What do you really need?

Cabins are truly about the essentials. In small quarters, spaces take on multiple functions; close proximity forces formalities to fall away in favor of camaraderie and intimacy. In this way, cabin-life is not so much different than living in a small urban apartment.

And yet, cabins are also fundamentally about escape, self-sufficiency, connection with nature, solitude. While big cities can be lonely places, the urban experience fundamentally lacks this old freshness, this sensation of things being at once new and ancient. Cities, places of sociocultural evolution, are not (alas!) this kind of primordial frontier.

As a city-dweller, I am working on a project to transform our humble Chicago apartment into someplace that achieves this warm, cozy, cabin feeling in all seasons.  I’ve been grappling with this concept of what makes a cabin, well, a cabin. Currently a list of Cabin Essentials is in production (I’m open to your suggestions!) and I’ll be posting some images of the transformation and projects along the way!

The tent cabin above is on the Kawuneeche Valley Never Summer Ranch at the Holzworth Historical Site in Rocky Mountain State Park.