Where would you get wood free to build a Tiny Organic American Cottage in 24 hrs. w/ friends? Watch!
Channel: Brad Kittel
Date: 2021-05-23

How many times people think that salvaging a house takes a lot of time or tools of any special sort.  Here you get to watch people who have never taken down a house tackle a 1920's Batten Board construction house with too much roof to remove, yet still we were able to salvage enough wood to build a couple of tiny houses.  From this Ugly Duckling Seminar we later created such masterful beauties as the Gingered Swan though her pretty parts came from other houses in much better neighborhoods and condition, the basics are what costs the most for many and keeps them from having a tiny home. 
With the right friends, timing, and effort, you could find the materials for all of you to help each other harvest and build your dreams.  This was a day and from it came houses that will last a lifetime.  Why import wood, cut down new trees that are not near as high a quality when you can harvest the best of the past when our ancestors had 1,000 year old trees they cut and turned into houses instead of the modern trees that are grown and harvested in 15-20 years from planting, thus have no real structural value.  Instead, the newer lumber types used in construction are nearly hollow for the size of the capilaries and speed of growth do not give it strength or weight other than the water it still holds (19%) when delivered, but it does taste great to bugs and termites who love the soft cellulose instead of the nearly rock hard sap of the Long Leaf Pine tree you see that this house was made from.  Even in falling it to get the last of the boards, twisting the fall by design so as to harvest the rest of the 1x12 after the Jenga game is ended with a thrill.
Watch and see how we dealt with three layers of roof on a house made to hold only one.  Rather than waste time and be in danger, we too all we could from under, then dropped it to finish.  Result:  8 hours to take down a house and a couple extra to denail and clean up.  Wow!

Thanks to all those who came, helped, learned, and hopefully went on to harvest their own treasures later, build their dreams from salvage, and share with others what was possible with little more than hammers, crowbars, a couple of saws, and people working together.

Why not try it where you live too?

Darby Lettick
Ghostwriter for
Brad Kittel and Tiny Texas Houses

Visit us at Salvage, Tx BnB to see, feel, dream, and possibly take home the parts and pieces to build your dreams too.  Warehouses are open by appointment only to organic tiny cottage builders and salvage Art affectionados.  Darby@Puresalvageliving.com for more information.
Please visit our Facebook site for some few hundred pictures posted of inventory being opened to the public for sale again, during a small window, before we get distracted and have no time again.  Summer is near.



This is about all things that can be done with salvaged materials to prove that sustainable building is possible, and thus saving the resources of our planet for the 7 generations that follow and reducing the pollution today.