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…After a lot of trawling through eBay, I finally found the perfect lorry to build my house on, the beastly 1988 Bedford MJ. The build began in November 2016, and, as I was building it mainly single-handedly, I didn’t move into it until November 2017.

My house has everything you need, including a fully equipped kitchen, log burner, bathroom with shower and composting toilet, and — most importantly — space for surfboards! To maximize space, the bed is suspended from the ceiling on pulleys, raised during the day over the living room and lowers down to be slept on. It’s also fully off-grid, with solar panels and a rain water harvesting system…

• Tom’s Lorry will be featured in our upcoming book Hit the Road Jack.

I’ve been fascinated by handmade houses for years. I came across a book in the ’70s called The Wood Butcher’s Art. I now teach in a traditional school in India, and teach my students about such houses. With their help I made a house here in West Bengal from mostly local timber and I thought you might be interested. We have several of your books which are very inspiring. The boys made several models based on a reading of some of your books. If you are interested I can send more photos. The house was inspired by my travels in Cambodia, Thailand, and Assam.

I teach in a traditional school in West Bengal, India. We have international students and I wanted to show them that you can build a great house out of local renewable materials. The trees for the frame and most of the floors was all local. Many students came and helped me build the house. It took about two years. I wanted to use shingles for the roof, but we can’t get cedar here. So I had to invest quite a bit to make teak shingles, which were used historically in tropical places like Hawaii or Mauritius. The walls are made from ‘Slipstraw’ but we used the abundant eucalyptus sawdust that we generated instead of straw. We finished the walls with a lime sand plaster. It came out so well we had no need to paint. The wood was finished with a mix of local beeswax and pine turpentine.

The Bhaktivedanta Academy Gurukula, a traditional Vedic school with international students in West Bengal, India is helping to construct a series of houses for teachers. The boys of the academy spend a couple of hours each day learning basic construction methods based on age-old building traditions and using mostly local materials. The school’s oxen and horse also assist in the process. The boys are from all over the world: Russia, Ukraine, China, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, different parts of India, Ecuador, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Hungary, Bulgaria, etc. Before starting to build the boys spent several lessons studying your books, Builders of the Pacific Coast, Shelter 1-2, etc.

–Greg Clark

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• Saturday, March 16th, 7 PM at Mollusk Surf Shop, 4500 Irving Street, San Francisco (Irregular Choice Disney Bambi and Flower Heeled Ankle Boots)
• Tuesday, March 19th, 7 PM at Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz (SERGIO ROSSI Pumps-shoes Womens Pink)
• Wednesday, April 17th, 6:30 PM, Gallery Bookshop, 319 Kasten Street, Mendocino, Calif. (New Rock Newrock Punk 001 Ladies Black Leather Metal Platform Heel Mid Boots)
• Friday, April 26th, 7 PM, Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera, Calif. (maps)

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“…a breathtaking new book…”

–Kay LeRoy, Book Passage, Corte Madera, Calif.

“Driftwood Shacks is spectacular!”

–J. Tony Serra, Lawyer, San Francisco

“…a marvelous book with lovely pictures of the California Coast.”

–Eliot Buchdruker, CPA, San Francisco

“Driftwood Shacks is splendid, a tribute to Lloyd’s fine and undimmed eye.”

–John Van der Zee, author

“…fascinating, ephemeral forms of spontaneous architecture.”

–Elise Cannon, Publishers Group West

“…fantastic new book”

–Chris “Uncle Mud” McClellan, natural builder