From @lloyd.kahn’s Instagram
In less than an hour, there were 32 Instagram comments on this video.
Note: Our book, The Half-Acre Homestead is now back in stock:
www.shelterpub.com/
30% discount on 2 or more books, free shipping in USA.
We are a carpenter/gardener couple who have been restoring our 1860s Greek Revival farmhouse for the last 30+ years. One of our goals has been to live self-sufficiently and conscientiously, and we believe our home and gardens uniquely reflect this.
The house includes three bedrooms, a large beautiful kitchen, dining room, living room, library/office, studio, pantry, mudroom, two full bathrooms, and an airy, screened and glassed-in sunporch. Connected to the house by a long porch, is a 25′×36′ two-story shop/studio, and a woodshed and storage area.
Behind the house are established organic vegetable, and perennial flower gardens, fruit trees, and blueberry and raspberry bushes. A Nearing style 10′×20′ stone, glass and wood greenhouse extends the gardening season at both ends, and provides a lovely refuge on sunny, cold winter days.
Hard as it is for us to leave this, our children are grown and we no longer need this much space and the large gardens. We hope a younger family looking for a similar lifestyle will get as much joy from it as we have.
–Joe Stanley
House and 12.5 acres – $325,000: richmondmainefarmhouse.com/house | woodtools@yahoo.com
Yesterday I read in the paper that sales of children’s books are booming, due to schools being closed. This brought to mind our one and only children’s book, Wonderful Houses Around the World, by photographer Yoshio Komatsu and artist Akira Nishiyama.
There are 10 photographs by Yoshio of homes in different parts of the world. All the homes are built of natural materials — earth, wood, thatch, sod, bamboo, and stone.
Each photo is followed by a watercolor drawing of the inside of that home, showing the children and their parents going about their everyday activities: food gathering and processing, cooking, sleeping, working and playing.
The book is timely in this day and age: it shows what people do in their homes. Timely also because it’s great educational material for kids being home-schooled: look at what what kids your age are doing in other parts of the planet.
Yoshio is my favorite photographer of homes in the world. Not only are the homes invariably soulful, but his composition and lighting are perfect — and he has a knack for making people feel comfortable, so that the homeowners look natural, often laughing.
The book is $12.95 and you can order it through your independent bookstore, or from:
Note: We have a money-back guarantee on all of our books (no matter where you buy them). If for any reason you are dissatisfied, call us and we’ll return the full purchase price plus shipping. No need to return the book.
We have been talking recently to our friends at the Solisluna publishing company in Brazil about translating our book Shelter into Portuguese. We sent them a copy of our new book, The Half-Acre Homestead, along with three of our mini-books and our wooden model of a tiny home. They just sent us this email and photo.
Hi Lloyd,
I hope you’re doing well.
I received your material yesterday and I would like to thank you a lot for sending me this marvelous book!
Here in Solisluna, we’re all enchanted by it. Wonderful work, so meaningful.
A great legacy for the world. Congratulations to you and Lesley.
Best wishes from Bahia,
Kin and Solisluna team
P.S.: Shelter has been translated into Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Korean.
It’s now in bookstores. Here’s the City Lights poster:
(Subtitle: 46 Years of Building & Gardening)
You know, it’s Thanksgiving morning, both boys are off for the holiday with spouses’ families, and Lesley and I are working on our separate crafts. What a difference with no phones, no email, no business necessities, no one else around. Witness the fact that I’ve hardly blogged at all lately. Gonna have to get one day a week here with no distractions. A right-brain day!
The unbound pages came in from the printers a few days ago. What a thrill! The book’s getting bound (in Hong Kong) this week, shipped and will be available in early March, 2020. When we get it together, we’re going to take pre-orders.
I’m still getting used to the book. After covering hundreds of builders over the years, this is the first on my own (and Lesley’s) work.
Stay tuned.
These photos shot with iPhone. We just got these early pages.
Music de éste día: The Gilded Palace of Sin by The Flying Burrito Brothers, 1969
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUeFJ7QIRbE
We are in the final stages with our latest book, The Half-Acre Homestead: 46 Years of Building and Gardening. It’s 8½″ square, 168 pages, with about 540 photos of these things:
House/Kitchen/Cooking/Preserving/Foraging/Fishing/Gardening/Chickens/Crafts
It’s a book I’ve been meaning to put together for years, and it feels good to be in the final stages.
Above are two choices for the cover. Click either image for larger view. Whichever image we choose for the front cover, the other one will go on the back cover.
What do you think?
Witty redesign of quonset hut on Alameda Air Base. I think quonset huts are a much better simple design for conversion to homes than A-frames, which to me have a negative interior space.
Hi Lloyd,
Thought you might be interested in this Instagram feed by M Molloy (an illustrator with a love of old Irish houses) that’s been gaining a lot of attention here in Ireland:
instagram.com/
There are so many amazing old properties just waiting to be loved and renovated.
Best wishes,
Deborah
