Furnishing “The House for Human Flourishing”

The first month of the “house for human flourishing” was remodeling the interior. The second month has been furnishing and artfully filling in space. Outside of running the real estate photography biz this July, I continued to pour as much heart, awareness, and energy into the place as I could muster. I remain moving perhaps a little too fast for my own good, but things are coming together swimmingly.

In Phoenix — or any city where millions of people reside — there are constant gushing fountains of used things being sold at a fraction of their original cost through today’s version of classified ads, particularly Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp (Craigslist too, but it unfortunately seems more of a honeypot for scammers these days).

A tip for finding “needles in the haystack” on these platforms: be loose with your search term but base your search with a tight radius (say, 10 miles) from the wealthiest zip code in your city. Using the zip code 85253, to include items only in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley, has led me to some incredible deals on top-tier things.

This July, I bought a year-old $2000 Crate & Barrel couch for $250, a retro-cool diner booth from the 70’s for $100, an $800 giant jute rug in the shape of a sun for $100, a huge set of floor seating from the United Arab Emirates for $150, a $500 bar stool set for $50, a brand new $1,500 ventless dryer for $500, a second $1000 standing desk that perfectly matches my own for $240, a $1200 credenza for $200, a new-in-the-box $179 medicine cabinet mirror for $75. I could go on… but basically, by buying used, I’ve furnished the majority of the house with beautiful things that sing for less than the year-old couch bought new.

Thrift is a word that can’t be heard in a culture as capitalistic as ours. But as Thoreau said above, or I once penned in this Leaky Bucket Economics article, money is but an invented intermediary. What is spent is the life and energy it took (or will take) to make that money, and a culture of free spending leaves most of us quality-time poor.

Play it thrifty my friends.

PRO TIP:

Did You Know You Can Tow?

When I got into real estate photography, I swapped my Honda Element home on wheels for a Toyota Prius to get the high mpg’s as I drove all over the place photographing houses.

The Prius, however, lacks the capacity to carry couches and tables and booths and all the large things I’ve needed to pick up to build a “house for human flourishing.” The first month or so, I toyed with the thought of buying a small, old truck.

Then, one day, a question popped into my head: can my Prius tow a small trailer? This reddit post answered my question. I thought to buy a small trailer, but soon discovered that U-Haul rents 4x8ft trailers for literally $15 for 24 hours (with tax, that’s $17.06 from the U-Haul a two-minute drive from my house).

I had the whole hitch, ball mount, and electrical system installed for $550. Now, if anything won’t fit in the Prius, I just go hitch up a trailer at the U-Haul down the street for $17.06.

It’s pretty nostalgic. Back when I used to run the Range Rider’s Lodge on the border Yellowstone National Park, I’d often drive one of our two camouflage Priuses to Cody, Bozeman, or Billings to run errands or shuttle people to-and-fro the airport. I took great joy in the ironic, jaw-dropped looks we’d get rolling into town in a camo Prius. Towing with the Prius has a similar effect.

A pro-tip from all my hauling this July: you can get a hitch, rent a trailer from U-Haul for $15 a day, and hook up the moving capacity of the bed of a pickup truck onto almost any vehicle.

PODCAST EPISODE:

Joe Rogan Experience #2529 - Zach Bush

To my intuition, one of the wiser people of planet Earth — a cancer-researcher turned hospice doc turned spokesman for the soil, Zach Bush — just made an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience.

I found his ideas of abstraction, nature in our antibiotic era, and what actually makes for healthy human systems so ahead of our current concepts that, to grasp them, I had to listen to the episode twice.

Back in January, I chronicled a bunch of Zach Bush Quotes from a Sagacious Align Podcast you may also find revelatory.

Listen In

DOCUMENTARY TRAILER:

WONDER WANDER 2025: A Trailer

Just released: The WONDER WANDER 2025 documentary trailer! Produced by motion designer, linocut artist, and undercover sage, Anna Maistri. I love the opening’s surreal feel. What an audiovisual tribute to the people and Domes of the sixth WONDER WANDER.

Full documentary coming soon.

Note: I’m taking a year off from WONDER WANDER this year to build the “house for human flourishing” and start a podcast where I watch sunsets with fascinating people. Six of six times, WW has been a peak experience of my life, but my cup would totally overflow attempting the seventh this year.

Watch It

MI MADRE’S JOURNAL:

A Road Trip Rolls Around

My mom is a wiz-with-the-camera and tapped into it. She recently published her second journal entry on erika.gallery, a photo-heavy homage to a road trip around southern Arizona this spring. It is a gorgeous meditation on place, pace, and wonders found as she slowed down among the sonoran desert.

I also bet you’d like to sign up for her (luck of the draw).

Dig It