RE: Introducing Life at an Ecovillage - Living in a Fish Bowl
Cool stuff. My father was a builder (rough carpentry), so I'd definitely be interested in seeing more about how you build your structures. We were relatively poor, especially when I was very young, so my father got creative with materials when building things on our property. When I was a kid he built a small pole barn exclusively out of cedar timbers he cut down in the yard and re-used corrugated metal roofing material from a demolition job he had done. We also built a large (40'x60') pole barn almost completely out of re-used materials (save for the treated lumber poles) from another demolition job we had done. The last one we did was based off of a 20' flat bed truck as the foundation for a large storage shed. He passed away 8 years ago but all of those buildings are still standing and my brother uses them now, as he took over the property recently from my mother. Every time I go back there to visit I like that every so often I drive by a building my father or grandfather built, and admire the fact that in spite of their age and rough appearance, they still don't have a single sag or bend in the underlying structure.
Writing more about alternative construction has been on my to do list for a long time now. We do have a blog where in theory we'll post about building projects but (like this post is about) there's rarely enough time at the end of the day to document things well.
Demo is definitely a big part of building here. The kitchen in the post was built almost entirely from salvaged or directly cut materials (the plastic roofing panels and screws were the main exception). Love that flatbed foundation idea. There's so many opportunities when people think outside the box. Sounds like your father was one of those people, cool to hear about it.