes), and we’ll continue the book after its publication on theshelterblog, with a section titled “Small Homes.” Ongoing small homes.

My Next Book (?)

Adventures in Building – a 70-Year Odyssey

No kidding. I started at 12 years old, helping my dad build a house on his rice farm near Colusa, California. At 18 I got into the carpenters’ union in San Francisco and worked for a shipwright on the docks (SF was a port in those days!). At age 25 I started building and remodeling on a piece of land with 3 cottages in Mill Valley, California.

I never got the chance to work with a master carpenter or formally learn architecture, so I had a layman’s approach. Everything was new.

Right off, I liked the smell of lumber, and was fascinated with how things went together (still am). In about 12 buildings over the course of years, I personally went through post and beam, then polyhedral (domes), and finally stud frame construction techniques.

And all along, I shot pictures of buildings, collected books, and interviewed builders about all types of buildings and materials, and so far, have produced 6 highly graphic books on building.

Having this layman’s view means I can talk to inexperienced builders in understandable terms. Plus, all the travel and studying and interviews have given me a wealth of material of interest to experienced builders. We’re all interested in how things are put together. That’s what building is all about.

Música del día:

Etta James “Come Back Baby”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdFcg7zkhqM

Enough! I’m heading for the beach…

Hi there,

My Dad was featured in one of Lloyds books, Tiny Homes, for building the wooden yurt Big Sky Retreat.

Recently he has been building another cabin called Big Sky Lookout, which is smaller than the yurt, but still made up of reused and recycled stuff. I made a short film following his progress along the way.

Many thanks,

Red Evans

We are running photos of our French carpenter friends Menthe and Yogan documenting the trip they took this summer along the Northern Pacific Coast, exchanging their carpentry skills for room and board.

This is a tiny home they built in 10 days on an old Dodge flatbed truck in Humboldt County, California.

We are posting one of their projects each day for a week here: https://www.theshelterblog.com/

Yogan and Menthé, carpenters from France, who have been featured in out last two books, stopped by here yesterday on their way home. They have spent the last 3 months hitchhiking and working on the west coast (Northern California up to Orcas Island). Kindred spirits, these two have had a wonderful time, working with a variety of people, trading work for room and board.

We’ll be posting photos of their projects in the near future.