This Old House meets Wayne’s World in this zany guide to designing and building tiny homes Derek "Deek" Diedricksen has been fascinated with compact living ever since his father gave him the book Tiny Tiny Houses by Lester Walker for his tenth birthday. Combining his artistic abilities, wild imagination, and passion for small houses, Deek self-published Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts, and Whatever the Heck Else we could Squeeze in Here in 2009. This new and expanded edition is a collection of Deek’s creative/imaginative sketches for building small houses, shacks, cottages, and forts. Deek's one-of-a-kind sketches are accompanied with hand-written commentary, both instructive and comical. His main purpose is to encourage people to get off the couch and start building. Believing that specific building plans squash creativity, he avoids too many detailed instructions, so that do-it-yourselfers can put their own creative spin on their very own small abodes (even if it is just in their imaginations).

This Old House meets Wayne’s World in this zany guide to designing and building tiny homes Derek Diedricksen has always had a love for small, modest houses ever since his father gave him the book Tiny Tiny Houses by Lester Walker for his tenth birthday. Combining his artistic abilities, wild imagination, and his passion for small houses, he self-published Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts, and Whatever the Heck Else we could Squeeze in Here in 2009. This book is a collection of Diedricksen’s creative/imaginative sketches for building small houses, shacks, cottages, and forts. The sketches are accompanied with hand-written commentary, both instructive and comical. Derek’s main purpose is to get your creative juices flowing and encourage you to get off the couch and use your hands. Believing that specific building plans squash creativity, he avoids too many detailed instructions, giving you the chance to put your own creative spin on your very own small abode (even if it is just in your imagination).

If you dream of living in a tiny house, or creating a getaway in the backwoods or your backyard, you’ll love this gorgeous collection of creative and inspiring ideas for tiny houses, cabins, forts, studios, and other microshelters. Created by a wide array of builders and designers around the United States and beyond, these 59 unique and innovative structures show you the limits of what is possible. Each is displayed in full-color photographs accompanied by commentary by the author. In addition, Diedricksen includes six sets of building plans by leading designers to help you get started on a microshelter of your own. You’ll also find guidelines on building with recycled and salvaged materials, plus techniques for making your small space comfortable and easy to inhabit.

Shantyboat is the story of a leisurely journey down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans. For most people such a journey is the stuff that dreams are made of, but for Harlan and Anna Hubbard, it became a cherished reality. In their small river craft, the Hubbards became one with the flowing river and its changing weathers. This book mirrors a life that is simple and independent, strenuous at times, but joyous, with leisure for painting and music, for observation and contemplation.

For everyone who’s ever dreamed of simplifying their life and downsizing their home, Micro Living offers an insider’s look at what tiny house living is really like. Best-selling author and tiny house enthusiast Derek “Deek” Diedricksen profiles 40 tiny — but practical — houses that are equipped for full-time living, all in 400 square feet or less. Detailed photography and a floor plan for each structure highlight inventive space-saving design features along with the nuts-and-bolts details of heating, cooling, electric, and plumbing systems. The real-life stories of residents impart the pleasures, as well as the challenges, of day-to-day living. With tips on what to consider before you build, along with framing plans for a prototype small cabin, Micro Living is the perfect starter handbook for both dreamers and doers.

“Superb . . . the best one-volume economic history of the United States in a long time and, perhaps, ever.” —Newsweek In this illuminating history, John Steele Gordon tells the extraordinary story of the world’s first economic superpower. He shows how the American economy became not only the world’s largest, but also its most dynamic and innovative. Combining its English political inheritance with its diverse, ambitious population, the nation was able to develop more wealth for more and more people as it grew. Far from a guaranteed success, America’s economy suffered near constant adversity. It survived a profound recession after the Revolution, an unwise decision by Andrew Jackson that left the country without a central bank for nearly eighty years, and the disastrous Great Depression of the 1930s. Yet, having weathered those trials, the economy became vital enough to Americanize the world in recent decades. Virtually every major development in technology in the twentieth century originated in the United States, and as the products of those technologies traveled around the globe, the result was a subtle, peaceful, and pervasive spread of American culture and perspective.