Small Homes: The Right Size (The Shelter Library of Building Books, 7) - Tapa blanda

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Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands.

He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014).

Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers.

You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube: <http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lloyd+kahn>

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In Praise of Small Homes

“U.S. Houses Are Still Getting Bigger” read a recent news article in The Wall Street Journal. According to the United States Census Bureau, the average size of a new single-family house in the U.S. in 2015 was 2,467 sq. ft., or 1,000 sq. ft. (61%) larger than in 1973.

Things are going in the wrong direction!

Tiny Homes In recent years, some people have opted out of a mortgage or high rent, and are living—for at least a time—in very small spaces, simplifying and rearranging their lives to do so.

The media calls this a “movement.” Why? Not only is the concept radical (revolutionary), but—tiny homes are photogenic!

The media loves them: Witness a half dozen TV shows, thousands of YouTube videos, a plethora of books, blogs, newspaper and magazine articles, and social media postings on the subject.

There have been some great—and inspiring—stories of people scaling back, simplifying, and sometimes elegantly, living a different style of life.

But there’s also been a lot of hype, like TV programs based on phony story lines, no relation to real life. Ah, me.

Our last two books were on tiny homes, so I’m familiar with the subject. After several years monitoring (and pondering) the movement, I’ve concluded that what’s important is not that homes be “tiny,” but that they be smaller. It’s the direction that counts. Maybe the tiny house movement is a clarion call for a change in consciousness.

Small Homes This book is about homes that are larger than “tiny,” but smaller than the national average. It’s a logical step for Shelter Publications after our experiences with tiny homes.

Compared to the average American home, small homes are less expensive, use less resources, are more efficient to heat and cool, and cheaper to maintain and repair.

These are (but for a few) between 400–1200 square feet of floor area—less than half the size of the typical new American home. (By way of comparison, homes in our book, Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter, averaged 200–300 sq. ft.)

Types of homes The homes here—some 65 of them—vary from unique and artistic to simple and low-cost. Some are plain, ordinary buildings that provide owners shelter at a reasonable cost—and some are inspiring examples of design, carpentry, craftsmanship, imagination, creativity, and homemaking.

Some are built with “natural materials,” such as cob or straw, some with recycled wood or lumber milled on-site, some are old homes that have been remodeled, and many are designed and built from scratch by the owners.

Many are in the country, some in small towns, and some in large cities.

In a sense, this is going back to earlier times, when people used less resources.

It’s all in the hands The underlying theme with Shelter’s books, which cover an over-40-year span, is that you can create your own home with your own hands, using mostly natural materials.

With most of these homes, the owners have done their own work. With others, they have hired builders to carry out their plans.

There’s an old-school concept working here that’s still relevant in this digital era: A computer can’t build your home for you. You still need a hammer (or nail gun), a saw—and human hands.