On my way to see Foster Huntington in Washington this morning, crossing the Columbia River on Highway 5, I spotted this floating community.
Some quick Google research:
The Portland region has more floating homes than Seattle or San Francisco. Hayden Island alone has four moorages for floating homes, including West Hayden Island Moorage, with 57 floating homes, on the far west side, Jantzen Beach Moorage, Inc, the largest with 176 floating homes (south of Home Depot), Island Cove Floating Homes with 55 units (just west of Lotus Isle Park), and Tomahawk Island Floating Homes with some 72 community members…
[sharethis]
Shelter for young persons: Fix up an old house in city or town.
[sharethis]
Godfrey just sent this photo. After two day’s work. What a fucking genius! He’s getting better.
His combination of Kwakwaka’wakw training and artistic sensibilities from the depths of his soul produce powerful art. He’s in Builders of the Pacific Coast, Tiny Homes on the Move, and throughout this blog, and has been in my life for over 50 years.
He’s more of an artist — wild, productive, joyous — than the world-famous rich artists out there getting all the attention. He’s a Picasso under the radar.
[sharethis]
I don’t see any boards, but these guys gotta be surfers. Somewhere in Kapa‘a, Kauai. Authentic, yeah?
What I like here (aside from the soulfulness):
- Hip roof, corrugated steel sheets
- Porch area by subtraction. Think of it as the overall simple roof shape; then by moving walls inside, you get porch.
- Up off ground on simplest of foundations.
- Colors: red/green. I love the brick red color, especially window trim on Pacific west coast.
[sharethis]
All our bread is homemade, so we use a bread knife daily. We’ve had 3 of them, of different configurations. But we got this very unusual one a couple of months ago, and it’s not only better then any bread knife I’ve ever seen, but a delight to use.
Irene says: “I like making bread knives. I tell folks when they buy ’em, ‘If this doesn’t cut the bread SMACK out of the oven better then anything else you’ve ever used, then I’ll double your money back.’ No one’s ever returned a bread knife.”
The wood is cherry or mahogany, they are made in the USA, and available for $30 plus $10 postage (mail check) to:
Irene Tukuafu
2639 N. Sycamore Haven Dr.
Nauvoo, Illinois 62354
Check out also, Irene’s musical instruments:
[sharethis]
Our new book Small Homes: The Right Size is now available at independent bookstores, and Amazon — as well as from us: www.shelterpub.com/…
Shameless Commerce Dept.: This is, I think, the best building book we’ve ever done. (Yes, I’m sure I’ve said this before, but it keeps reoccurring to me.) Shelter is everyone’s favorite; it captured the times; it inspired thousands of homes. Builders of the Pacific Coast is in some ways, my best book. It’s an odyssey of discovery where the reader rides shotgun with me over a two-year period — cohesive and focused.
BUT Small Homes is so useful to so many people in this era of astronomical home prices and rents, that I think it’s hugely important. It offers alternatives to people looking for rentals on Craigslist or homes on Zillow. Here are 65 very different homes, of different materials, in different parts of the world. The idea, as with all our building books is to use your hands to create your own shelter.
[sharethis]
Laying out mini book for Small Homes, will be 2½″ × 3″, slightly larger than our other two mini books (of which we’ve now printed 35,000 copies). Small Homes should be in bookstores in April. Patronize an independent bookstore!
[sharethis]
Our first book in three years — Small Homes: The Right Size — is finished, printed, bound, and 10,000 copies are now in transit on the high seas from Hong Kong, due in U.S. bookstores mid-March. We got 10 advance copies via airmail.
[sharethis]
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:
blog.shelterpub.com/…
[sharethis]
On a trip to Nevada, Utah, and Arizona in 1989
This political nightmare we’ve been going through for some months now may have led me to choosing the subject for my next book.
I’ve been trying to figure out what to do after Small Homes:
- 50 Years of Natural Building
- A book on my trips
- A book on barns
Some kind of context for the 10,000+ photos I’ve taken over the years.
The idea about a book on the U.S.A. popped into my head a few days ago. This would be my version of America. It would start with me riding the rails and hitchhiking from San Francisco to New York in 1965, along with a copy of Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous — seeking enlightenment, if you will, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life — as the cultural revolution of the ’60s–’70s unfolded. (Upon return a month later, I quit my job as an insurance broker and went to work as a builder.)
I would show the America that I love, the people in every state who were kind and friendly and helpful, Pop’s Diner in Page, Arizona; pressmen at Courier Printing in Kendallville, Indiana; squirrel hunters in Tennessee; the waitress in an Oklahoma diner serving me coconut cream pie with coffee at 2:30 AM; farmers, surfers, skateboarders, lawyers, and bankers (yes — there are some good ones); book lovers, musicians, builders; makers…
This just may be the next book: the glass-half-full take on America.
[sharethis]
Elaine and Sandy Doss live on 150 acres in Northern California in this WWII Quonset hut, which was converted for living by architect Val Agnoli (one of the featured builders in our book, Shelter).
Sandy and I continue to live off the grid using a photovoltaic system with backup gas generator. Water comes from a well with solar pump, then gravity-fed to the house; livestock water is from springs.
We have a bedroom wood-burning stove, living-room propane fireplace, and propane wall heater in the study. TV and Internet services are via satellite.
–Elaine Doss
[sharethis]
Rick and I are in the final stages of preparing Small Homes for the printers. We changed the cover from an earlier version, which showed a small turn-of-the-century home in Santa Cruz (in this revised cover, it’s the middle image in the left hand column), because a single image didn’t seem to represent the diversity of images (120 or so small homes) in the book. Hence the collage.
Below are two alternatives, the same except for the background color. In the one with the red, it’s similar-looking to Home Work, Builders of the Pacific Coast, and Tiny Homes on the Move. Some of our savvy book friends think it’s too similar, and that another color would distinguish it from the other books. Hence the other with the dark green background.
Comments, please. Which do you like? Do you see any problem in this cover being similar to our other books?
[sharethis]
