A former line cook named Mirka loses her apartment in Portland and cycles through tents, doorways, and dumpster spots before finding an abandoned 5,000-liter French oak wine barrel in a vacant lot. She teaches herself to seal it — silicone from dumpsters, beeswax from Goodwill, cattail leaves from a drainage ditch — and turns it into the warmest shelter she’s had in two years. This is the story of how a thousand pounds of old Pinot Noir oak, some stubbornness, and basic physics kept one woman warm through two Portland winters.
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5 Comments
Cool video! Thank you!
Watching from Rosiclare,IL. on the Ohio River love these videos/stories better than watching reruns & stupid shows on tv (such as ballgames, the walking dead, etc.) watching at 12:15 AM
From YYZ. just about any container that you can close off and large enough can be converted into a bedroom. But I wondered why you even bother. You are from Portland, a Democratic state. I am in Toronto next to another Democratic states NY and Mich , Industries and businesses cannot get away from those states fast enough, taking some employees with them and leaving behind lots of abandoned houses. It is a squatter's dream .All you have to do is to find one, change the door lock, the main drain still hooked up, so all you need is to collect snow /rain water, and a small generator. They might have left you the fridge and hope the fire place works. I am being demanding, they left a wood stove behind too. I say it will cost you initially $300 for cleaning supplies and paint.
Could she have used a propane heater safely in the barrel for heat?
I have one of those barrels under my bed!