homes (170)

Fireplace in the pub

It was cold and dark Tuesday night and us runners gathered in front of the unique fireplace at the Pelican Inn. Roger, who’s a builder, remarked on the chimney not smoking at all. Like the fireplaces designed by Count Rumford in the 1700s, the flue here draws perfectly. Being on the floor level, it’s like sitting in front of a camp fire.

Post a comment (3 comments)

The Half Acre Homestead in the 21st Century

On Tuesday I did a talk/slide show titled “The Half Acre Homestead in the 21st Century” at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, Calif. The course was titled “Shelter,” inspired by our 1973 book of the same name, and taught by Kristen Sbrogna.

This is the 2nd presentation I’ve done on the subject; the first was at the Maker Faire last year in San Mateo. I started creating a home and surroundings 50 years ago, have gone through a lot of trials and tribulations as they say, and felt that my experiences might be of interest to anyone attempting to evade the bank/mortgage or high rent syndrome of getting a roof over one’s head.

Above: one of the slides, showing our kitchen dish drying/storage rack, built years ago by Lew Lewandowski. Dishes are slid into slots as soon as rinsed and remain there until used again.

Post a comment (4 comments)

Shelter II back in print

We published Shelter II in 1978, 5 years after Shelter. At the time I felt that I’d misled people with the Domebooks, then shown them a great variety of ways to build in Shelter, and now it was time to show step-by-step design and construction of a small house. That’s at the heart of Shelter II: a condensed 24-page instruction manual for the novice builder for building a stud-frame home: foundation, floor, wall and roof framing; roofing, windows, doors, interior finish, as well as plumbing and electrical work. Much of this applies also to cob, straw bale, etc. buildings, because just about every home needs a wood-framed roof.

There’s also a lot on indigenous builders all over the world and on techniques and designs of past years; the rehabbing of abandoned buildings in cities; and my diatribe against the then-planned “space colonies.”

Shelter was a hard act to follow. Shelter II has no color pages, and it doesn’t have the irreverent joy of Shelter. But it’s a solid book, with construction details our other books don’t have, and we’re glad to have it back in print.

https://www.shelterpub.com/_sh2/sh2_book.html

Post a comment (5 comments)

Tiny House Book Mojo

Professional book packagers would be aghast at the way I put together a book. Assemble material (photos and text) for over a year, store in file folders, then at certain point pull best material out and begin laying out a spread — 2 pp. at a time. Random, no order. No plan or outline, no idea how things will fit together; just here the requirement that shelters be under 500 sq. ft.

It’s a wild mix so far — about 40 pages roughed out — and the book has now got its first trace of a mojo workin.

Book starting to run through my mind all the time. I’ve read how novelists get into a thing where they (authors) are just transmitting what their characters are telling them. Or maybe it’s muses at work. It feels a bit like that now, a natural process, a seed growing. Exciting! This is the best part of my job, watching all this unfold.

Read More …

Post a comment (10 comments)

Roadkill Deer/Window-Bashed Quail/Homemade Bread/Wailing Souls

Yesterday I was driving over to a doctor’s appointment (MRI scan of left knee). I spotted a dead fawn on the road along the lagoon. I didn’t have much time. Parked, found the little critter, although stone dead, still warm. Tossed him in back of truck, got a bag of ice, did my over-the-hill chores, came home and gutted, skinned, and cut up the carcass into chunks which are now aging in the pantry and I’ll cut up and freeze tonight. Tonight I’ll have some of the liver, some of the heart and a kidney with a glass of red wine. Talk about win-win! 20 pounds of tender, flavorful, “organic,” meat, power-packed protein from what would in most cases rot and decompose.

MOREOVER, A few nights before, Mary brought over three dead quail that had crashed into her window. Heavens no, she couldn’t think of eating them1 I cleaned, then stuffed them with onions, little olive oil, salt and pepper, baked at 450º maybe 15 minutes (maybe 10), had with salad, red wine, fresh baked bread still warm from oven.

This foggy morning, a flock of blackbirds in the Eucalyptus tree, singing their hearts out, a multi–tonal symphony, and now The Wailing Souls on Sirius reggae station doing “Oh, What A Feeling.”

So I say Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Oh what a feeling…

It’s on Firehouse Rock, classic Wailing Souls album.

Post a comment (1 comment)

Mighty Hunter

The 6th mouse I trapped in about 3 days. I think this wipes out the family. BTW, you can mummify a little critter like this (or say a dead hummingbird, if you find one) by placing it on a pie plate in the freezer, wrapped in Saran wrap with air holes punched in it, and leave it for about two months. I learned this at a workshop on bones at The Bone Room, a great natural history store in Berkeley, Calif.

Note: they have invented a better mouse trap. The Ortho 0321110 Home Defense Max Press ‘N Set Mouse Trap has a “bait well” that you fill with peanut butter, so the trap is sprung by mouse digging around in it; this solves the problem of mouse deftly removing bait without springing trap. Ortho also makes a rat trap with the same feature.

Post a comment (5 comments)

Stoplying2me Blog

My blog had 20 hits from this website-with-great-name, so looked it up. It’s really nice. Simple, honest, human. You can relate to Monica and Brian. https://stoplying2me.blogspot.com/

Sample:

“We planned on sleeping out just one night, possibly two, and then going back to sleeping indoors on work nights, which are during the week for us. We were worried we wouldn’t get a good nights sleep, BUT, after being out there for two weeks and enjoying it so much, we are no longer worried about that.

I still find it amazing how the tiniest of efforts and just little changes can have a huge impact.

Read More …

Post a comment (1 comment)

Great Website for Converting a Van for Living

Info-heavy website reviewed by Kevin Kelly on his CoolTools:

“Roomier than a car, but cheaper than an RV, a retrofitted van makes a cool inexpensive house. Once popular during hippie days, the ancient American tradition of modifying a van is undergoing a resurgence as rents continue to rise. More folks each year commute from work and then park their home, instead of parking in front of it. On this lovely free website, you can find inspiring examples of cheap nomads, detailed instructions for conversions, gear recommendations, and lots of advice for living in a low rent or homemade RV from ‘them that’s doin’ it.’ -kk”

https://cheaprvliving.com/

Read More …

Post a comment (1 comment)

Round Timber Framing in the UK

Outdoor classroom at Sustainability Centre in South Downs National Park, U.KOn 5/13/10, I got this email:

Dear Lloyd,

My name is Jack I’m 28 and a carpenter, I live in a town called Bridport in the south west coast of England. I’ve been a fan of your building books ever since a friend showed me a copy of Shelter in Spain when I was helping him build a cob house. I had never seen or heard of such structures before I went to help in 2003, He was using your book as a guide to build his house (which has been extremely successful); since then your other books have been and still are a true inspiration to my love of natural earth born structures. I have been working for a conservation building company for the last 5 years and want a change, something that will lead me to constructing unique and innovative buildings.

Read More …

Post a comment (3 comments)