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Bruno's Hand-Hewn Froe Mallet

By Lloyd Kahn on August 8, 2016
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Bruno Atkey, one of the major builders in Builders of the Pacific Coast, has been splitting cedar shakes for most of his life. He split the shakes for my 6-sided tower roof from driftwood logs (and his girlfriend Mecea drove them down here in a van). He’s split cedar shakes, and even siding, in British Columbia for numerous homes over the years.

Godfrey Stephens sent us this photo of Bruno’s latest mallet. (I use an old bowling pin.) In the background is one of Godfrey’s paintings.
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Categories: Carpentry  Tags: , , ,
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Cabin in Forest Cost $12 to Build

By Evan Kahn on July 20, 2016


This cosy forest-den certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but this house which was constructed almost entirely from reclaimed materials and cost only 12 dollars to build has served as a comfortable home for David Gell for over 5 years now. Originally, the home was designed and built by an architecture student, who was studying tent design and wanted to experiment with creating super-affordable housing using reclaimed materials…

Categories: Natural Building, Tiny Homes  Tags: , , , ,
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Pairoducks Meets SunRay Kelley

By Evan Kahn on July 16, 2016
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…SunRay returned my online inquiry with a brief email and a phone number, so after a short chat we made plans for a visit. When I arrived he gave a brief introduction and skeptical inquiry of my east coast upbringing, then informed me he had to do a dump run and pick up firewood. I tied down piles of garbage to the rack of his Toyota and off we went, only to return with an equally disproportionate load of firewood, Fir and Madrone. We walked around the homestead and delivered tractor bucket-loads of wood to hungry wood stoves and fireplaces. It’s constant work to keep the buildings warm during the downpours and gusty blows of Northwest winters. The guy burns a lot of wood…

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Earth Dome by SunRay Kelley and Sierra Sander-Hewitt

By Evan Kahn on July 7, 2016
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From August to October of 2015, I worked with a team of five people to build a 200 sq. ft. off-the-grid earth dome in the forest of Northwest Washington. The structure was designed by SunRay Kelley and built for our client Ranger. The building of the dome was filmed by Sharp Entertainment and the episode, Building off the Grid: Mudmen aired on DIY Network on January 19, 2016…

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Cob House in Northern Spain

By Evan Kahn on June 28, 2016
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Dear Lloyd & Co,

I’ve been an admirer of your work since I came across the first Shelter book years and years ago. I wanted to send you a link to a self-published book that we’ve just brought out about our natural building & ecological learning project here in Northern Spain.

Our cob cabin was already featured on Lloyd’s Blog. 

The book’s available here: www.abrazohouse.org/… It’s in English and Spanish, free to view online or download. If you like it, share it or give it a mention on the blog!
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