Small Homes (166)

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Workwise, I’m having more fun than in a coon’s age.

This book — Small Homes — was in limbo for the 30 days we were in Scotland. Add to that the several weeks it took to get re-grounded at home, and there was a long lull in production (layout, that is).

WELL! The book is now rolling at a grand pace. This lovely little home just came in a few days ago. French carpenter Menthé (partner of French carpenter Yogan) wrote, rather poetically:

I grew up in the forest of Corréze; it’s really wild and green. I started building cabins when I was 3 years old, playing in the forest. I started this little one when I was 17 in 2000 — I wanted my independence. It took me 3 years, and I lived there for 2 years.

The frame is made of chestnut from the forest, and all the windows are industrial window seconds. The roof is insulated with lime and wood chips — a really strong mixture once it’s dry and insects can’t get in. The walls are made of straw and lime; it’s a really cheap material, important when you’re young without money. I built the entrance door with chestnut and walnut — my first work of joinerie, and it’s still working good.

This is gonna be such a good book!

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Interiors of Damian Helliwell’s straw bale home on a small island off the west coast of Scotland. Construction is timber frame, and the straw bale walls are protected on the exterior with shiplap cedar siding. Heat and hot water are provided by a homemade rocket box stove. It took Damian four years to complete the house.

The Small Homes book is about two-thirds done now — the most complicated one I’ve done so far; 80+ contributors, and lots of correspondence going back and forth, getting large enough photo files, more information, enough material to do layout.

I’m going to back way off on posting here in coming months, in order to get the book finished.

Friday when I was in San Francisco, I shot this picture of the building where I worked for five years as an insurance broker — corner of California and Sansome. I was on the sixth floor. If you count up to the third row of windows in the red brick part of the building and then across to the sixth window on the right, that’s where my office was. I was standing looking out that window the day JFK was assassinated.

I lasted until 1965, until along came rock-and-roll and everything else, and I gave up commerce for artistic freedom.

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Interior of house built by Lloyd Kahn, Burns Creek, Big Sur, California, in 1967–68. Posts are recycled 8 × 12 double-track railroad ties. Flooring and roof deck are 2 × 8 Monterey pine T&G from Carmel Valley. Photo by Lloyd Kahn

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This home was built by Marlin Hanson with Douglas fir logs from adjacent land that were milled onsite. Marlin is a marine construction carpenter and he utilized the strong construction methods used in building piers for framing this home.