Kellner - Housing reclaimed: sustainable homes for next to nothing

Advance Praise for Housing Reclaimed

Jessica Kellners book comes to us in the nick of time. We need a new, more enlightened approach to housing and this book provides the roadmap. HousingReclaimed could put a whole generation on the path to comfortable, secure sustainability. Jessica has written a beautiful and necessary book that everyone who lives under a roof should read.

Bryan Welch, Publisher, Mother Earth News,
Natural Home & Garden and the Utne Reader,
Author, Beautiful & Abundant: Creating the World We Want

In an environment of underwater mortgages, home foreclosures, and lack of adequate housing for many Americans, Jessica Kellners Housing Reclaimed makes a compelling case that we can more easily realize the dream of homeownership if we utilize our hands, our imaginations, and the high-quality low-cost materials available from building deconstruction. Filled with many creative and innovative examples of warm, livable and affordable homes built from found materials, this book should be in the hands of anyone who wants to build his or her own home without getting trapped by the large debt associated with conventionally marketed and financed houses.

Bob Falk, President, Building Materials Reuse Association,
Author, Unbuilding: Salvaging the Architectural Treasures
of Unwanted Houses

In a time when so much of the news around housing is negative, Jessica Kellner offers an optimistic but practical approach to building a home mortgage free! Jessica proves that, with a little creativity and a willingness to step outside the constructs of modern housing, anyone can build a dream house.

Robyn Griggs Lawrence, Author, Simply Imperfect:
Revisiting the Wabi-Sabi House

This unique book outlines an inspiring perspective on how we can make housing more sustainable and more affordable. Kellner provides compelling examples of how we can build our own elegant, debt-free homes, and she outlines approaches to make housing sustainable by creating salvage businesses, showcasing companies that recycle entire homes and non-profits that produce sustainable low-income housing.

Cheryl Long, Editor-in-Chief, Mother Earth News

Jessica Kellner has managed to give us a glimpse of who we are as a species clever, creative and resourceful. Perhaps we can take a hint and return to primal sensibilities and first strategies, and discover who we really are. She even tells us where to go to do that. Magnificent!

Dan Phillips, Founder and owner, The Phoenix Commotion

In Housing Reclaimed, Jessica Kellner ventures into terrain that remains offlimits to most: the subculture of homes made from trash, reclaimed, discarded and recycled material. In exploring case studies of people who have crafted their homes out of societys cast-offs, Kellner challenges all of us to think outside the box of residential convention and to embrace new options. Anyone interested in saving a buck, in saving the planet and in creating a magical, healthful and one-of-a-kind home should reach for this beautifully crafted, engaging and timely book.

Wanda Urbanska, Author, The Heart of Simple Living:

7 Paths to a Better Life, Co-author, Less is More:

Embracing Simplicity for a Healthy Planet,
a Caring Economy and Lasting Happiness

HOUSING RECLAIMED

HOUSING RECLAIMED

Sustainable Homes for Next to Nothing

Jessica Kellner

Copyright 2011 by Jessica Kellner.
All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.
Image Veer

Printed in Canada. First printing 2011.

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-86571-696-4
eISBN: 978-1-55092-493-0

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Housing Reclaimed
should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.

To order directly from the publishers, please call
toll-free (North America) 1-800-567-6772,
or order online at newsociety.com

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:

New Society Publishers
P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada
(250) 247-9737

New Society Publishers mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision. We are committed to doing this not just through education, but through action. The interior pages of our bound books are printed on Forest Stewardship Council-registered acid-free paper that is 100% post-consumer recycled (100% old growth forest-free), processed chlorine free, and printed with vegetable-based, low-VOC inks, with covers produced using FSC-registered stock. New Society also works to reduce its carbon footprint, and purchases carbon offsets based on an annual audit to ensure a carbon neutral footprint. For further information, or to browse our full list of books and purchase securely, visit our website at: newsociety.com

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Kellner, Jessica

Housing reclaimed : sustainable homes for next to nothing / Jessica Kellner.

ISBN 978-0-86571-696-4

1. Housing Finance. 2. House construction. 3. Building materials Recycling.

4. Ecological houses. I. Title.

HD7287.55.K45 2011 333.33'82 C2011-904419-6

Contents

Thank you to the many people who contributed in various invaluable ways to the writing of this book, in particular: James Duft; Mike, Laura and Beth Kellner; Bryan Welch; Robyn Griggs Lawrence; K.C. Compton; Fred Robertson; and Cynthia Dodd.

Our homes are the most intimate of spaces; the backdrops of our lives. The need and desire to create a shelter for family and self is as ancient as human civilization itself.

For most of human history, we have created our homes with our hands, out of the materials available to us where we live. Weve altered our homes as our families have changed. Weve designed them for ourselves and our lives. Weve formed communities around them.

Since the Industrial Revolution, our homes have become increasingly alienated from us, and we have alienated ourselves from them. As our professions have become more specialized and our lives more compartmentalized, mass production, increased access to credit and layers of bureaucracy have carried us farther and farther from the path of self-sufficiency. Today, our food is shipped from thousands of miles away, and our homes, especially our low-income ones, are quickly constructed, uniform boxes designed for everyone, not anyone in particular, using often-toxic, low-quality materials.

At the same time, the invention and standardization of the 30-year mortgage and our ever-increasing reliance on the credit system has come to mean that most of us never own our homes outright. In many cases, all we pay is interest to the bank, confident that ever-rising home values will eventually lead to a financial gain in the risky housing market. Rather than investments in ones family and future, houses have become financial investments, valuable not as a place but as a commodity.

The need for home prices to climb continuously has edged out many low-income families, who simply cant afford even the lowest-cost homes on the market. The need for home prices to climb continuously was also the underpinning of the subprime mortgage crisis of 2006 to 2008 and proof that participation in the conventional home market is riskier than most homeowners believed. The value of housing, having become a stock market commodity, was allowed and encouraged by the free market to increase in value far beyond its worth in wood, concrete and nails. Irresponsible lending, greed, ignorance and government deregulation worked together to ruin the financial lives of millions of Americans and to cause millions of others to lose their homes.