Derek “Deek” Diedricksen's yard is crammed with what to the untrained eye may seem kid's forts, but also these tiny dwellings are literally how he makes his living (principally).
Ask him his job title and he'll reply, “I call myself a tinkerer or I've come up with bizarre-chitect or lark-chitect being kind of a fake architect.”
Diedricksen's obsession with tiny architecture started unsurprisingly, with the backyard forts of his youth. But he wasn't your typical construction-minded youngster.
At age ten he developed his first cabin, which includes electrical power, insulation, heat and a platform bunk. When he was 14 he found Lester Walker's guide Tiny Houses and found out there have been others out there like him.
By the time he stumbled upon the Small House Movement a decade or two later, he had already constructed dozens of tiny buildings.
Today, his yard is jam-packed with tiny cabins, forts, retreats, shelters, shacks and no two are alike. Most of his dwellings are multi-purpose: there's the 20-square-foot travel trailer/emergency homeless shelter (Gottagiddaway), the roughly 6 sq. foot treehouse/chicken coop (the Wedgie) and the 11-square-foot kiosk/single-sleeper (the Gypsy Junker).
He builds small and he works with a micro-budget. His Gottagiddaway AKA “$100 homeless hut” was constructed for about that (or probably as much as $110). His 32-square-foot micro-office (where he shot his interview) was constructed for $80 from barn sale/ barn demo supplies.
His components are salvaged from outdated buildings, lumber mills, recycyling and the dump. His home windows are made from old office water coolers, soda bottles, pickle jars and even a washer window (a side from the same machine has come to be one of his drop-down tables).
One discarded cedar lounge chair motivated a whole cabin. The Hickshaw- a “rickshaw for hicks”- has the identical dimensions as the chair (2 1/2 feet wide by 6 half ft deep) and may be rolled by one individual.
None of Diedricksen's yard creations are lived in full-time however he has camped in no less than a couple of of them, makes use of them for a little bit of shedworking for writing his weblog and reserves the right to send undesirable friends in that direction.
Building tiny can also be a solution to rebel a bit. “There's basically this entire outlaw side of it. I've kind of been a little anti-authoritarian most of my life taking part in in punk bands and what-not and plenty of the housing codes and policies to me, whereas a number of them make good sense, lots of them are only ridiculous and really antiquated.”
In 2009 he self-published (from his basement) his personal hand-illustrated ode to tiny dwellings: Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts. He's sold 3,000 copies so far and is releasing the second version early next year.
His mini-dwellings are mostly just prototypes for “large” 100- or 200-square-foot homes, but also through his miniature bungalows, he wants to present the world that living small is normal.
Deek's weblog & booklet: http://relaxshacks.blogspot.com/
Music: Bill Bracken (acoustic guitar) http://www.myspace.com/billbracken
Photo credit: Bruce Bettis http://brucebettis.com/
Original story right here: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/microbuilder-on-freedom-tiny-homes-few-codes-no-loans/
Leave a Reply