Dating from the Golden Age of American Farming, this volume is both a tribute to days gone by and a resource for present day homeowners, farmers, and ranchers striving toward greater self-sufficiency. Here you will find hundreds of clever ways to transform those odds and ends that might seem like junk into very useful gadgets and tools, from a treadmill that can power a dairy separator and churn, to a drinking fountain for chickens. Other devices...

Build a stylishly modern home for your poultry. Backyard chickens meet contemporary design in this inventive compilation from authors Matthew Wolpe and Kevin McElroy. Reinventing the Chicken Coop presents 14 complete building plans for chicken houses that range from the purely functional to outrageously fabulous, with designs that include water-capturing roofs, built-in composting systems, and modernist architectural details. The step-by-step instructions...

Covers tools, materials, foundations, framing, sheathing, wiring, plumbing, and finish work for barns, woodsheds, garages, fencing, and animal housing.

Pete Nelson, the world's best-known treehouse designer and builder, wants to put readers in trees--his motto is, "get 'er done, so you can BE in a TREE." His new book is a comprehensive source of inspiration and practical information about treehouse design and construction. To that end, he shares the basics of treehouse construction with his own recent projects as case studies. Using photographs taken especially for this project along with diagrams,...

An author and artist who has continually stripped away the mystique of architectural structures that have long fascinated modern people, David Macaulay here reveals the methods and materials used to design and construct a mosque in late-sixteenth-century Turkey. Through the fictional story and Macaulay's distinctive full-color illustrations, readers will learn not only how such monumental structures were built but also how they functioned in relation...

Text and black-and-white illustrations follow the intricate step-by-step process of the building of an ancient Egyptian pyramid.

An investigative history of Depression Era power brokers and labor wars in the construction of the Pulaski Skyway across the New Jersey Meadowlands. In the 1930s, as America's love affair with the automobile began, cars and trucks leaving the nation's largest city were dumped out of the Holland Tunnel onto local roads winding through New Jersey swampland. The Pulaski Skyway, America's first "superhighway," would change all that by connecting the...

Whether you have a small city lost, a suburban backyard, or a rural farm, this friendly guide gives you easy-to-follow and customizable plans for building a backyard chicken coop.

Labor and related costs account for more than half of the price of the average home solar installation. But homeowners can save thousands of dollars with this user-friendly manual, which follows the same process professional contractors use. Through detailed directions and step-by-step photos, veteran solar installer Joseph Burdick and seasoned builder Philip Schmidt teach you how to determine the size, placement, and type of installation you'll need....