Building (356)

This home is the cross between a tiny house on wheels and a kid’s dream fort! The entire open area between the two sleeping lofts of this tiny home is filled with a giant hammock providing an amazing place to relax while adding a tonne of usable space in the home!

This 24 × 8.5 ft (7.3 × 2.5m) tiny house is the brain-child of Whit and Cody, two dynamic friends who have called this project ‘Smore Life.’ The smore reference comes from the Shou Sugi Ban technique of charring the cedar to help seal and protect it, which reminded the friends of cooking smores over the campfire…

• From www.livingbiginatinyhouse.com/…

Some years ago Joaquin De La Cruz traded his ’48 Triumph motorcycle for this vintage Chevy Flatbed — and with little money, much imagination, and found discards — set about making one of the most unique ever to roll along America’s roads.

For the last five years Joaquin, Gypsy, and their three kids — Heather, Bear, and Serena — have moved around the country and were last seen parked along California’s Feather River…

• From our book Shelter, published in 1973
• Featured on our Instagram page

After losing two saunas to high river water, Louie built this one on a one-ton Toyota truck frame. A pickup plus a few people haul it back from the river in the winter, with Donna steering the front wheels from the inside of the sauna. Woodstove built from 50-gallon drum gets fed from the outside…

• Sauna is featured in Home Work, Louie is also featured in Builders of the Pacific Coast.

Dear Lloyd,

I became a carpenter and eco builder because of your books. Shelter and HomeWork got me hooked. Builders of the Pacific Coast got me started.

I used to work in an office. Now I build homes (narrowboats, vans, caravans, yurts, cabins) for the customers that want something different but can’t afford hiring “big people.” The poor also have the right to live in a nice home.

I built this 6.5m-diameter, heptagonal, tapered-walled, reciprocal green-roofed yurt, the “reciproyurt,” last year and got more than 70 volunteers involved.

I love working with people without experience. They give any project a freshness that you never get with professionals. They have no real preconceptions — really open-minded. They want to learn but they also teach you so much! They mainly helped with big jobs like raising the frame.

–Jesus Sierra

• From our book Small Homes: The Right Size

We received this letter from the owner of a 1914 home in England that was a prefab shown in our book: The Gardeners’ Poultry Keepers’ Guide. This was a turn-of-the-century catalog from London of prefab greenhouses, farm buildings and — in this case — homes.

Hi,

I have just bought Ballintomb Cottage, a 1914 William Cooper Corrugated Iron house.

After searching for an Old William Cooper’s catalogue, I came across your reprint of it, and to my delight, Lloyd’s forward mentions the cottage sale in 2007.

In the last 10 years the previous owner has done nothing. The sale photographs are identical between 2007 & 2017.

Inside the building is pretty much sound. All but the lounge is still original wood panelling. The lounge was knocked through into the kitchen in the 1970s, and all the timber cladding removed and replaced with gyproc board.

I would like to restore it back to timber.

Keep up the good work — I have and often re-read most of your publications.

Regards,
–Ian Gilbert

Driftwood beach shack from 64-page book I’m just finishing laying out: Driftwood Shacks Photo by Lloyd Kahn

• From www.lloydkahn.com/….