Harvey@Before It's News: Before It's News Featured News

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Before It's News Featured News

Living Off Grid –Refined home crafted from 2 shipping containers on NorCal farm

In the late nineties, Alexis and Eric Koefoed moved onto a Northern California farm that had been abandoned for 30 years. There was no house, no running water and no electricity. They started out camping and eventually built a small home and began to cultivate the land.

Alexis and Soul Food Farm would become a pioneer in pasture-raised poultry, supplying eggs and chickens to the San Francisco Bay Area’s top restaurants.

After a couple decades on the farm, the Koefoeds still have a modest home, but Alexis began to create outbuildings for extra space. Old shipping containers that once housed their belongings became an outdoor bathroom (complete with clawfoot bathtub) and an outdoor office planted amid the lavender fields.

When Alexis’ 94-year-old father moved in with them, Koefoed simply moved her and Eric’s bedroom into the outdoor office. The container (once the information booth for Slow Food Nation in San Francisco) is a work of art.

Large cutouts on both sides of the 40 foot shelter have been filled with metal and glass crafted by Koefoed’s friend, blacksmith and welder-artist Jefferson Mack.

The tiny home is lit (an electrical cord runs from the home to the container) with 2 antique chandeliers (one inherited from Alexis’ father’s home) and furnished with pieces from Alexis’ family (back to her great-grandmother) or found by Alexis alongside the road.

Today, Alexis has left full-time farming (she no longer has the energy for 18 hour days) and has moved into agro-tourism. She runs an antique fair on her property and has mounted an A-frame roofline tent to house guests interested in farm stays in her valley paradise.