I’ll be speaking this weekend at the Green Festival in San Francisco, as well as hanging out and meeting readers at our booth. If anyone is in the area, I’d love it if you come visit! My presentation will be at 5 p.m. Saturday at the Mother Earth News stage, and I’ll be talking about the topic of my upcoming book, Housing Reclaimed. The book showcases the various ways people and organizations across the nation are building zero- or low-debt homes that are designed specifically for them and their lifestyles, rather than the cookie-cutter houses in many subdivisions. In addition, every home featured uses almost exclusively reclaimed building materials they’ve obtained for free! The houses and projects are so inspirational, and they really show how a home can be so much more than a plain box we put our stuff in. These homes are lovingly made and creatively designed using the resources available locally, just as the homes of our ancestors were. Except now, the resources available might be scrap lumber, tiles taken out of scheduled-for-demolition homes, or 15,000 old DVDs thrown out by an area college. By building the homes of almost entirely free materials, the homeowners help the environment, but they also help themselves. With very low-debt homes, these homeowners have freed up resources to start or support home and family businesses and time to relax and spend with one another. Stop by to get inspired to build your own home, work to keep deconstruction waste out of the landfill or help create healthy, low-income homes in your community! Hope to see some of you there.
