Lloyd’s Blog

Obama sings Sweet Home Chicago!

2012-02-22T12:12:00.001-08:00

Thanks to Rick Gordon

Slide Show, Book Signing Friday February 24, San Francisco

2012-02-21T09:33:00.000-08:00

This Friday I'm doing a book signing and slide show for the Tiny Homes book at Gravel & Gold in the Mission district in San Francisco. A totally cool store. Friday Feb. 24, 7PM, 3266 21st Street: http://gravelandgold.com/events/slideshow-lloyd-kahn-tiny-homes/

Beach Art

2012-02-21T09:18:00.000-08:00

Redwood Salvaged From City Fences as Tiny Studio

2012-02-21T04:52:00.000-08:00

"When San Francisco artist and builder Jay Nelson sees someone tearing down a redwood fence in his neighborhood he asks if he can take it home with him.
With a stockpile of salvaged, old growth redwood fencing, he recently built a tiny studio for his friend, and neighbor, Lana to use as a home office. It's just under 100 square feet and that means it's small enough so that San Francisco doesn't require a permit.
In this video, Nelson shows us his stockpile of wood, the studio made of nearly all salvaged materials (doors, windows, flooring included) and how it nearly melts into the yard because of its rounded shape. He also gives us a peek at the greenhouse he's building out of some of his recycled redwood just next to the studio (see his blog for more finished photos with decking)."
http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/redwood-salvaged-from-city-fences-as-tiny-shedworking-studio/?via=thumbnail

The Cube: Snappy Little Nissan SUV

2012-02-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

Saw this parked last night nearby. The designers got a lot of stuff right here — it just looks sensible. (Reminds me of the look of those cars in that animated movie about same.)

Beach Photos at Dusk

2012-02-20T13:13:00.000-08:00

The Electronic Cottage

2012-02-20T12:13:00.000-08:00

Hi Lloyd,
I thought of you and your blogging/writing after shooting this photo last week.I feel like you've mentioned the electronic cottage before, and I thought this photo captured that concept quite well. I'm looking forward to reading the new book, and I check out your blog a couple times a week.…I'd enjoy hearing more about your building work and career before Shelter Publications. Keep it up!

Mike McDonough Durham, NC
http://shltr.net/risgsun

Photo of Mini Book

2012-02-19T13:24:00.000-08:00

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Reprinting Our Color Books Up the Kazoo Now":

Why not show us a picture of the tiny, tiny house book in your hand so we cans see how small it is?

Posted by Anonymous to Lloyd’s Blog at February 17, 2012 6:55 PM

Photo by Godfrey Stephens

Skunked on Tomales Bay

2012-02-19T13:10:00.000-08:00

("Skunked" is a fisherman's term for catching nada.) We trailered my boat up to the bay and when we got there it was blowing hard. At the ramp, a National Park rescue boat (600 horsepower) was just pulling in, towing a boat the same size as mine, with 3 guys in it. The ranger said the fishermen were in trouble, with waves starting to break over the boat, and they were heading back out to check on 2 other boats that could be in trouble (above). He advised us against going out. so we scratched the plan. Below, Billy in a 1940s-style phone booth, and a deep sea diving rig at Nick's Cove restaurant, which has a lot of vintage stuff on display. We got a bunch of bay mussels off the rocks on the way home.

Innermost Tiny Home

2012-02-19T05:54:00.000-08:00

‘A small, concentrated domestic space intensifies everything. It’s like the fire we live around—move it close together and the flame flares up, spread it apart and the fire goes out. We have always lived in small houses, but this one is the smallest and the best. Here I feel all my loose and wandering thoughts are gathered up and made whole. It is an antidote to a world of distractions. It is a world unto itself. It is almost more myself than I am.’
http://shltr.net/yroiIg
Thanks to anonnymuss

Bobcat Skulls

2012-02-18T04:07:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know. I'm all over. What's going on in my life and head admittedly veers all over the place. Here's part of my animal skull collection (on top of the filing cabinet behind me), notable for the two (roadkill) bobcat skulls front center. I've finally learned how to render animal skulls, and these two came out nicely. After defleshing, I use janitorial strength ammonia for 4-5 days, then 35% hydrogen peroxide (not for faint hearted) for about a week. That's a beaver skull in the background, with one of the long teeth laying in front of it; it slides into the jawbone; found by a lake on Denman Island, BC. Bird skulls on right ((mostly doves), they're light as a feather. Wolf teeth on left (from remote spot 50 miles north of Tofino BC). Rat skull in center. Design!

The Natural World in These Parts This Week

2012-02-17T04:59:00.000-08:00

Saw a beautiful coyote on a recent (unsuccessful) mushroom hunt. The coyotes I see every so often on the highway are a bit scuzzy looking, but this one was grand. Reddish shiny coat, black tail tip; he was big and had a princely profile like a fox.
Left: coyote scat, indicating a diet high in mice, gophers. Looks like an art object.
Going through Stinson Beach Tuesday a deer bolted down the road. Galloping, two front feet, then two rear feet alternately. Rippling front leg muscles. Powerful and healthy. Then that night, on my nighttime run by headlight, another coyote at the nearby farm. Ran away from me, then climbed to the top of a pyramid-shaped compost pile. The Joker.
This morning more varieties of birds than I've ever seen outside the kitchen window. Crows, doves, quail, robins, red-winged blackbirds. a Rufus-sided towee (little beauty), sparrows (ugh), and the ever-spooky rock pigeons. Cornucopia of feathered flight.
Some years ago I had a series of dreams about flying. It wasn't like I was just floating in the air. I had to run along, flap arms, and take off. So utterly real, still thrills me to think about it. I often watch (in envy) the elegant-in-flight turkey buzzards riding updrafts by the ocean cliffs, or a line of Pelicans just inches above the water, gliding on the updraft of breaking waves. Eat my heart out.
Here are some Fluted Black Elfin Saddle mushrooms Lew gathered in Inverness, too far past prime to eat, but the only half-way decent fungi in the woods right now. C'mon rain! C'mon low pressure, which allows the storms to come in off the ocean.

Got my 15 hp Evinrude outboard motor tuned up. Billy and I are going clamming, musseling, and crabbing on Saturday in Tomales Bay. I have a 12' aluminum Klamath boat. It's a little dicey getting out through the ocean waves here with a boat that small, but Tomales Bay is a piece of cake. I'm dedicated to getting ever more food from the wild.
Spring is peeking around the corner. The light is richer, green grass growing, plum tree budding out, red-winged blackbirds singing their Spring song. I'm a child of Spring, born in April, so I feel exuberant this time of year.

Reprinting Our Color Books Up the Kazoo Now

2012-02-16T13:10:00.000-08:00

1. We're doing a (12,500-copy) reprint of Tiny Homes. It will arrive at the Publishers Group West warehouse in Tennessee on April 4. First printing was 15,000 and we're just about out of stock. It sold over 4,000 copies in the first 8 days of February.
2. We're printing 5,000 copies of the (2" x 2-1/4") mini tiny homes book. We've just about gone through the first 2,000. I tell you, I've never had an object that is so much fun to give out. People just love it. (As I'm sure I've said), 95% of the people I hand it to laugh out loud. Not a smile, an audible laugh.
I've been going around to shops in San Francisco, giving it out. Surf or skate shops, barista locales, bike shops, gardening stores. We're going to look for people in different cities to do the same. My friend Shelter Serra took a bunch to NYC a few weeks ago and just emailed "Everyone loves the book!!"
We're setting up book signings for me. Will post places and dates later. We're hoping for word-of-mouth to keep this book rolling. If you love it, email yr. friends.
3. We just reprinted Shelter with Paramount Printers in Hong Kong and does it look good! We'd done recent reprints in Colombia, and the printers were not on the ball like Paramount. This is by far the best printing in 39 years of printing Shelter; photos look snappy. (The first 160,000 copies were done on a web offset (newspaper) press; these are on sheet-fed (better quality) presses.
4. We're reprinting both Home Work and Builders of the Pacific Coast.
5. Shameless Commerce Dept: 30% discount on 3 or more of our building books: http://www.shelterpub.com/_ad/TH-sale.html

Our First eBook Gets QED Award

2012-02-16T04:45:00.000-08:00

When it came time to do our first e-book — Marathon: You Can Do It!, by Jeff Galloway — we couldn't find anyone we thought would do a good enough job converting print book to ebook. So Rick Gordon did the book "in-house," for the iPad and the Kindle. It came out really well: typography, color, graphics, and perhaps most importantly, smooth flowing of the many training charts in the book. I compared it with all the other iPad e-books on running, and it looks way better.
We entered it in the non-fiction category of the Publishing Innovation Awards this year and it was was one of three runner-ups for the Publishing Innovation Awards in the non-fiction ebook category, from among a lot of entrants. (There were separate categories for apps and multimedia enhanced ebooks.) It was awarded the QED (Quality-Excellence-Design) seal.
Here's what the judges said about Rick's work:

"Marathon: You Can Do It displays a creative design that does not distract from the text, making the pages visually appealing as well as informative. Tables contain a lot of structure, yet even rendered as art are easy to read. The 'Tips on Using This Book' for the iPad demonstrates a thoughtfulness and sensitivity to the reader's experience of this digital title."

Links (runners: get a free download sample of pages):
iBooks: http://itunes.apple.com/book/marathon/id403871821
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004I6D6WG

Fashion in Today's New York Times

2012-02-15T17:56:00.001-08:00

Sorry, couldn't resist this.

Design by Marc Jacobs

Photo by Valerio Mezzanotti

Treehouse in Elkhorn, Wisconsin

2012-02-15T13:17:00.000-08:00

http://wandawega.com/
Above pic from: http://shltr.net/trhswan
From D B Day IV

Rural America After the Depression, 1939-1943

2012-02-15T04:19:00.000-08:00

African American's tenant's home beside the Mississippi River levee. Near Lake Providence, Louisiana, June 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
"These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color."
http://extras.denverpost.com/archive/captured.asp
Sent us by Bob Kahn

Charlie Bit My Finger - Again!

2012-02-14T13:15:00.000-08:00

Am I the only one who hasn't seen this?

512 sq. ft. Lofted Cabin Costs $10,000

2012-02-14T10:35:00.000-08:00

"…And wouldn't a $7,000 - $10,000.00 small loan be nice to have, compared to a massive mortgage that takes 40 years to pay off?"

http://shltr.net/10kcabin

9-Year-old Banjo Player!

2012-02-14T04:08:00.000-08:00

And here's a good start for you today, also compliments of Rick Gordon:

Exercise as Housecleaning for the Body

2012-02-13T17:27:00.000-08:00

"When ticking off the benefits of physical activity, few of us would include intracellular housecleaning. But a new study suggests that the ability of exercise to speed the removal of garbage from inside our body’s cells may be one of its most valuable, if least visible, effects.…"
New York Times article Feb 1, 2012 by Gretchen Reynolds:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/exercise-as-housecleaning-for-the-body/?emc=eta1
Thanks to Eric Spector for this

Huge Homes: Grotesque Shelter

2012-02-13T15:45:00.000-08:00

The Anthony Pritzker home in Los Angeles is a 49,300-square-foot building designed by an architecture firm in Paris.

"Shooting ranges, an indoor tennis court, a bedroom bigger than many houses: For a small cadre of very wealthy owners, building big is back. A bird's-eye view of some of the mega mansions going up across the country.…"
From last week's Wall Street Journal
http://shltr.net/bignhideous

Portable Barrel Sauna

2012-02-13T13:20:00.000-08:00

This comment today on pic last week of VW van sauna, from Tarik Sale:

Lloyd,

Excellent.

Thought you would enjoy this little portasauna:

http://shltr.net/tariksauna

I saw it over thanksgiving in crested butte colorado. Mt. Crested Butte in the background.

I thought is was a hobbit home to order, but no luck...

BergmÃ¶nch, the Bicycle that Folds into a Rucksack

2012-02-13T08:19:00.000-08:00

"For all of you who love riding a bike downhill but prefer to walk uphill, here is a revolutionary new bicycle design that fits in a rucksack! It is actually meant for going mountain hiking uphill, and then wheeling downhill. The name of this new invention is BergmÃ¶nch, which means "mountain monk" in German. Check out the video below, about the monk riding a BergmÃ¶nch, and the image of the folded out bicycle."
http://shltr.net/hikeup

BB King Performs "Night Life" Live in Sweden 1986

2012-02-13T03:12:00.000-08:00

How about this to start off your day (and week)!
BB at the Umeå Jazz Festival, Umeå, Sweden in 1986. Check out the pianist and trumpet player (using rubber toilet plunger as mute, if I'm not mistaken) as well.
From Rick Gordon