Book
The half-acre homestead : 46 years of building & gardening / Lloyd Kahn & Lesley Creed.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780936070810
- ISBN: 0936070811
- Physical Description: vii, 159 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 22 cm
- Publisher: [Bolinas, CA] : Shelter Publications, [2020]
- Copyright: ©2020
Content descriptions
| Formatted Contents Note: | Introduction -- The house -- Dining area -- Curved-roof shed -- The kitchen -- Cooking -- Foraging, fishing -- The production studio/office -- Crafts -- Small-scale farming in the '70s -- Gardening for two people -- Pond -- Living roof -- Flowers -- Geometry from the garden -- Greenhouses -- Garden tools -- Chickens -- Birds in our lives -- Animal visitors -- Butterflies, caterpillars, bees, and other insects in the garden -- Pests -- The shop -- Skins and bones. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | House construction. Dwellings > Design and construction. Owner-built houses > California. Gardening > California. Landscape architecture > California. |
Available copies
- 2 of 2 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Nakusp Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 2 total copies.
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nakusp Public Library | 640 KAH (Text) | 35160000795626 | Adult Non-fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
Lloyd Kahn started building more than 50 years ago and has lived in a self-built home ever since. If heâd been able to buy a wonderful, old, good-feeling house, he might have never started building. But it was always cheaper to build than to buy, and by building himself, he could design what he wanted and use materials that he wanted to live with.
Lloyd set off to learn the art of building in 1960. He liked the whole process immensely. Ideally heâd have worked with a master carpenter long enough to learn the basics, but there was never time. He learned from friends and books and by blundering his way into a process that required a certain amount of competence. His perspective was that of a novice, a homeowner, rather than a pro. As he learned, he felt that he could tell others how to buildâor at least get them started on the path to creating their own homes.
Through the years, heâs personally gone from post and beam to geodesic domes to stud-frame construction. Itâs been a constant learning process, and this has led him into investigating many methods of construction. For five years in the late â60s to early â70s, he built geodesic domes. He got into book publishing by producing Domebook One in 1970 and Domebook 2 in 1971.
He gave up on domes (as homes) and published his companyâs namesake Shelter in 1973. Since then, Shelter Publications has produced books on a variety of subjects and returned to its roots with Home Work in 2004, The Barefoot Architect and Builders of the Pacific Coast in 2008, Tiny Homes in 2012, and more.
Building is Lloydâs favorite subject. Even in this day and age, building a house with oneâs own hands can save a ton of money andâif you follow it throughâyou can get what you want in a home.
Lesley Creed (1947â2023) moved out of San Francisco in the early â70s, intent upon a back to-the-land lifestyle. She worked with Shelter Publications as a consulting editor, while maintaining a vegetable and flower garden and pursuing an interest in how things are made. She lived with her husband and co-author, Lloyd Kahn, in West Marin County, California, until her death in 2023.
