I blogged about these amazing firebowls before. They are by John T. Under and are a great piece of art that would look fabulous in anyone’s yard or deck. Now you can browse and shop for them on Amazon.com. While all of them are spectacular, this one is still my favorite.
Over the last couple of years I have become a fan of Canadian author Chris Czajkowski who has hand built three log cabins in the interior of British Columbia. The story of how she built Nuk Tessli is absolutely amazing. 20 miles from the nearest road armed with a chainsaw and an iron will.
She has written numerous excellent books but three of my favorite books of hers are:
Cabin at Singing River: One Woman's Story of Building a Home in the Wilderness
You can find out more about her excellent books here.
The Tiny House Blog highlights a great story about a guy who decided to cash out his life, bought a van and lived a year in it while travelling across the United States.
Of course another great story is our friend Andrew Jones whose family is taking a 4x4 Overlander all across Europe.
They still need some things before they take off and Andrew is blogging about what he needs for his pilgrimage around Europe in a 4×4 Overlander.
If you can give away any of these parts (or cash to purchase them), please send them an email - tallskinnykiwi at gmail dot com.
Both of them make our cabin seem pretty cushy and pampered.
I don’t know if you have seen these but they are great. They are by Umbra and are hidden bookshelves so it looks like your books are floating on the wall from above and below the book. Stacks books against your wall for a futuristic, gravity-defying look. Simply slide the shelf between the back cover of one book, stack the rest on top to completely cover, and VOILA you've got an invisible bookshelf. Holds up to 20 lb (9 kg). 10" max book depth. Just make sure you screw the shelf into a stud.
They look great and we are putting a couple up at the cabin once it warms enough to get out there.
I found this fun book while wandering the aisles at Indigo Books.
I picked up the book after flipping through it a couple of times and finding it worth purchasing, I brought it home. It’s by Minnesota architect and cabinologist Dale Mulfinger, principal of Sala Architects in the Twin Cities. He has designed dozens of rustic retreats and has penned the book The Cabin. In his latest work Cabinology: A Handbook to Your Private Hideaway, he guides readers through the process of creating their own cabin and outlines the steps in designing and building a cabin or renovating one. The book is filled with drawings, floor plans and photos of cabins of every style and size. Mulfinger also devotes a section to identifying who will use the cabin and its ultimate purpose to help plan "what kind of cabin your cabin will be.”
While we didn’t build our cabin, I found the book a lot of fun. Cabin’s serve multiple purposes. One of them includes distracting your mind as you make plans for the future of the cabin. The book gave Wendy and I ideas for improvements to be made this year and the years after that. He also gave us a lot of things which we had never thought about like do we want to get rid of some interior dividers and make the cabin one big open space. No decisions on that but the fun debate over the topic with Wendy and Mark made the price of the book work it.
The book reminds us that the cabin a place where people can come together and the building needs to reflect that. It needs to reflect who we are, the community that it is a part of, it’s habitat, and the family that will call it the cabin.
Cabins were originally of a time and place when a lot more of life occurred outside and by being modest in scale, they push you there. It’s an idea worth remembering.
The Tiny House Blog has a review of Jay Shafer’s new The Small House Book
The Hour explores Jay Schafer and the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company’s vision of small homes and asks if this is a good idea?
Wendy mentioned that we were looking at getting a gazebo for the cabin. It would give us 100 to 120 square feet of extra summer space at a pretty low cost. We are adding almost 25% more floor space to the cabin!
We started looking the other days at gazebos and found one at Wal-Mart for $199 and another one for $299 that are quite nice. The $199 gazebo was 12 feet by 10 feet and for where I want to put it, is a little large. The $299 one is an octagon and looks spectacular but is quite a bit too big. While I was looking at them, I was a little disappointed at the quality of the $199 gazebo. It drooped in places and instead of being screw together, it was more of a snap together design which had a lot of give which bothered me.
The Centre bought one last year from Superstore and it had very little give and was bolted together. It was a hassle to assemble but once we got it up, it withstood some fierce summer storms and handled the winter cold as well. Today Wendy and I went over and they had two there, one for $199 which was $100 cheaper than it was last year and one with a slightly different design for $239. The quality was quite a bit better than the gazebos at Wal-Mart and we liked the design better as well. While smaller isn’t always better, considering where I want to put the gazebo, a 10 x 10 foot gazebo is better than a 10 x 12 foot gazebo.
I know I will be second guessing our decision to go with the gazebo from Superstore as soon as I drop the first washer in the grass while assembling it but over the long haul I think it will be a better purchase.
The extra 100 square feet will be nice on days when it is too hot to stay inside. Our friends on the lakefront always talk about how much warmer it is where we are located and that is great when it is April, May, and June but in July and August, we want a place that is cool and out of the mosquitoes.
It's cold and snowing again. Would whoever upset Spring please reconcile their differences so we can finally show winter the door? It's -12 at the lake right now.
Over at the Tiny House Blog, they featured the Minimal Mansion. It's based on some of Jay Shafer's Tumbleweed Tiny House Company's designs but differs in several significant ways.
Well it’s finally melting a bit here in Saskatoon. Of course it is still snowing and I think we have one more storm coming but it is finally nice enough to start planning for the summer.
We picked up a couple of things for the cabin. The clock we have in there doesn’t really fit with how we want to decorate the cabin so it has to go and is going to be replaced with an antique looking wall clock. We also picked up 12 solar powered landscape lights for around the base of the cabin. Last fall we debated on what kind of exterior lights to pick up and we finally decided to go with a black marine light.
Instead of creating a deck at the back of the cabin, we decided to go with a 10x10 gazebo which will give us some shelter from the bugs, rain, and shade from the hot afternoon sun.
Finally, we still have to order a water crock. I think one of these will look spectacular at the lake.
It is still going to be a couple of weeks until we can consider getting up to Arlington Beach. According to our neighbors, no snow has melted at all and they have a lot of it. The ice won’t be off the lake for another couple of months but I would like to get up there in April but we will have to see.
