Hi Lloyd,
Just completed another bridge project. This was constructed using a hybrid of laminated plywood, steel, and oak. It’s the first time I’ve experimented with such large laminations!
–Jonny
This reminds me of homes designed by Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan during the Arts and Crafts Movement in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1900s. Note the fine lava rock masonry work of the fireplace, the gentle curves at the ends of the rafters. Well designed, well built.
I recently spent three weeks on the island of Kaua‘i. I shot a lot of photographs of small homes that seemed simple, well-designed, and suitable for the climate. In general I thought that construction on Kaua‘i was of pretty good quality: good carpentry. I’m going to put up photographs as I get the time. Some of these are more upscale than others, but overall, the shapes seem functional.
When people ask me what I think they should build, I generally suggest that they look around at what’s been built in the neighborhood (or surroundings). I think this is generally a better place to start than with an architect.
Read More …
Tiny Texas Houses were featured in our book Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter. Here are examples of more of their work. All materials salvaged. “For us, a Tiny House runs a 160 sq. ft. up to about 750 sq. ft., including the lofts and an insulated back porch. The Teeny Tiny House is generally under that mark on the bottom floor, going as low as 63 sq. ft. Here are a few of the tiniest houses that we have built that are great for a guest house, or for a child living at home that you do not want to become totally independent of the main house. Here are some of my favorite Teeny Tiny Houses that we have created so far.”
In 1961, a surfing friend, John Stonum, was studying to be an architect at UC Berkeley, and designed this small building for me to build in Mill Valley, California. I wanted to build a sod roof (now called “living roof”), and we had journeyed up to the Heritage House on the Mendocino Coast to see their two sod-roofed cabins.
This was a post-and-beam structure, with posts 6 feet on centers, and oversized precast concrete piers for the foundation. A lumberyard in nearby Olema, California was going out of business and I bought a truckload of “merch” grade rough redwood two-by-fours for $35 a 1000. Not $350, but $35.
Read More …
“Imagine living in a place with your possessions, all within a 232-square-foot house. For one thing, you’ll probably need a lot fewer possessions. But Denise Ryals, who builds tiny homes with her husband, Tommy, said a buyer can pack their possessions — and the house itself — and drive it anywhere…”
Article at www.macon.com/…
www.hummingbirdhousing.com
Check out our good pal Deek “Whirlwind” Diedrickson’s latest video:
Although we featured this shed earlier this year, here is an article with more information and better pics.
Carpenter, painter, musician and sculptor Joel Bird started working on his garden shed four years ago. “It was like an experiment, really,” Bird says. He’d finished renovating the house he’d bought in Tottenham, north London, and he wanted to create a serene and functional workspace in which he could produce music and paint. In addition to a workspace, he also wanted a garden, so he designed his shed with a garden on the roof. Over the past four years, the roof garden has become more and more elaborate, with a raised bed for vegetables, solar panels and an efficient drainage system. Read More …
The prolific Jay Nelson has just completed a new vehicle. Jay’s nomadic creations are in both Tiny Homes and Tiny Homes on the Move. Here’s how he describes his latest:
Golden Gate 2, named after the last electric camper I built, Golden Gate 1. It’s a car camper made with salvaged wood and bike parts. It has a 90″ × 42″ footprint. Sink, water tank, stove, cooler. The entire inside is a bed.
These are barns I photographed in the Willamette Valley in Oregon in September, 2014. The gambrel is a distinctive and common barn roof shape in this part of the world, as is the curved roof barn (See blog.shelterpub.com/?s=curved+roof posted last month.)
The word gambrel “derives from the hock (bent part) of a horse’s leg, also called a gambrel. The lower part of the roof is a steep slope, the upper part shallower. The break-in roofline allows head room in the loft space, and is useful in barns for hay storage as well as in homes for rooms above plate level.” –From Shelter II, p. 98.
There are also plans for a 24′ × 32′ gambrel-roofed barn on pages 102-103 of Shelter II.
The buildings of Yogan, a French carpenter and Natural Man in France, have been featured in Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter, and in Tiny Homes on the Move. Here he is in another of Kirsten Dirksen’s excellent videos on building and homesteading:
Send us material (photos and text) for The Shelter Blog.
