Like many, I scrounge the internet for building ideas. I came across a really cool dish-rack/shelf that was built into a corner in a kitchen. You could stand the plates up to dry between the slats, and still set bowls and mugs on it like a shelf. Brilliant! I saved the picture, and put it in the “barn-house” folder on my computer for future reference, when it comes time to build.
A few months ago, you posted a video of how you do dishes. I nearly leapt out of my seat when I saw the very same dish shelf… was in your kitchen! You have a long history of collecting and publishing all the good ideas you can find, I guess it shouldn’t be such a surprise that a design like that ended up in your home! https://www.theshelterblog.com/lloyds-dish-washing-method/
I just wanted to let you know that Rocky Mountain PBS premiers the Lost Sea Expedition series January 4th. The series will also stream on Amazon and Vimeo. The story about this tiny wagon voyage across America featured in Tiny Homes(pp. 188–189). I think this info would really interest theshelterblog.com readers.
I ran into Randy in Folsom, CA. I figured for sure he’d heard of Shelter and Tiny Homes on The Move, but he had not. Randy’s in his late 50’s and found himself in the middle of a late in life divorce and didn’t want tot have to work to own a house. He’s a metal worker by trade and modified an old utility trailer with the camper shell from his old Dodge pick up into his new home. It’s pretty cool. I shared with him your website information too.
“…The wildness is a deception. Scattered in nearly every vista of Mongolia are the round white tents of nomads. We know these tent houses as yurts; they call them ger (pronounced gair). They are the primary home to about 1 million nomads. Today’s nomads retain a lifestyle relatively unchanged from that of their forebears in important ways. Living as I do—in a world teeming with smartphones and Wi-Fi, smart TVs and self-driving cars—it is a remarkable thing to travel among them.
The nomads are herders and typically own about 1,000 animals—mostly sheep and goats, but cows, horses, dogs, camels, and yaks as well. You could think of them as ranchers who move their ranch seasonally. They set up their ger in spring for maximum summer pastures, then they move it again for winter feeding. This movement is not north to south as might be expected, but from lowlands to highlands, or even from open valley in summer to hidden hilly nook in winter to escape the wind, which is more punishing than the cold.…”
I went to the 65th (!) reunion of my class of 1952, Lowell High School, San Francisco, on Friday. About 80 people out of a class of 250 attended. Even though I’ve taken a different direction (wealth, politics) than most of them, I still love seeing these friends of 70+ years.
It was held at the Basque Cultural Center in South San Francisco, and this wagon was parked out in front. The curved roof, with bed at one end is, I believe, an excellent configuration for a tiny home, far better than the poster boy for tiny homes, the steep gable roof with ladder to loft for sleeping — a bad design, in my opinion, for many reasons. Here you can have drawers under the bed, and the curved roof gives you a feeling of spaciousness, as opposed to the claustrophobia of many tiny home designs.
This is also the basic design for the vardo of the Roma people in Europe.
Foster Huntington quit his job, where he was working 70-hour weeks for Ralph Lauren in New York City, and took off living on the road, first in a (very) used VW Synchro van, later in a Toyota Tacoma truck with a spiffy fiberglas camper shell. He started The Restless Transplant, a blog that became enormously popular. I remember seeing it years ago and thinking this is my kinda guy.
These days he’s living in a treehouse in the Columbia River Gorge in Washington, just northeast of Portland and he has 1 million (!) Instagram followers.
His latest project is this book, and the publishers have printed 35,000 copies. Vans are tremendously popular right now, and this book shows them in all their glory.
