Great video discovered by Lew:

This is on the blog of Ches, Alt Bldg Blog: An Exploration of Alternative Building Techniques and Design Ideas. The upper story here must be nice inside, with the large dormers and recessed balcony. https://altbuildblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Small%20Buildings

This adobe casita is near the Rio Grande River in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I started putting pages together a few months ago, getting a feel for what this new book was going to be. I’ve been gathering materials and making contacts over the course of a year. That’s my m.o.: assemble a ton of material, then figure out how to put it together. This includes making physical (folders with photos and print-outs) files, as well as an email mailbox and folder on the Mac for each contributor (containing text and photos). There are over 100 files, and new material coming in almost daily.

Layout: I’ve been doing layout whenever I get the chance (and mood) over the past several months. I do layouts by hand, using a color copy machine. It’s a pre-computer process and although time-consuming, gives the pages a touch of hand-crafting that direct-to-computer ain’t gonna do.

I’ve been going through the folders (in a rolling file cabinet), grabbing ones that are the most exciting, spreading the material out on the layout table, and designing and assembling a 2-page spread at a time. And boy, is it going good! The book’s got a life

It’s such a rich world. Building small (rather than large) gives the builder a chance to do something unique. Not having a lot of money means being creative. Small and simple can be (even if only temporarily) the alternative to the half-million house or condo and mortgage enslavement.

Contributors seem to be aware of the significance of it, and are on the ball (with hi-res photos and text). People are (still) sending us one wonderful thing or another. Lots of women builders. Lots of cob. Lot of road vehicles.

I’ve been thinking about a book like this — the kind you’ll hold in your hands and thumb through the pages — compared to an eBook of any persuasion…”I knew Jack Kennedy, Senator, and you’re no Jack Kennedy…” This ain’t gonna be no stinkin eBook.

The times are obviously right. It reminds me of 1973 when we were assembling Shelter. There’s a spirit of simplicity and self-sufficiency afoot these days. Hell, even the New York Times is on it. I think this will be a major book, as was Shelter, a reflection of the times.

Shameless commerce dept.: we are selling a package of 3 building books — Shelter, HomeWork, and Builders of the Pacific Coast — for a 40% discount. Both of the latter 2 books have lots of buildings directly inspired by Shelter, so there’s a continuity and some history here: https://is.gd/kfiEq

•A (sort of) warm rain started falling around dusk yesterday. Rain has become a treat for me. I love everything about it. I just got a pair of rainpants at REI so now am prepared for walking out to the cliffs during big storms that roar in from the south. The air is sweet, fresh, electric. As energizing as getting head under waterfall. Simple joys.

•Solar light bulbs – For 50 years I’ve made skylights with flat (“Filon”) fiberglass, just interleaving it like a big shingle (on asphalt shingle roofs). It’s so simple. and solar-lights the room, free of charge. (I’ve found translucent, not transparent, provides best light.) I mention this because a young builder was here the other day, and this had never occured to him.

•Eatin local – I had 2 doves for dinner last night. One was roadkill, the other I shot. Yes, I do some small-scale hunting, OK? My dad was a serious duck hunter and my brother and I hunted for ducks and doves when we were about 12. Wild duck is my favorite food in the world. We have finally gotten around to eating a lot of local and/or wild foods. Crabs, fish, the occasional abalone, chanterelles, Yerba Buena tea… artichokes, beets and beet tops, chard, salad greens, tomatoes…from the garden. We started out to do this 30+ years ago and it’s all come to pass in the last 10 years or so. Local. Well, duh!

•End of a running (racing, that is) career – Bottom line: I’ve damaged my knees (20 years of fast downhill running) so at this point I’m knocking off the speed stuff. Oh I am so mature! Dumb fuck, I should have pulled out earlier. I should explain that there is a local race, the Dipsea, with tradition and romance and agony all wrapped up in a 7-mile course over the flank of a magic mountain. Me and my running friends (them even more so) have been obsessed with this great race. I’m starting to run differently. Once I give up on speed as a goal, it opens alternative paths. I’m fascinated with “chi running.” Trying to land more on mid-foot than solely on heel, flex knees more for shock absorption, better posture, and the greatest thing: FEELING the trail with my feet. Running as an art, running like an Indian…

•Tiny Homes book – is rolling. Rick, Lew, and I (with page design by David) have this week started turning out pages. 10-12 so far. We’re watching the book put itself together in this early phase. I’ve been laying out pages at random, just grabbing what looks exciting. Every day new material is coming in. Good stuff! There’s going to be way more than enough for one book.

•Rain and firewood – Rain is like, if you’ll excuse the expression, money in the bank. I feel secure when there’s been enough rain and the earth has enough moisture for the year. Same with firewood, we’ve got maybe a 2-year supply now (all roadkill trees), it’s comforting.

I post stuff here on daily observations, but the most important thing going on in my life right now is working on our tiny homes book. By the time we get it out, it will have been 3 years in between major building books, the last having been Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008).

For a year I gathered info, filing it away in 5th-cut files folders (one thing I learned in my 5 years as an insurance broker was the importance [and technique] of filing). For the past few months, I’ve been doing layouts, 2 pages at a time, in no particular order. I grab a folder, print out pics, write or get text from contributors, and do a rough layout by taping down pics (which I size on a Brother DCP-9040CN color copy machine) and text with removable scotch tape.

This is old school, to say the least. These days, designers lay out picture books on Macintoshes, for Christ’s sake. My method is way slower, but I’m not locked into a digital process in the creative stages. I think you get a different product this way (kind of like rice tastes best when cooked slowly on a wood stove).