The Cabin & The Ideas
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The Building
1414 Sq. Ft.
The cabin is a wood-frame building, 22' x 32'. It has a "sunlight" basement containing the two bedrooms and the bathroom. The main floor is one large room.
It is set at the edge of pine and aspen trees, facing southwest toward some very high mountains across the valley.
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My Tasks
Trim & Finish
The cabin was built by a professional builder. My friend & architect Don Ruggles designed the building, making eminent sense of a small space, its windows and rooms.
I took on the tasks of making the exterior trim for the windows and the railings for the deck and entry. I also did all the interior finish: walls, doors, windows trim, floors, railings, bathroom tiles, and the kitchen counters and cabinets.
My wife, son and I also applied brown Weatherall UV Guard to all the exterior 2"x12" milled fir planks.
The photo to the left shows part of the view from the deck.
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The Aesthetic
Vernacular Invention
There are two architectural influences at work here.
One is local: the cabins of the miners; they dotted this area with one- and two-room cabins while they looked for and mined for gold and silver. These cabins were built hastily, to provide shelter before the winter set in. They used no complex shapes, added few porticos or mud rooms. They were simple boxes. Problems were solved as met.
The second influence is the vernacular or folk architecture of eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Their cabins evolved in agricultural time spans, not the urgent bursts of prospectors and mineral extraction. Over time their simple buildings added carved door and window frames. They used color and imagery. These additions to the architecture were expressive of personality, caprice and delight in making things.
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Contrast
Change Upon Arrival
This cabin exists to be a contrast to city life. To the extent that I could, I strove to finish it so that it would feel different, in contrast to the rooms and buildings one usually finds oneself in. When you come upon the building, especially when you enter it, you know you are in a different kind of place.
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Timing
Improvisation over Time
When we began, our budget was particularly tight. We went ahead without knowing precisely what we would do for wall surfaces, floors and other components.
When visiting the cabin, we lived in an unfinished space for two and a half years, relying on the principle that buildings learn.
Some of the things I tried were abandoned. Some grew into the actual solution.
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Appreciation
Time to Feel the Change
The long time it has taken to get a complete building has allowed us to savor each step and appreciate its addition to our life there.
I am still working on landscaping. One of the bedrooms needs its closet door trim. I am adding glyphs to the lintels of the interior windows. And there are some landscaping tasks to be done. I want to build a tool shed, because the bandsaw is still in the main room.
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