Green dream haven
A foodie and a green builder create a contemporary North Portland home that deftly combines their sustainability values and socializing lifestyle.
Floating Homes Slideshow
Floating homes range from fancy to funky, but their allure is constant. Check out additional photos of all three floating homes from our June/July 2011 cover story below.
Back to the river
Managing Editor Vivian McInerny reminisces about living on a Portland houseboat in the late 70’s.
The allure of tiny homes
What’s fire-engine red, has wheels and is utterly fantasy inducing? No, not a sleek Euro sports car but the Don Vardo, a 7-by-10-foot mobile structure with French doors, a tiny cedar deck, radiant-heat cork floors and hemlock walls.
Bicycle shed chic
Like many people living in Craftsman homes, bicycle commuters Marti Frank and Lev Tsypin discovered what they gained in architectural charm they lost in convenient bike storage. “We have no driveway or garage,” says Tsypin of their Southeast Portland home. “We just had a makeshift, awkward bike area in the back.”
What’s old is new at this Hood River farmhouse
A 1920s farmhouse in Hood River Valley is recycled into a new home that blends naturally into its surroundings.
Oregon’s floating homes
Floating homes can be fancy or funky, but residents all share a passion for being on the water.
Oregon Playhouses for Kids Big & Small
These are pre-fab houses. Emphasis on “fab.” With a kit from Jan Kronke of Oregon TimberWerks (you can pop up a basic cabin shell in the woods for about $6,000 and a few days labor. Less than $2,000 buys the goods for a fancy little playhouse for the kids complete with covered porch and … Read more
Kit and Kaboodle
These are pre-fab houses. Emphasis on “Fab!”
With a kit from Jan Kronke of Oregon TimberWerks you can pop up a basic cabin shell in the woods for about $6,000 and a few days labor. Less than $2,000 buys the goods for a fancy, little playhouse for the kids complete with covered porch and Dutch door.
Up: This is not a toon
Tie a bunch of helium balloons to a house until it lifts up and floats away. The idea was whimsical in the Pixar animated movie Up. But is it possible in real life?
A National Geographic team decided to find out. They hooked hundreds of colorful weather balloons to a brick house weighing a ton. They even included a grumpy old man. (Actually, he appears to be a perfectly nice youngish man.) The result? Up, up and away.
