Re-building is a more daunting task if you have to commute a long way, but travel trailers and tents can be miserable places to live during a re-building process that is likely to be much longer than normal because of the shortage of subcontractors and building materials on the Gulf Coast. The Kernel House begins by building a kernel, or seed, that may extend over time into a larger house as various wings are added. The first part is a Kernel Cottage that can be built very quickly, allowing you to live there while you re-build your main house. But because the Kernel Cottage is designed to be much more comfortable than a travel trailer or tent, you probably will want to keep it as a home office, Granny cottage, craft studio, workshop, or any of a host of other uses once you've moved back into your new house. The following illustrations show several ways that the Kernel Cottage can grow into a larger house. Kernel House 1 is likely to become one of the most common. It involves building a Kernel Cottage at the back of the lot, then building the main house at the front, enclosing a courtyard during the second phase. Other wings (including a garage) can be added over time as third and later phases. If the lot is served by a rear lane or alley, then the additional bedroom may be moved over to retain a larger courtyard in the center of the lot. The Kernel House 2 works best on really narrow lots. Here, the Kernel Cottage remains as the face of the house and additions are built to the rear. This is how the "camel-back" house type first developed. This type works best with a rear lane or alley. Kernel Cottages extend in two or three directions. Be sure to select a Kernel Cottage that can expand to the rear for a Kernel House 2. Kernel House 3 works well on slightly wider lots. Here, the Kernel Cottage is turned sideways on the lot to present a wider face. Because Kernel Cottage are usually one room wide, many of them may be turned sideways in this manner, making them seem much larger than they really are. Just make sure to turn the porch to face the street. The rear extension of this Kernel Cottage is roughly the same height as the Kernel Cottage, so the extended house and the Kernel Cottage will blend together when complete. Kernel House 4 does not require the Kernel Cottage to lose part of a wall to connect. Rather, the main house can be connected via the Kernel Cottage porch. In this case, the private courtyard is behind the Kernel Cottage, which is sideways on the lot. The advantage here is that the garden may be planted almost immediately and is not disturbed by construction of later additions. It can be quite valuable to have a private garden in which to retreat when most of one's house is disrupted by construction. Kernel House 5 also attaches the Kernel Cottage to the main house with a porch, so none of the interior finishes of the Kernel Cottage need be disturbed by later additions. The primary difference here is that by turning the Kernel Cottage front-to-back on the lot, a larger courtyard space is created than with the Kernel House 4, and it is more private because it is protected from the alley by the garage. The downside is that it is more exposed to later construction. Kernel House 6 uses a two-story Tall Cottage that is usually turned sideways on the lot. A master bedroom wing is added, then a garage, all of which are connected by porches around a courtyard. There is another advantage to using Kernel House strategies such as the six illustrated above. FEMA has not yet finalized the flood map revisions resulting from hurricanes Katrina and Rita in all areas. So getting permanent financing and approval from the city to build back a full house before the Base Flood Elevation is finally established can be very difficult. Kernel Cottages just might help solve this problem. Because they can be easily moved, if the final BFE is higher than the preliminary BFE, then the house can easily be raised to the new BFE. And even if the banker won't make a conventional mortgage to build one, Kernel Cottages are so small that their cost should resemble that of a car rather than that of a full-size house, meaning that alternate methods can be used to finance them. Some, in fact, are so small that their material costs could conceivably be put on a credit card. It is interesting to note that most of the buildings built from the founding of our nation until World War I were built without mortgages. How did they do it? Most people weren't wealthy, so they would do exactly what is illustrated here: build a very small cottage first, then add to it over the years.