All across America, a familiar type of landscape can be found: empty buildings, decaying storefronts and deserted streets. They’re not ghost towns, but rather the remnants of a different time. Main streets which were once booming centers of commerce are now often populated with the imagined ghosts of a time when super-stores and corporate chains were still on the far horizon.

Michael Eastman documented these landscapes in his series “Vanishing America,” flawlessly capturing the faded colors and rough surfaces of these obsolete buildings and ignored spaces. His travels throughout America consumed more than three years and took the photographer through 40 states as he looked for more and more examples of compelling age-worn textures. WebUrbanist recently had the pleasure of talking with Michael about his richly layered project.

WebUrbanist: Your series “Vanishing America” features images of abandoned and/or decaying buildings and towns. How do you happen upon these subjects? Do you travel especially to capture them or are they surprises that you encounter upon unrelated travels?

Michael Eastman: I have always been drawn to urban surfaces since I began in 1972. I am mostly a colorist and I believe that abstractions with some narrative content are the most interest to me. The patina, color and surfaces are what I have always found fascinating.  I travel in search of things of interest for me to photograph. I try to have no expectations, no agenda and let the landscape unfold as I explore.

WebUrbanist: Is your goal with “Vanishing America” to perform a commentary on the state of the country, or do you see your role more as a documentarian?

Michael Eastman: I believe that photographs, regardless of their intent, eventually become of more interest as a record of history. What photographers record becomes more interesting to future viewers for what it says about the past than whatever the reason the photographer had intended when making a photograph from an artistic viewpoint.

WebUrbanist: What was the inspiration for this series?

Michael Eastman: Over the last several decades, I am continually struck by the discovering that buildings that I had once photographed now no longer exist. It became clear to me that the America that I grew up with was rapidly disappearing. I felt it was important to continue to photograph these places and I began to feel a sense of urgency that I did not feel before. Things were changing much faster than I had imagined. And the surfaces and facades that told stories were vanishing.

WebUrbanist: Will “Vanishing America” be a continuing series?

Michael Eastman: No, I am finished. I think I have said what I had to say with this series. There are other places that I feel are also disappearing and should be recorded. I have made several trips to Cuba over the last decade and I feel that someday soon things will change there dramatically. It needed to be recorded and the architecture, color and surfaces are so beautiful. And I am also planning a trip to the far east with the same intent.

WebUrbanist: Why do you feel it is important to share images decaying America?

Michael Eastman: It is our history. These everyday monuments are our ruins; they are our past. They represent who we are and where we came from and this past needs to be part of our future.

(all images used with permission from Michael Eastman)

From houses to old businesses to entire rows of storefronts, the subjects of Eastman’s photographs are carefully and lovingly explored. Color is a major factor in each of the shots, with the impeccable compositions being the next most noticeable element. The rich textures and vivid detail create a longing to be a part of the nostalgic scenes. There is something here to stir the emotions – and the memories – of anyone who grew up in America prior to the 1990s. These pictures are, indeed, the records of our past. They are relics of an America that we are not likely to ever see again.

See “Vanishing America” and Eastman’s other compelling photographic series at his website, Eastman Images. Special thanks to Michael Eastman for sharing his amazing body of work with us.

No related posts.

An old water tower is turned into an amazing home!

It is the perfect adaptive reuse project, with all of the best elements already built in: a hilltop location (originally to allow easy water flow from the site) with sparse Australian vegetation allowing for maximum views, a building constructed to withstand incredible pressures without springing a single leak and all sold for a song by the local city council since the county had no more use for it.

The sheer mass of this structure is astonishing: the cylinder is over sixty feet in diameter with an interior that is nearly four stories tall, rounded out by reinforced concrete walls that measure about three feet thick. In fact, demolishing the structure would almost certainly have cost more than rebuilding around it or remodeling it into a working home, as Riddel Architecture chose to do for a local client.

The design solution makes the most of both the existing open-plan layout and shelter of the massive cylindrical form; bedrooms, bathrooms and other private areas are lofted inside, suspended from the sides toward the top with views out to the rest of the larger interior space. Giant openings were sliced from the sides of the cylinder below to allow for views, light and air. The remaining void after adding rooms is still huge, and skylights where the tank were let in additional hints of nature from above.

Corrugated steel was chosen both for being cheap and appropriately industrial to the space, offset by wood railings, flooring and furniture that bring some domestic warmth back to the place – particularly in the common areas that sit around the circumference and face out to the surrounding landscape. Who would want to start from scratch when you could begin with such a brilliant (if a bit industrial) building?

Related posts:

1. Homesteading with a Shipping Container House, Part 2
2. Compact Living Ideas – [Matroshka] Whole House Set
3. Prefab Shipping Containers House Students in Architecture Contest

TruthisTreason.net

I know it’s been quite some time since I posted a story about my homesteading attempt, so I figured it was time to sit down and share a few pictures!

I have several dozen other pictures that are much higher resolution, but these were taken with the phone and I had them with me today, so here they are!

With the extreme heat (113 degree heat index!), we’ve been working at night mostly.

The cabin plans are 14′x24′ with 10′ 8″ ceilings.  It will have a very slightly sloped roof, almost flat, and high windows spanning the top portion of the southern wall (passive solar heating for the winter).

The concrete blocks look a bit wobbly, I know.  They’re actually very sturdy and will soon have a concrete form built around them and encased in cement with rebar to create columns.

Once this portion of the cabin is completed, it will house the bathroom and the kitchen, along with a small living area/eating nook/entry way.  An addition is being planned using a 20′ shipping container alongside the southern wall (the side you’re looking at above).  The container will house the bedroom and large closet, etc.

This was Sunday’s project; framing up the front window and roughing in the front door.  This weekend?  Finish up the north and south walls and order my high ceiling windows!  I’m thinking 8″ high x 24″ wide… I found some that cant outwards and they remind me of New Orleans.  I’m ordering 4 of them!

I will be writing up a much more in-depth article on the actual building process, but I wanted to at least share these with you!

If you’ll recall, this was a field just a very short time ago – we now have a septic tank and working restroom, hot showers, air conditioning and currently residing in a 12′ x 16′ lofted barn shed as we build.  It’s actually quite comfortable and will be turned into the workshop as soon as the cabin is roughed in and weatherproofed.

Before the Cabin Build started.

Related posts:

1. Homesteading with a Shipping Container House, Part I
2. Homesteading with a Shipping Container House, Part 2
3. How to: Cook on a Wood Stove

You may have heard about them: Off-the-gridders living in radical opposition to modern amenities by growing their own food and cutting themselves off from the rest of society. Not so. Sure, more people are choosing to cut their dependence on the power grid, the grocery story and fuel pump. But these new homesteaders are hardly radicals — they are simply DIYers who, for a variety of reasons, revel in self-reliance. This is their story.

Hayden’s Note:

A brief warning for some of my readers:  This article’s author is geared towards the belief that global warming exists and is a threat to humanity; that environmentalism and recycling will save the planet and several other mostly Liberal-Hippie type ideas (I say that with no illwill in mind - I used to live in a van and sold hemp bracelets in a WalMart parking lot in Colorado when I was 15 years old!).  I’m just trying to forewarn some readers to continue on and finish the article.  It’s a pretty good read overall, regardless of your environmental and climate beliefs.  There is room for everyone – Right, Left, Libertarian, Hippies, Geeks and everyone in between!

The phone rang when I was shoeless and only a couple of sips into my morning coffee. “Hi, it’s Novella Carpenter,” the caller said. “My goat is giving birth.”

Twenty minutes later I was crouched in the hay at Ghost Town Farm, pushing away chickens and peering into the pen that housed the expectant mother, Bébé. Her udder was so swollen she couldn’t get her hindquarters down. Bleating, she clawed at the dirt with her right front hoof as if searching for a stash of Vicodin. “Pass me the iodine,” Carpenter said. “We better wash up.”

Similar birthing scenes have unfolded countless times in America’s agrarian past, but none, I suspected, had the soundtrack of the Ghost Town neighborhood in Oakland, Calif. As Bébé’s cries reached an apex they were matched by the caterwauling of a police car siren on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Then came the intestine-undulating bass of hip-hop from a passing car. Residents disagree on how Ghost Town got its name—for the isolation created when freeways cleft the neighborhood from the rest of the city in the 1950s? For the appallingly high murder rate? For the casket companies that used to be located here? More unanimously accepted is that Ghost Town is a singularly odd location for a homestead that hosts pigs, goats, geese, peaches, potatoes, spinach and bees. Carpenter is living a version of the Laura Ingalls Wilder fantasy all right, but hers is Little House in the ‘Hood.

Carpenter, the author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, is, by her own admission, “a bit nuts.” If so, she has company—similar farms have sprung up on city blocks in Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh and Detroit. And food is hardly the only commodity that people are producing for themselves these days. A small but growing number of American households generate all of their electricity using wind, solar or micro-hydro. But off-the-grid living has come to mean something more nuanced than cutting all ties with utilities and society; for many, it’s about finding creative ways to produce and conserve resources at home. Hundreds of thousands of Americans capture rainwater in barrels, can food from their gardens, heat water with solar collectors and commute by bicycle. We may be nearly a decade into the 21st century, but the self-reliant spirit of an earlier era—that of homesteading pioneers—has returned with gusto.

At Ghost Town Farm, Carpenter cleared the head-high weeds from a 4500-square-foot lot and started planting. She didn’t ask permission. When the lot’s owner discovered the squat garden he warned that he would soon develop the real estate–that was five years ago. Now the lot is verdant with lavender, sage and thyme; lime, rhubarb and raspberries; artichoke, collard greens and avocado.

Strolling through the garden, I became overwhelmed by a feeling that could only be described as vegetable lust. But something deeper than my appetite had been stimulated, too. My grandfather once worked a small mountain farm in Greece. He immigrated to California’s Central Valley in his 20s, opening a produce stand and then a grocery store, but he never totally severed his connection to the land. I remember strolling through fruit-laden trees in his backyard as a boy. Now, I was gearing up for major changes myself—the arrival of my first child, the purchase of my own home—and I had been thinking about what sort of sanctuary I could create for my own family. The house I envisioned was solar-powered and garden-ringed, a little safer, smarter and more productive than the wasteful world around it. I was deeply curious about the experiments of modern homesteaders because I wondered just how self-sufficient I could be, too.

In the pen Bébé continued to push and, with a little gentle guidance from Carpenter, the newborn’s head crowned. Then the front legs were out. Bébé gave a final, anguished cry and the kid was born, a female, soon to be named Hedwig. Twenty minutes later, she had a brother, Eeyore. The two Nigerian dwarf goats wobbled about on untested legs and, undistracted by a car alarm that had started to blare, tried to find their mother’s teats.

America is dotted with remote, off-the-grid homesteads. Certain regions—including western Texas around Big Bend National Park; the mesas outside of Taos, N.M.; and pockets of the Sierra Nevada northeast of Lake Tahoe—host whole mini communities. The Surprise Valley of northeasternmost California supports another. There, where skyscrapers of light slant from the heavens to the mirror-flat floor of the desert, I was crouched on a mattress attached to a rope.

The other end of the rope was hitched to a Ford F-350. The tires spun and soon I was hooky bobbing—surfing at 30 mph, a roostertail of dust in my wake. I felt as gleeful as the Road Runner with Wile E. Coyote giving futile chase. The truck stopped after a few minutes and, as I spat dirt clods from my mouth, a pretty young woman in a red plaid shirt and a white cowboy hat emerged from the cab. “You’re lucky you’re just visiting,” Tierra Hodge said. “If you lived here we would have set the mattress on fire.”

I’d been introduced to Tierra through a tortured chain of connections—my wife’s cousin’s father’s friend’s daughter, or something like that. She grew up off the grid on land near here, and had agreed to guide me around a place I never knew existed and introduce me to people who didn’t necessarily want to be found.

The first stop was welcoming enough: a mountain homestead replete with mud, solar panels, semi-clothed children, and chickens. Then we had lunch in the town of Eagleville with Ed and Wendi Lutz, trompe l’oeil painters who’d retired to build an off-the-grid retreat. Tierra said the place was beautiful—circular, with deep wooden sills and colorful bottles embedded in the walls—but the Lutzes refused to disclose its exact location. I’d told them I was a journalist and might as well have said One World Government Spy. “We have come to value our privacy,” Wendi said, eyeing me warily. That afternoon we drove past a doomsday retreat, complete with its own private airstrip, belonging to a wealthy Bay Area businessman. “He’s preparing for the end of the world as we know it,” Tierra said with an enigmatic smile. I couldn’t tell if she was mocking him or applauding his foresight.

The specters of financial crisis, climate change, uncertain energy reserves and a fragile food supply loom large for the new generation of survivalists—and though I don’t share their apocalyptic mind-set, I find myself relating to the urge to run for cover. In April, the top-selling action and adventure book on Amazon.com was Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse, a work described to me by its author, James Wesley Rawles, as a “survival manual dressed as fiction.” Its plot appeals to those on the political right, who fear a too-powerful government—and the anarchy to come in the wake of its inevitable collapse. Leftie off-the-gridders gravitate more to the “grow-local” approach championed by author Michael Pollan. “We’re using up the world’s resources more quickly than you could imagine,” says Ruby Blume of the Institute of Urban Homesteading. “I think we need to be prepared.”

Lately, homesteaders of all political stripes have settled upon a common concern: globalization. The shock waves of any crisis—for instance, the subprime meltdown—now spread far, fast and wide. Many doubt that major institutions can be counted upon to save the day. “You’re on your own, your job is at risk, and a lot of the commodities you rely upon are vulnerable to disruption,” says John Robb, author of Brave New War, which describes how terrorists could exploit global systems. To my ear, such statements straddle the line between reasonable advice and hyperventilated threat. One day you’re sipping a frappuccino. The next you’re using a pitchfork to fend off rioting mobs. But even if I don’t fully agree with the dystopian diagnosis, I like Robb’s proposed cure: “You’re going to have to start doing more for yourself.” The beauty of the DIY solution is that the exact problem doesn’t matter; greater self-sufficiency makes sense to survivalists and eco-utopians alike.

In the early 1970s, Tierra’s parents established their own fully off-the-grid homestead in Mendocino, and later in Surprise Valley, with the thought that “when society crumbles, we’ll be able to raise our children in a safe environment,” Tierra says. She and her sister, Celesta, grew up in a tepee; her mom, Tina, and dad, Bill, supported the family by breeding llamas and selling medicinal herbs. Instead of sitting in a classroom the Hodge girls were home-schooled, usually outdoors. Instead of playing video games, they explored the mountains on horseback.

Growing up in the wild was idyllic but not always easy. When Tierra was 15 a boy braved the long dirt road to the homestead to pick her up for a date to the county fair. He emerged from the car looking spiffy in an all-white outfit only to have the Hodges’ pet raccoon pounce with muddy paws. Then one of the llamas pegged him with a wad of saliva. Tina, always on the lookout for free meals for wildlife she rehabilitates, shouted after the couple, “Goodbye, honey, have fun, and don’t forget to look for roadkill!” “I just about died,” Tierra recalls. But in spite of their upbringing—or because of it—the girls turned out fine. Tierra went to college. And Celesta moved almost directly from the tepee to a penthouse in New York, gracing the cover of Cosmopolitan as a fashion model.

The day after hooky bobbing, I found myself standing ankle deep in llama poop with a shovel. My job was to ferry wheelbarrows of the stuff up a hill to a garden, dump the smelly payload and then do it again. And again, ad infinitum, until it got dark or my blisters burst. It was raining, so I was damp, and the sodden manure was getting heavy. Then the clouds broke, and the sun beamed down on the Hodges’ secluded mountain—160 acres surrounded by protected wildlands. The air was pine-scented and pulsing with the sound of a creek.

Just as my back began to give out, Bill mercifully invited me to tour the family’s airy, three-bedroom house. It was built earth-berm style, dug into the mountainside and covered by a living roof of soil and vegetation. The ground temperature stays close to 57 F year round, which makes the house extremely energy efficient. A small solar array provides enough electricity for lights, a refrigerator and a stereo.

Bill crouched beside an unfinished section of wall, where he pointed out a grid of 3/8-inch rebar layered with steel mesh. He had painstakingly covered the rest of the grid with a mixture of sand, cement and water—ferro-cement construction that was affordable, fire- and pest-resistant and exceptionally tough. Bill bent the rebar before applying the mortar, which resulted in strong, gracefully curving walls. The house had taken him more than two decades to complete—and should be there for a thousand more, he says.

That kind of work—the kind that results in dirt under fingernails—is back in vogue. Not everybody builds his own home, of course, but people with office jobs are raising hens, bees and wind turbines, learning to weld and taking up quilting. My blistered palms reminded me that manual work is still work, and tasks like shoveling manure can be just as mind-numbing as data entry. But I couldn’t deny the appeal of creating something tangible and unique.

After the tour, Bill and I plopped chairs down outside and popped tops off of a couple of beers. Purplish mesas flanked the horizon to the east. To the west rose the snow-topped Warner Mountains. He admitted that living off the grid on 160 acres was “a utopian thing” not many people could emulate.

As for Tierra, she moved back to Surprise Valley after several years away. She started a fencing company and has built a small off-the-grid place of her own. It has three tiny rooms that she shares with Sienna, her 4-year-old daughter from a recent marriage. The house has only enough solar power for a refrigerator, a few light bulbs and a boom box, but the desert view surpasses that of most million-dollar vacation homes.

Tierra is conflicted about her future and considering a move to the Bay Area. After getting a taste of her life for the past few days, I had more than an inkling why: It is lonely to live this far out of the mainstream. I couldn’t do it myself, no matter how dazzling the mountain scenery. And yet Tierra is proud of what she has achieved. “There’s a resourcefulness to living this way,” she says. “You know that if all else fails in the world, you’ll still be okay.”

Power generation doesn’t have to be a DIY enterprise. Witness Oregon’s Three Rivers community, a subdivision with 250 solar- and wind-powered homes, or the Villages at Heritage Springs, 500 solar homes planned for Southern California. Other all-solar real estate developments are in the works in Florida, Iowa and Colorado. Clayton Homes, the country’s largest maker of mobile and prefabricated houses, has introduced the i-House, which includes solar panels and energy-efficient appliances, for little more than $100,000.

Satellite Internet services have enabled people to stay connected even in remote areas. Nick Rosen, who runs the website Off-grid.net, spends several months each year living off the grid in the mountains of Majorca, Spain, but seamlessly continues his work as a writer and technology consultant. The notion that painful sacrifices are mandatory has been toppled, he says. Modern energy technologies, well-insulated homes and power-sipping appliances mean “you can live a fantastic, comfortable time off-grid.”

Curious to see how much luxury is possible, I arranged to visit the home of Thomas Beck, an architect in Estes Park, Colo. Beck got his start in residential work before he hit puberty, building multistory treehouses complete with trapdoors and fireman’s poles. He began studying environmental design in 1973, just as the OPEC oil embargo hit, and attended the National Solar Energy Conference the following spring. “I realized then that oil was a finite resource, but the sun’s going to be around for, what, 96 billion more years?” Beck says.

Yet it wasn’t until recently that he built his magnum opus: a 5800-square-foot spread with a 270-degree view of Rocky Mountain National Park. “When most people think about an off-the-grid house I don’t think they’d picture this,” Beck said when I arrived. Inspired by the Arts and Crafts style of architecture, Beck used wood beams, stone and stucco to create multiple wings fanning out under long diagonal rooflines. We passed through the front door, elaborately carved from standing dead hardwoods, and proceeded to the Great Room—a cavernous space with a flat-screen television, a dining table long enough for 16 and a baby grand piano. Beams recycled from a century-old railroad trestle support the lofty ceiling. In the kitchen, granite countertops could land a small plane.

Yet Beck’s only utility bill is for propane. Outdoors, above a wood-fired hot tub, rise two wind turbines that can produce 800 watts of electricity. Integrated photovoltaic cells on the roof contribute another kilowatt. A few dozen yards from the front door stands the power house: An array of solar panels on top generates 1.44 kilowatts and, inside, three inverters charge lead-acid batteries—32 in all. Three banks of evacuated-tube solar thermal collectors heat water for both domestic use and the 3.5 miles of radiant floor tubing that warms the house.

Beck stepped out to meet with a client and encouraged me to explore the house on my own. I went downstairs, where a lap pool with 10,000 gallons of solar-heated water acts as a thermal reservoir to help stabilize the home’s temperature. I was tempted to go for a quick swim—but then chickened out. The whole place, in fact, screamed “look but don’t touch,” and I wondered what it might say about the broader movement for sustainability. This eco-mansion took copious amounts of natural resources to construct. I would love to live here. But, environmentally, it seemed a bit like a biodiesel-powered Hummer. While an impressive showcase for off-the-grid tech, Beck’s luxurious spread appeared no more realistic–for me anyway–than the Hodges’ bare-bones retreat.

The dream of living more independently from civilization is almost as old as civilization itself. When Rome fell 1500 years ago, city dwellers fled to the countryside, becoming some of the world’s first back-to-the-landers. The Diggers of 17th-century England and Depression-era Americans similarly tried to provide for themselves locally. By the late 1960s and early 70s, as many as 1 million Americans, decrying consumerism and Vietnam, set out for what they thought would be a purer life in the countryside. For inspiration they read Aldo Leopold and Henry David Thoreau; for practical advice on everything from carpentry to compost they clutched issues of the Whole Earth Catalog. However well-armed with information, though, most of the would-be pioneers lacked practical experience and abandoned small-farm living after learning that it was—as Novella Carpenter indelicately put it to me—”a s—ton of work.”

Carpenter knows firsthand about the travails of the back-to-the-landers. She spent her early childhood on a rural retreat in Idaho. Directly emulating her parents horrified her, but the apple fell only so far from the tree. “I recognized that if my parents were Utopia 8.5 with their hippie farm in Idaho, I was merely Utopia version 9.0 with my urban farm in the ghetto,” she wrote in Farm City.

A few weeks after the goats were born, Carpenter and I strolled past a graffitied warehouse across from the farm, then turned left on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Carpenter said that instead of tumbleweeds she sometimes spotted “tumbleweaves,” the lost hairpieces of prostitutes, blowing down the block. When we stopped in a small park to pick pellitory, a nettle-like plant that the chickens love, Carpenter recounted a shooting she’d witnessed there. I really admired Carpenter, but I thought she was more than a little crazy. What made her urban version of utopia any better than the rural approach of her parents?

“I find the country incredibly lonely,” Carpenter said as we headed back. Ghost Town was diverse and intriguing; the menace of thugs was tempered by the support of the community. We strolled past a bodega whose owner, a goatherd in Yemen before he emigrated to the U.S., had taught her how to slaughter livestock. And Carpenter pointed out a monastery occupied by Vietnamese monks, one of whom had helped her chase down a runaway pig.

Carpenter’s urban farm is doubtless an extreme case study. But it also seems to me the most tenable future for self-sufficient, environmentally sustainable living. Homesteading, to be sure, needs the sense of hardy independence that I’d found in Surprise Valley. And I certainly appreciated the appeal of some eco-luxury a la Beck. But for homesteading to truly transcend niche status–for it to have any appreciable impact on the world–it must embrace the community spirit of Carpenter’s urban experiment. Maybe I’d drunk too much organic goat milk. But after seeing everybody else, I knew that it is Carpenter’s city setup I want to draw from to create my own family’s future home–minus the gun-toting teens and the tumbleweaves, of course.

“People are always like, ‘I know where I’m going to go when the s— hits the fan, Novella–to your house!’” Carpenter says. “And my response to that is, if it hits the fan, it’s going to hit the fan for all of us.” We left the street and walked behind her house, where she scattered sawdust on the ground to cloak the livestock odors. We tossed out the pellitory, and the chickens scrambled to gobble it down.

Related posts:

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2. How Do Wind Turbines Work?
3. How Do Solar Panels Work?

Do You Really Need That Much Space? 10 Examples of Tiny Houses

Tiny houses have never truly gone out of style. From the very early days of home building, when the construction was done by hand and usually by the people who would be occupying the home, small homes have been built out of necessity. But today many people continue the trend for the sake of simplicity or the environment. Living in a minuscule home definitely encourages you to rid your life of all types of clutter and get back to what is really important. These truly tiny homes – some modern, some classic – exemplify the best of space-saving architecture.

(images via: Little Digs)

Dorm rooms are how most of us are introduced to small-space living. This French design is jump-starting that experience for one lucky kid. The cottage-like structure, built in a back yard, was intended for a teenager who is getting older and growing closer to the day when he will live away from his family. The tiny home features four levels with smart space-saving features at every turn. With a lounge, a washroom, a work area and a bedroom, no space is wasted and the teenage occupant can have his own personal, private living area.

(images via: Tiny Texas Houses)

Is everything really bigger in Texas? Not according to the people behind Tiny Texas Houses. They believe that there are enough building materials in landfills currently to provide for most, if not all, of the next generation of housing needs. They build tiny homes from salvaged materials and ship them to customers complete with salvaged fixtures, low-voltage wiring and waste water reclamation systems. The small houses only go up to 12′ X 28′, so moving into one will require some de-cluttering for the average person.

(image via: Ballard News-Tribune)

Some U.S. cities have taken to the small housing lifestyle in a big way. Seattle, a city known for its sky-high rental prices, recently changed zoning laws to allow small cottages to be built on the same properties as larger, conventional houses. Denver has a similar plan. Building a cottage can give homeowners a way to keep family nearby, provide affordable housing in a crowded urban area, and add some regular rental income to their bank accounts – it’s a win all around.

(images via: front architects)

There are many creative ways for dealing with overcrowded areas, and the Single Hauz concept incorporates two of them: build in otherwise inaccessible places, and build up rather than out. The design, from Polish firm Front Architects, is rather like a billboard that you can live in. The tiny home is held aloft by a central pole, allowing it to rise high above the surrounding landscape. The home is clearly meant for a single person, not a family, and due to its unique orientation it would allow a higher degree of privacy than just about any other home design.

(images via: Arvesund)

For some people, small-space living is about simplifying all parts of life, including personal relationships. The Hermit’s Cabin from Swedish company Arvesund embraces that concept. The cabin is only big enough for one person and a small handful of furnishings. It can be placed just about anywhere – from a backyard to a secluded woodlands retreat – and offers the ultimate in simplicity and shutting the rest of the world out.

(images via: Dornob)

Adding a guest room to your house can be a lengthy and expensive proposition. This egg-shaped dwelling from DMVA is a simple (albeit slightly eccentric) way to add additional space to an existing house. It can also be a stand-alone mini-home with the addition of a bathroom and kitchen, though it would almost certainly make the neighbors scratch their heads in confusion to see you lock yourself inside a giant plastic egg every evening.

(images via: Carre D’Etoiles)

This marvelous cube is a French design meant to be used as a vacation getaway accommodation. Believe it or not, the tiny box sleeps a grand total of four people and includes everything you need on your vacation…other than breathing room, of course. Each cube comes with a skylight dome in the top meant to be used for stargazing. The Carre D’Etoiles can be rented currently in many locations throughout France, but this design seems perfect for using as a tiny home in some secluded location.

(images via: Arch Daily)

Tiny house living isn’t always about living alone. The Rolling Huts designed by OSKA Architects are meant to be grouped together in a “herd” or community. They are made of simple, natural materials: cork, plywood, steel. The emphasis in the design is on nature and making the smallest impact possible. Large wheels lift the huts up off of the ground, while a spacious exterior deck actually takes up more than half of each hut’s entire footprint. Inside, occupants are left with 200 square feet of living space.

(images via: Dornob)

Finding space to build anything in the densely populated city of Tokyo, Japan is nearly impossible. But architect Takafumi Matsunaga managed to do just that. He found an alley between two existing houses that was no more than 10 feet wide – and built a house on the unlikely site. The extremely narrow abode is almost tiny enough for occupants to lie down on the floor and touch both walls at once. The interior is very impressive, managing to look airy and spacious even though it is an absolutely miniature space.

(image via: NEN Gallery)

This incredibly small house is only three feet wide at its narrowest point, and was widely believed to be the smallest house in London. Located near the Marble Arch, the home was actually built to block alleyway access to St. George’s graveyard, where grave robbers were becoming a nuisance. The house is now a part of the Tyburn Convent building.

Related posts:

1. Reclaimed Space is Delivering Sustainable Living
2. Tiny Homes: Bicycle Trailers & Shopping Cart Campers!
3. Carre d’etoiles: Tiny, Portable Prefab Cube from France

Hayden’s Note:

These would work very well in a high cube shipping container home!  You could even utilize the space underneath for a bathroom or pantry area.  Building the lofts as a “roof” for a simple room would be very easy to do.

It’s a sad fact that smaller living areas like apartment and flats usually limit furniture ideas and arrangements, hence why a large bed might be a problem.  But worry no more, as we just laid our eyes on a lofted bed collection that will solve all your space crunch problems. Custom made to fit your loft or basically any space you desire, the beds make use of the upper space of a room and look comfortable enough.  Just don’t go overboard at night.

Related posts:

1. Compact Living Ideas – [Matroshka] Whole House Set
2. Industrial Interior Ideas for Shipping Containers or “Modern Metal”
3. Attending Duke University While Living in a ’94 Ford Econoline Van. In the Parking Lot.

Matrjosjka [Matroshka] means grandmother in Russian and is used in popular language to describe the wooden dools that are placed inside each other. As reflected by the hidden space within the dolls, the [Matroshka] has the potential to revolutionise storage and maximise the quality of living, especially for those in confined dwellings. As seens with the dolls the possibilities are popping up with [Matroshka].

Matroshka could be the compact living lovers’ wet dream. It can be as small as 4 square meters and houses a pop-up book self, double bed, sofa, dinner table, four stools, desk, wardrobe and a bunch of storage. The target group for this product are people living in overcrowded lodgings; particularly students, big city dwellers or commuters. It can also be used in more conventional dwellings to maximise space in the guest room, children’s room or study area. It is also a smart sollution to allow more flexibility in pre-furnished apartments.

Related posts:

1. Compact Living Ideas – Lofted Beds
2. Industrial Interior Ideas for Shipping Containers or “Modern Metal”
3. Attending Duke University While Living in a ’94 Ford Econoline Van. In the Parking Lot.

Until now domestic manufacturers and research institutions have only been focused on the concept that magnetic resonance could be used for wireless power supplies. Companies like Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp. of Japan have worked out details on extending the range of this technology toward practical applications. University of Tokyo of Japan and Kyoto University of Japan has clearly aimed this technology for practical wireless power supply applications.

More information: Wireless power transmission system for a Micro Aerial Vehicle – http://ursi-test.intec.ugent.be/files/URSIGA08/papers/HBDGJp7.pdf

Related posts:

1. Proposed Wind Power Grid to Make Wind Power More Reliable
2. Battery Breakthrough Could Power Homes for Pennies Per Kilowatt Hour
3. Germans Are Paid to Use Excess Power Generated from Wind Turbines

Source: Cordite Country

Cooking on a Wood Stove

by Karen L. Zlattner

Although my husband and I are not off the grid, we don’t want to rely on public utilities if we don’t have to. So, even though we have an all-electric kitchen we decided to add a wood cookstove.

Last year, in the process of renovating our home, we decided to approximately double our kitchen space.  This allowed us the room to keep our ceramic cooktop and electric double wall oven with space left over to install our new Waterford Stanley wood stove.

We wanted to be as self-sufficient as possible, but we also wanted to maximize functionality and flexibility.

Now that we have the wood stove, if the electric goes out we can still cook, plus still being on the grid, burning wood helps lower our electric bill.  We still have the electric kitchen for summer use, or if I just make coffee or tea, etc.  It’s not worth to make a fire in the wood stove just for that, unless you keep the fire going all night which we didn’t want to do.

When we started looking for a wookstove, we first went to antiques shops, auctions and shows, but we couldn’t find anything that was in good shape, and didn’t require a lot of work.

I’m quite sure that such treasures are out there, somewhere, but we couldn’t find any. Besides that, antique stoves are not airtight.

When we started looking into new stoves, we found that most wood stove dealers were only too happy to help us get exactly the stove we wanted.

We researched different brands found in Lehman’s catalog, advertised in magazines like Mother Earth News and Countryside, and on the web. That’s when we decided on the Waterford Stanley, mostly because of it’s small size.

If you decide to buy an old stove, be careful to inspect the condition inside and outside the stove.  Make sure the wood grate is in good shape, and that there are no cracks or spots rusting though.  Also make sure that all the vents will open and close, since that is the way you control the fire, and therefore the temperature of the stove. This is extremely critical, because cast iron is not easy to repair, so a new stove may be a better choice.

Of course, if you have manufacturer’s manuals with the stove, go by their guidelines, since every stove is different.  There are also many good books available on the subject.

Although some people will use the cookstove as a heat source, we don’t, since we already have a woodstove for that purpose.

We made the decision for a wood cookstove for 2 reasons: 1.  to help keep down the electric bill, and 2.so that I can cook even without power.  After the stove was installed, wefound another reason for a wood cookstove: it makes you slow down.

Cooking on a wood stove takes longer than an electric or gas range. Ittakes a while to get the fire hot enough to cook on, especially the oven.

All stoves have the same basics, although they may be in different areas on the stove.

• The Firebox: this is usually on the left upper corner, under the cooktop.

Most, like mine, are loaded from the front, others may be loaded from the left side.  To light a fire, place crumpled newspaper in the fire box with kindling over that. Fill the box tightly, but don’t compact it so much that air can’t circulate.

• Dampers: There are 2 dampers that you use. They are in different spots on different stoves. The one you’re concerned with now, opens the chimney. Mine are on the cooktop, others are a dial or slide on the left side of the stove, and others may be a handle that’s turned in the chimney itself. No matter where it is, that must be opened to let the smoke out of the stove.  Then somewhere in bottom -front or the bottom- left side of the stove will be an air intake. This can be adjusted to let air into the stove. The less air in, the cooler and slower the fire. Open all the way to start your fire.

The other damper is to open the oven damper. Keep this closed while lighting your fire. Once the fire is going well, you can open this damper. For my stove, when the oven damper is opened, I can close the chimney damper. Your stove may be the same or you may need to keep both dampers open.

Once you have your kindling burning well, you can add your log(s).

Before starting a fire, be sure you know the size logs that fit inside your stove, and make sure that they are well seasoned.

• Cooking area: This is the top of the stove. Those round lids are not burners, like on a conventional stove. Those circles are lids that can be lifted off so that you have access to the inside if the stove enabling you to brush away the accumulation of ash. You cook on the entire stovetop. The hottest area is over the fire (left side) to the coolest (right side). So instead of turning a dial to “lower the heat”, you move your pots and pans around.

On many stoves, like mine, you can now close or partially close the chimney damper and/or air intake, once your fire is going good. You have to play around with them to see which works best for your stove. You want a slow, steady fire.

• The Oven: My oven has a temperature gauge on it.  Some models may not, so you may want to use an oven thermometer, bought from a store. Open the oven damper, and close the chimney damper (if you do that on your stove). It will more than likely take about 1 hour for the oven to heat up to proper temperature. You may also need to open the air intake, and/or add more wood or kindling. The oven is used like any other oven, although I find that baking or roasting may take a little longer.

Now you are ready to cook.

I like cast iron pans, but steel works well also.  Thinner materials will work also, but if the fire is too hot, your food can scorch.  Keep the pan more to the right side of the cook top.  Again, knowing where to place your pans requires practice, because, obviously, there is no high, medium, and low settings.  I also use a metal trivet on the right back corner so I can raise a pan off the stove completely if I want to just keep something warm.

Remember that the oven is a box (the oven) within a box (the stove).  The principal is to get the smoke to circle around the inner box.  To keep things working properly, take off those lids on the cooktop. (WHEN NOT IN USE) and brush and scrape around the sides of the oven.  Any accumulation of ash will act as insulation to the oven.  Under the oven there should be a little door that you scrape and put out the loose ash.

There will also be a door or drawer under the firebox.  This too, will need to be emptied periodically of ash. How often will depend on how much you use the stove, but empty it at least weekly.

It is not normal for smoke to come out of the stove.  If it does smoke, then something is wrong with the draft in the chimney or a crack somewhere in the stove, or if it’s around a door, the stove could be warped.  You need to watch for this in buying a used stove.

Those are the basics of cooking on a wood cookstove.  I was not brought up cooking like this, so I can tellyou that it just takes practice, trial and error.  Cook something really simple the first time.   Get that down pat before using the oven.

As I mentioned, cooking this way slows you down, and the warmth in the area draws people to the stove.  We have chairs round the stove so I can be with friends and family while cooking, and I always keep a teakettle is on the back of the stove.

If you’re impatient and your family wants instant meals, a wood cookstove may not be for you.

To appreciate cooking with wood, you need to slow down and enjoy.  Grab a chair and have some tea.

Related posts:

1. How to: Make a Simple Hay Baler
2. Battery Breakthrough Could Power Homes for Pennies Per Kilowatt Hour
3. Homesteading with a Shipping Container House, Part 2

TruthisTreason.net

Homesteading with a Shipping Container House, Part 2

Part 1 of this Series can be Found Here

In the last segment, we left off with the land closing and estimates of initial costs.  It has been under a week since then and I’ve already been able to put a full day’s work in at the property.  Over that weekend, I rented a medium-sized roto-tiller from Home Depot ($55/all day) but apparently I should have rented the heavy-duty, larger one.

My plan was to go out to the property, measure and stake the estimated house site, and then clear all of the prairie grass and topsoil.  I figured this would take a good part of the afternoon to clear an approximate 45 ft. x 20 ft. area.  I was sadly mistaken.  I started the day bright and early, which is rare for me.  I was awake and already drinking my first cup of coffee by 7:00 am (unheard of!) and started to plan my day and what tools I would need in order to clear the topsoil and begin leveling a pad.

Heavy duty tape measure ( 35 ft.) – $22

High quality standard shovel – $18

High quality trenching shovel – $16

Bundle of small wire flags markers – $7/50 (?)

Compass for orientation of site – $ Varies, $5-10 (already had several)

At the last minute, I debated on bringing my lawn mower with me.  I didn’t feel like hooking up the trailer and my only cargo capacity in my Jeep Wrangler is a rear cargo ‘deck’.  Since I planned to carry the roto-tiller there, I figured I could do without the lawn mower and would simply tear up the ground – weeds, tall grass and small plants alike – with the tiller.  This was my first mistake.  Anything worth doing is worth doing correctly.  I should have hooked up my trailer, brought extra gas tanks (I already carry a 5 gallon jerry can mounted on the Jeep), 2-cycle oil in case the tiller needed some, 5 gallons of water and a lawn chair. 

But I was a new land owner and couldn’t wait to get out there and get my hands dirty!  I quickly packed my tools and rushed towards Home Depot – 30 miles away. 

Everything went smoothly and while there, I debated on just renting one of the large Bobcat backhoes.  It had a blade on the front that would do some serious clearing and was $179 to rent all day.  It even came with it’s own trailer.  Hmmmm.  I stood there awhile pondering it and then thought… no, the roto-tiller will work fine!

With the tiller strapped to the rear cargo deck, I was headed towards my newly acquired chunk of land, ready to do battle against the prairie grass on the back acre and a half.

For simplicity sake, here are pictures of the property as you drive in from the road so that you’ll get a better idea of what I’m faced with – the entrance is marked with a blue arrow.

Click the pictures to enlarge them.

After speaking with the local electrical company, I discovered they would provide the first 300 feet of line … if I promise to be a 1,400 kw per month customer.  While that is a decent monthly average for the typical home in America (factoring in winter months), one of my goals is to become and remain a sub-700kw “customer” and use propane for water heating.  They informed me it was an “all or none” offer.  If I didn’t sign up, I incurred the total cost to run electricity from their step down pole to my house.  I never really planned to be off-grid.  Sure, it was a goal and something I would work towards, but I had not prepared to start out like this!

The well site is at least 800-900 feet from the rear of the property, where their electric pole is.  Initially, I planned to just suck up the cost to run heavy duty, excess well pump wire from the house to the wellsite and even that had me a bit unhappy due to the cost.  But to lay down actual electrical line – the type required by the electric company – would be twice that for a 300 foot run! 

After doing some brainstorming and consulting with my friends at AlphaRubicon, I decided that I could place a large water storage tank – something like 1,200 – 2,000 gallons – next to the wellhouse and simply wire the wellpump to run off of a 240v generator when I needed water.  A good generator capable of running a 3/4 HP pump with 240v (5,500 wtts running, 8,250 peak start-up will more than cover it) costs about $700.  It is a portable means of electricity that could simply be wheeled out to the wellsite when the time comes to fill up, and brought back to the house to plug in large electrical items the rest of the time.  A generator of this size was already in my alternative energy plan, but again, I had not planned to purchase it or use it for months.  And here I was, about to incorporate it as my main means of electricity!  I suppose I am starting to get off the grid by accident and misfortune already!

Click to Enlarge

Without digressing too far from the main point of this entry, the water storage tank sits at an elevation that is 10 feet higher than the proposed house site and approximately 500 feet away.  After filling it up with a 10 GPM wellpump (a few hours to routinely refill, I imagine), it will then gravity feed the house via 1″ PEX water tubing buried near the frostline (18 inches here).  After entering the house, I will most likely incorporate a 12v RV-style pump to pressurize the indoor plumbing.  Newer models of 12v pumps have automatic switches in them, so if you turn on a faucet – it immediately kicks in and delivers water.  A propane instant-water heater will be tied into this same system to provide hot water to the bathroom and kitchen but I’ll get into this in much greater detail in later installments of this series.

Now, let’s get back on track, shall we?

I was just arriving at the property to begin clearing the brush.

After getting everything marked, roughly measured and staked out – I fired up the roto-tiller to begin shredding up the ground!  Except, it didn’t shred much.  Instead, it began to violently strangle itself with nearby roots and small plants.  Within a minute, the blades were almost completely covered in thick vines and starting to slow down.  Hmmm.  Note to self: learn how to properly operate a roto-tiller and be aware of it’s limitations (and purpose!) before thinking you can do anything with it.  I spent the next 10 minutes taking the blades off and trying to untangle the roots that had wrapped themselves around the shafts. 

Did I mention that this was Day One of my attempt to stop smoking?  You can read about that struggle here, but just imagine the colorful slurry of words that were exiting my mouth in the blistering heat that day.

After taking a break, I decided that I would make a quick trip to the local Wal-Mart and pick up a really cheap lawn mower.  You see, the house I’m living in right now is over 40 miles away and I drive a Jeep.  That means it would cost me $15 in gas just to drive home, grab MY mower, and come back to the property.  That would also take close to 2 hours.  Then, how would I get the roto-tiller back to Home Depot and take my mower home?  They won’t both fit on my small cargo rack.  See what I mean about doing things correctly the first time?  I should have brought my trailer and mower.

I hide everything under the large tree closest to the homesite and jump on the highway.  I figured there has to be a Wal-Mart nearby – I once read some random statistic that you are rarely more than 20 miles from a Wal-Mart in most populated parts of America.  Well, they were right.  The closest Wal-Mart was 18 miles away and by the time I learned this, I was half way there.  Ugh.  This was supposed to be a quick trip!  I finally find the podunk, no-where on the map Wal-Mart Supercenter and park right next to the Home and Garden Center.  I then discovered that apparently no one in rural areas ever needs to buy lawn tools because there was only one aisle devoted to gardening and landscaping and it consisted of gloves, more gloves, some 2-stroke oil and a weedeater.  ONE weedeater.  And it was the smallest thing I had ever seen.  There was no way I could use that to clear the type of shrubbery and wild grasslands I now own.  The ever-so helpful salesclerk pointed me to their mowers – all 3 of them.  The cheapest one was $139.99 and it was a piece of junk!

I left Wal-Mart with the midget weedeater ($65), some extra trim line ($2?) and headed back to the property.

After spending several hours using the back-breaking tiny weedeater and constantly fixing the trimline, I had cleared a formidable path.  I set out with the roto-tiller and (after finally figuring out how to use it properly) made some real progress.  That rear metal pole is NOT a kick-stand!  That’s what digs into the dirt!  Between the aggravation of the day, the blistering heat, and going all day without a single cigarette, I was ready to call it quits at 6:00 pm.  All in all, I went way over budget for the day but it’s okay.  I now have a little weedeater and made some progress.

This coming weekend, I will be back out there with my mower (I wish I had a large tractor and brush-hog!) to clear some more area and to meet with my septic tank contractors (part of the total financed package price).  Hopefully, they won’t tell me any bad news – like, I can’t place the septic where I’ve already roughly planned it! 

In closing, I figured I would leave you with two panoramic pictures of the property!  See ya next time in Part 3!

Related posts:

1. Homesteading with a Shipping Container House, Part I
2. Shipping Container Home – Photos of the Building Process
3. Shipping Container Homes (or “Why Would I Want to Live in a Metal Box?!”)