2 new chicken coops on display and for sale in West Oakland, Calif.

Hey everybody,
Matt and I finished our last two chicken coops for the book, designed and built in Oakland, Calif. Interested in owning a piece of history? Check them out at our friend Maurice's urban chicken farm oasis on Mandela Parkway @ 11th Street, West Oakland.


The Simple Coop features reclaimed redwood siding and a rusty sheet metal shed roof. It is built to accomodate standard home insulation so this coop would do well in an extreme climate, hot or cold.

The Nordic style A-Frame is sleet, snow, hail, and sun resistant.

Each coop's footprint is 4-feet by 4-feet and will house three or four chickens. Priced to move at $750 each, we will deliver within reason in the Bay Area.
Contact us for a site visit.
Thanks for your interest in our work.
Kevin

Tiny House Thoughts

I've been living in the tiny house for about two months now, and I'm starting to observe changes its made in both my outlook towards the world as well as how I'm perceived by others. One thing I realized: I'm now an eccentric. Even though nothing changed about me, I have been at a few parties recently where people REALLY want to talk about the tiny house unsolicited, and try to understand how I live in 120 sq ft (i mean, i don't fully yet.) It's fun, and always in good faith, but nonetheless leaves me feeling like I just stepped into this other category in people's eyes: someone who makes extreme life choices. And I'm totally okay with it, proud of it even, though I realize that I might be now introduced only as "This is Matt, and he lives in a tiny house." I shouldn't be complaining, It's actually really exciting to now have an(other) eccentricity, instant conversation starter, girlfriend filter, added joke opportunity (tiny house jokes NEVER stop!,) and of course, place to be on my own.

In addition to this realization, I've also been try to reflect on the experience as a whole, because it is an education in itself. I've been reading the book "House" by Tracy Kiddier, which is a (sort of cheesy) chronicle of a couples experience having a home built, both documenting their relationship dynamics as well as the relationship among the architect and builder, and all of the complexities that go into making a house, both technically and socially. That's the most immediate takeaway: there is so much labor that goes into even the tiniest of houses. Every building I see now, even the crappiest Home Depot renovation reminds me of the amount of work and energy that went into putting it up. Taken further though, the tiny house makes me think about every object that fills it. I have had my hands on making the whole structure and furniture in the house, but the appliances, dishes, spoons, mattresses, linens, that I am buying all now have an added weight: who made them and where did this come from? Building a tiny house and then living in it makes you particularly sensitive to the culture of convenience.

I've also been trying to ask myself: Is the tiny house radical? The tiny house is about autonomy, both from the pressures of living in our current economic system via the sacrifices made for rent or a mortgage, and also about having the ability to have solitude while being in your own handbuilt space. The tiny house is also about having less stuff: only what is necessary and less space to heat and cool it, but also a different relationship to stuff, one that recognizes that things are just that, the acquisition of such should not determine the program of a building, rather people should.

But In many ways, the tiny house is ordinary. In most of the world, people live in such small amounts of space - it's really only in the global north and elites in the global south that such a need for extra space exists, if it should be called a 'need.' Our thresholds for square footage are certainly culturally conditioned. In another sense, tiny house living is just a smaller version of exactly what we do now: the materials are more or less similar, the creature comforts reliant on industrial processes (although having an off the grid tiny house is totally doable.)

Aside from wrestling with that question though, i've been trying to think of socially responsible applications of the tiny house. I think the tiny house form could lend itself particularly well to issues of agricultural worker housing. I started preliminary research on issues related to migrant farmworkers in California, and substandard housing is one of the biggest. What if workers were able to take their own housing with them or provide it, that was not full of toxic pressboard? Similarly, relief housing has much to be improved upon. When I was in Mississippi after Katrina i went into several FEMA trailers and could tell right away they were toxic, but more than that, they were sterile, and had no relationship to the outdoors. They were literally like an air conditioned chamber. I can see groovy organic farmers in Sonoma getting tiny houses made (actually we have already been contacted by one) which I think would be cool, but I'm more interested in expanding the tiny house, maybe not by size but by reach. Or maybe that's just a stupid idea?

Wow, I'm not usually so earnest in blog postings, but I suppose that's where I've been at recently. The kitchen is working! I'll have pictures soon. . .

yup, i (we) started building a tiny house

It feels overdue for an update of what we've been up to since we turned in the manuscript, if anyone's out there, but there's a project that at least i for one am totally absorbed in. Last year one of my students showed me a picture of the tumbleweed houses and said she wanted to build one and wanted me to help out. I laughed andthought it was funny and intriguing, but inside i was like 'are you serious, you're gonna move into one of those?' Okay, so fast forward six months, and the New Yorker article came out and i was reading it in bed. It was a rare moment of epiphany, aided by some lovely company: It was the ideal next step for me.

There were a few considerations: 1) i loved my housemates to death but don't love my basement room, particularly in the winter, 2) I'd been building chicken coops for the past year, something i'm a little tired of, so it was like a giant chicken coop with new challenges 3) I had been trying to buy a house with friends in oakland for over a year and am convinced this is my only way towards home ownership in the bay area, and 4) After finishing the manuscript and seeing my sweetheart leave the country for a long while i had the compulsion to throw myself into a giant project. Some people do drugs, some people drink, i do really ambitious projects i suppose: an attribute and sometime flaw.

So, I designed it in August and started building on August 30th, and I've almost got the exterior buttoned up. I am using our advance from the book to finance construction, but being as thrifty as possible. I bought the trailer used, most of the lumber is salvaged, along with all of the doors and windows, and the siding is all reclaimed redwood fencing I am re-milling that were only $1 a piece!

the final design structure will have a full kitchen and bathroom, sleeping loft, living room, fireplace and eventually a porch swing.

The next steps are plumbing and electrical. What i'm really excited for is to get to the interior details and making all of the furniture custom. If you're in Oakland, stop by as i'd love to get your design feedback.

Planning on moving in December 1st and will have a tiny housewarming party: tiny food and shots!

Also, special thanks to all who have helped out so far, especially Kevin

Stay tuned for progress posts

Ahem, follow us on twitter

@justfinedesign

I'm just sayin'

More Photos from the Shipping Container Coop+Run and Shed Project

What fun it has been to chop in half a 20-foot shipping container with Matt and my cousin, separate the parts Roman-style with Bill from shedmover.com, and build out a chicken coop+run and storage shed with the hard-charging crew from In Good Company. It is nice to be out there on the farm working and talking to the neighbors--all positivity and thumb-ups.

We found some old redwood siding on craigslist and planed it down to look new again. The redwood slab outdoor work table came from Evan Shively in Marshall, Calif. Matt led a team to get the massive redwood+mesh chicken run built. The coop is now occupied.

To the shed we added double barn doors with a custom welded steel California Poppy Orange locking mechanism.

City Slicker Farms is great to work with, they are growing fresh vegetables for everybody in West Oakland. We are happy to help make fresh eggs a reality.

If you have every wanted to chop up a shipping container, I highly recommend it. Or call us! I want to do it again.

new coop: cutting and modifying a shipping container for city slicker farms

Just Fine is on site in West Oakland all week. We got commissioned to lead a workshop for City Slicker Farms building a chicken coop and shed structure with volunteers from various socially responsible companies. We're cutting up a shipping container at an angle and modifying each half. Stay tuned for updates and finish photos

Kippen House for the book

We here at Just Fine are happy to report we will be including Traci Fontyn's chicken coop "Kippen House" in our book. Traci makes them by hand in Seattle. She brought one down for Sunset magazine's annual outdoor extravaganza last weekend. The coop looked great and we brought Amelia and Florence down for the photo shoot with our photographer (who deserves a post of her own). The hens loved the coop but they weren't too thrilled with the fake sod. I cringed when they pecked at it!

Kippen House features a very smart living roof with a clever drainage system. The nesting box is a piece of Sonotube for easy removal (and nice lines). We like the colors she chose. The siding is cedar.

We are excited to have Traci onboard. If you are looking for a coop in the Pacific Northwest, give her a jingle.

Another coop standing

I finally completed the coop i've been working on for my house. I tend to use projects that i build for myself as experiments that i wouldn't necessarily build for other people, but i always end up learning from. This coop, with it's single column support which is anchored in concrete was a crash course in physics and engineering, both of which the 'Just Fine' team are amateurs at best. Thanks to the consultation of one of my volunteers at the Crucible, Vale Larson, who is an architect, we did the framing in such a way as to maximize sheer and minimize weight. The floor framing is completely interlocked with half lap joints with plywood on top to act as a gusset. The central column goes all the way through the coop and locks into the rafters.




In the end, it stands proud, though torsion is an issue we are trying to fix. The whole coop basically acts as a big lever, so it can twist the post a little bit. I am gonna put steel plates through bolted in the redwood post to minimize it.

In terms of experiments though, it was really satisfying. Since i was a kid, i always wanted to make a treehouse, and i never have, so this was sort of a childhood dream that was finally realized. We salvaged two windows from urban ore and used them as whole glass walls on each side, which are framed with miter joints, almost like a picture frame. I used aromatic tennessee red cedar for the siding, which is so warm and luxurious, and naturally weather resistant. The whole thing feels sort of magical, which is what i was going for.
the roof is simply a single sheet of aluminum cut and bent. the final detail was making a spiral starcase going up the column into the coop for the hens to circulate.

We're trying to figure out what to call the coop for the book: a few ideas so far: post-modern coop (get it?), coopsickle, coop on a stick. . .we're open to better ideas, there must be some out there.

Custom Pallet Chicken Coop for Novella Carpenter is Open for Occupancy

The predicted rains this week held off so yesterday Matt and I put the finishing touches on Novella Carpenter's custom Pallet Chicken Coop at Ghost Town Farm. Made almost entirely out of de-constructed shipping pallets and found materials, this hen house is a fine addition to Novella's impressive urban oasis.

Note the handsome chalkboard for tallying egg production, which doubles as a giant door to clean out the roosting area. The space underneath the cantilever is for dry storage for food, straw, etc. The big door we found at a scrap yard--we stripped the paint to expose beautiful old redwood!

With only a few hours left on the job, Novella really stepped up the snack service to an obscene level: housemade rabbit pate, delectable creamy cheese drizzled with honey, warm crusty bread, almonds, pickled green beans & radishes, and dried mangos and pineapple rings. Matt and I love snacks!

She lives well, that Novella, and hopefully her chickens will live well too in their new custom hen house. On to the next one!

A Radical Chicken Coop for Ghost Town Farm

We here at Just Fine Design/Build have been busy preparing a new chicken coop for Novella Carpenter's Ghost Town Farm in West Oakland. We scrounged a bunch of tired shipping pallets, de-constructed them, planed the slats to a nice sheen, and are now using the bones to construct a massive (8' x 12') chicken palace.

Here's the coop in her infancy. The cantilevered section on the right will house the chickens' sleeping and laying quarters. An egg door will feature a chalkboard-painted surface so Novella can easily keep track of her hens' production.

In the spirit of Novella, we are scavenging what lumber and materials we can. We still need a bunch of rubble and some old corrugated metal roofing material. Anybody out there demolishing a foundation or tearing down a barn?

Novella heard through the JustFineVine how much we love snacks, so she has been keeping us well fed with rabbit sausage, goat milk and yogurt, and greens from her spacious garden. Come to Novella's Open House (Open Farm?) on February 27th, 11am-2pm, where you can try some of these delicious snacks for yourself and gaze upon our new coop (may be only partially finished if this rain doesn't let up!)

In other news, Just Fine Design/Build is taking the Twitter challenge, become our friend or buddy or whatever @JustFineDesign

Research Mission : Mystery Winery : Yountville, Calif.

Hello faithful readers. Matt and I embarked on a research mission to sunny Yountville, Calif. last week. Thinking about Novella's coop, we came up with a design that uses de-constructed shipping pallets, covered with hardware cloth, and filled with rocks. Something like this, but smaller:

The sign at the winery's front entrance states "No Tours. No Tastings." Not to be deterred, we sweet-talked the guard into letting us wander around for "a little bit." We had the place to ourselves for 20 minutes. The main road drives straight up to this imposing structure, and you can see right through it to the dirt road that meanders through vineyards and up into the hills. It was late afternoon, the sun was out, and very peaceful. Here's Matt, taking it all in.

The sun comes through the stone walls and throws some excellent shadows.

Thanks very much to the winery that values its privacy and perhaps wishes to remain nameless. We understand you don't want a bunch of architecture geeks coming to gawk your walls. But we just had to see it! We welcome all of you to gawk at Novella's coop, which should be up and clucking by the end of February.

Modern Log Cabin Chicken Coop Now For Sale at BioFuel Oasis, Berkeley CA

Hello faithful readers! Please stop by to see our friends at the BioFuel Oasis in Berkeley. Along with their usual selection of bio-diesel, chicken feeds, bee-keeping supplies, and canning supplies, they are now featuring our latest chicken coop design, the Modern Log Cabin.

We hope to sell other chicken coop designs at the Oasis in the coming months. Word has it they will also be selling local newborn chicks in the Spring! We are lucky to have such a fine worker-owned business here in the Bay Area. Check out their over-flowing class schedule (bee-keeping, cheese-making, goats, fruit trees, gardening....)

Matt and I are embarking on our next coop, which we are building for Novella Carpenter's Ghost Town Farm in West Oakland. We are tossing around some design ideas but we know it will be a giant coop and we are trying to elegantly build the structure from used shipping pallets. Stay tuned..

Modern Log Cabin Coop---Chickens Not Included

Hello faithful readers.  Matt and I have been busy putting the finishing touches on our modern log cabin chicken coop.  It features interesting joinery, a sliding barn door, and all the features you have come to expect from a Just Fine chicken coop: private nesting box, easy egg retrieval, removable roosting bars (for cleaning), redwood along the base (resists rot without heavy chemicals), good ventilation, skylight, protection from predators and that heavy Bay Area weather, and of course, FUNKY STYLE.

Building up the walls, one "log" at a time:

Before roof and paint (please notice that handsome barn door):

Zing!:

That little sliding red door on the left is where you will pick up your freshly-laid eggs.

Come check us out at the Crucible's Gifty craft faire this weekend in Oakland, Friday 7-10pm ($10) and Saturday and Sunday 10am-4pm (free).  Our coop will be on display and for sale.  Over the next year we will be designing and building another 10 custom coops, so if you want to rap about getting one of these beauties in your backyard bring a pencil and paper.

More on Rust

Building these shelves for William Stout's new store on Solano required quite a bit of time in the grinding room at the Crucible.  We are truly living our mission statement of using recycled materials whenever possible.  But man, what a job it is to get these old pieces of steel looking bright again.  Gettin' there:

These posts were previously part of the last installation at the old SFMOMA near Civic Center, before the move to 3rd Street in 1995.  Now they announce William Stout's new architecture and design bookstore on Solano Ave in Albany, which opened in September. We are happy to have some pieces in such a fine establishment!

This last photo was taken on install day.  They look better with books, go check them out in person and support your local publisher/bookstore.

Tiny Bowling Set

Frequent Just Fine Collaborator Sheri K. commissioned the Just Fine Squad for a custom hand-turned gift: a tiny wooden bowling ball and 6 pins.  Apparently, her friends just moved into a house with a long hallway.  The pins are poplar, the bowl was a log of undetermined species and origin (but it's heavy! I hope her friends have stout baseboards in that hallway).

We made a lot of sawdust, but my chickens like it.

In her first trial roll, Sheri was wide left; second, wide right; third, strike!

Speaking of gifts, Just Fine will be manning a table at the Crucible's Gifty sale December 10-11-12.  We will have all sorts of wood and metal goodies, small and big.  If we can get our act together, we may even have one of our new experimental chicken coop designs built and for sale!

Book Contract in the Mail!

That's me (on the right) at the West Oakland post office, happily handing over the signed book contract Matt and I have been negotiating since May. Over the next year we will be working on the manuscript.  Sorry to be so secretive but I don't want to give away our awesome idea! More details soon.

I spent another week on the Lost Coast, re-surfacing Leah's tiny deck.  This is my work table for the week, with views of the Pacific and Big Flat:

A couple of the joists under the deck had rotted out over the years.  Here's the deck before:

And after:

I was lucky to re-use the redwood deck planks.  They were still in good shape.
I almost brought back a stray cat.  His tail was lopped off and his ears are all chewed up, but he's friendly.  He walks like a pit bull.  Meet Mr. Man:

This week, Matt and I are teaching a chicken coop building class with City Slicker Farms.  We'll check in next week with photos of the coops we are building for a few lucky West Oakland residents.

Humboldt Fog

Team Just Fine spent the last week on a ridge at 1700 feet on the Lost Coast in beautiful Humboldt County, California.  A 25 year old redwood deck & stairs was in bad need of an update and we were happy to provide the labor.  Here is the finished product:

Carpentry presents its own set of challenges from furniture making.  Different tools, different methodology.  The controlled environment of our shop in Oakland and close proximity to hardware stores and suppliers was a far cry from our new job site. The lumber yard was a half hour drive down a steep washboard road, so we brought along all the tools we thought we might need, including saws, screws, shims, and sawhorses. We were at the mercy of Mother Nature, who for the most part cooperated with our plans. If the sun wasn't shining, our client's solar array wouldn't provide the juice needed to run the chop saw and circular saw simultaneously.

Here is the cedar planking, I like the 2x6, it feels solid underfoot.

We drove in at night, not recommended.  But we did catch a beautiful sunset.  Deep in the flats of Oakland, Team Just Fine sometimes forgets there are beautiful sunsets and stars in the sky.

This is the tiny octagonal house we slept in, with views of the Pacific Ocean.

Sunset from the tiny octagonal house:

We were above the fog line, thankfully, so blue skies greeted us every morning with our coffee on the short walk to our job site.  If you haven't lived within a 2 minute walk of your place of employment, Team Just Fine highly recommends it.  On our last day of work, the fog cleared and we were rewarded with views of the ocean down below.  Not another house could be seen in any direction.

If you haven't been to the Lost Coast, go explore this beautiful untouched gem of the Northern California Coast.  Matt remarked that it feels more like the Pacific Northwest than California.  We brought back some of the old steps, so if anybody wants an old growth redwood table top, or kitchen island, or desk, please send word along.

We have been busy, just not busy posting to our blog

Team Just Fine has been busy with projects, just not busy blogging about them.  Matt finished some very slick (sapele, walnut, cherry) custom synthesizer parts for our friends at Magic Echo Music.  Kevin scored a fun job with the proprietor of a very excellent new architectural book store on Solano in Berkeley.  Kevin has been teaching weeklong summer classes in wood turning for high schoolers at the Crucible.  Check out those huge melon-sized mallets his kids made!  And the youths are so well-behaved they didn't even bop one another.

To top all that off, the Just Fine lads have been feverishly preparing a book proposal.  Keep your fingers crossed for that, and check back soon for updates and pictures of our work.  In the mean while enjoy your summer!