Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Bootstrapping a Recycling, Salvage and Reuse Business

Good afternoon - As you may have gathered, I've been in the salvage and recycling business, to varying degrees, for the past 30+ years. Bootstrapping the business to the point where it provided a real income took a lot of hard work (and it was a lot of fun!), but this may not be the path others may wish to follow.

Today I posted a couple of paragraphs on my other blog about junk hauling for pay as a way to bootstrap your recycling, salvage and reuse business.

Check out ways to bootstrap here.

Mike

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Climate Change, Drought and Wildfire

Hey - I am very concerned about climate change, drought and wildfire here where I live in Northeastern California. I've collected resources and news and will chronicle what I am doing to deal with the effects of climate change at toolsforsurvival.com.

If you have ideas, plans, resources, news or how-to information, I'd love to hear about it. Please share it here.

Cheers,

Mike

California Drought Forum - Free and Open to Public

California Drought Forum May 15th and 16th. This event is free and open to the public. It is being held in Sacramento, CA. I'll be attending and reporting back here. If you are in California, I hope you attend as well. Registration is limited, so if interested, register as soon as possible here.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Having the Right Plans Makes All the Difference - Save Material, Save Time, Build it Right

Since moving to our mini-homestead a few years ago, I've wanted to expand existing outbuildings and build new ones. Like many others, I've just wanted to forge ahead, draw up my own minimal plans (well really meager sketches) and get the thing built. Doing it this way led to one headache after another. Things didn't fit, constant measuring, trimming and re-measuring, wasted material, etc. etc...

Looking back at it I realized the biggest stumbling-block for me was making good and exacting plans. I enjoyed salvaging the material, measuring, cutting and building, but I had little patients for planning.

Finally, I got these great shed plans and it made all the difference. Not only am I adding on to existing sheds and building new ones for myself, I've also been contacted by neighbors who would like me to build sheds for them as well. A new and very profitable little cottage industry for us.

The word "SHED" is a bit of a misnomer so don't take it too narrow or literally. With a little creativity these plans can be used to build all sorts of buildings including, of course, sheds, but also small barns, greenhouses, tiny homes, wood sheds, storage buildings, garden tool storage buildings, pump houses - just about any structure you can think of that you will need at your place. So, give these plans a try - you cannot go wrong. If you like, you can download a free sample here.