Monthly Archives: February 2012

A Conceptual Cabin in the City

Manifest Destiny! is an artwork installation created by Mark Reigelman in collaboration with artist/architect Jenny Chapman and structural engineer Paul Endres.

The work, a rustic cabin shell fabricated from reclaimed Ohio barn wood and aluminum supports, is temporarily installed on the exterior wall of the Hotel des Arts in San Francisco through October 2012.  Suspended 40 feet above the street, it invades unclaimed space like a parasite or aberration imposed on the urban landscape; at night, it is lit from within, a haunting, incongruous beacon in the contemporary streetscape. In this context, the artists seek to simultaneously engage the romanticized Western Myth of American individualism and the inherent arrogance of Westward expansion. Manifest Destiny! is indeed a work that is at once plaintive and comforting, immutable and ephemeral.

From Reigelman:

Manifest Destiny! was commissioned by Southern Exposure and funded by the Graue Family Foundation.

Watch it happening:

See a gallery of more installation images here.

More Cabin Porn

Its Friday, and for me, that always means time for a well-earned respite at week’s end.

Queue the Cabin Porn.

I’ll leave you with this beauty of a property, 51 rolling acres just below Bald Knob with views all the way to Virginia’s Peaks of Otter is currently available to the lucky reader in possession of 1.1. The property includes a turn-key reconstructed cabin dating from 1790 and a modern addition that is really very well done, even if a little too new. Complete with an outdoor shower and wrap-around porches, items on my future-cabin essentials list!

Located in the Allegheny Highlands of Bath County, Virginia, (where we were married last summer) I’m planning on making an appointment as a ‘prospective buyer’ in October if it’s still available when we’re in the area for Washington & Lee’s Homecoming…

Want to make an appointment?

You can view the property at Virginia Hot Springs Realty or Clarkson & Wallace.

Campfire Cravings

My favorite thing about camping is without contest the campfire. I look forward to it with unabashed glee every time I go. I will go out of my way to bypass campgrounds that prohibit fires or make sure to avoid their no burn seasons. After all, what can fill the extended minutes of a quiet evening under the stars like a campfire? One of the essential things about cabins is the presence of a hearth, preferably outsized and made of natural stones. Cultivating the feeling of a cabin or a campfire is difficult when you lack a fireplace or a backyard.

If you share this sentiment, you really need to know about my recent discovery. While it won’t give you the bright woodland stars overhead, it will authentically simulate the warm smell of pure natural firewood burning on open flame. No extra fragrances.

Incienso de Santa Fe’s Seven Scent Sampler features incense bricks of pinon, alder, hickory, fir balsam, cedar, mesquite and juniper. They burn with a modest smoke, never making the room smokey.

Made in the Land of Enchantment, we honestly can’t get enough of this stuff. It was our Christmas gift of choice this year-we gave out so many I wondered if we should just buy a case!

Buy it HERE.

Campfire image from the folks at Beaver Brook.

WHERE DA SNOW AT?

I heard on npr that the December 2011-January 2012 period in Chicago is the warmest in 80 years. And it may pan out to be the Second mildest winter in the US since record-keeping began. In Illinois, January average temps were up 7 degrees, to a balmy 31.5 F (hate to admit that I, too, have found myself regularly remarking on the warmth of this winter compared to my other Chicago experiences, all things being relative). Thus far, I’ve dug out my car ONE time, and have worn my Bean Boots for less than a week. Europe and Eurasia, on the other hand are slammed with record freezing weather, with snow as far south as North Africa. It seems Global Warming patterns are polarizing precip and temps, sending all of 2012 winter across the Atlantic.

Not wishing for anything so drastic, but here in the usually-snow-bound Midwest, we’ve really missed the fun part of having snow. Without the powdery stuff, its been a game of waiting for conditions to be acceptably wintery to use our new MSR Evo 22 snowshoes. In the meantime, we’re headed down to New Orleans this week for our annual “Beat the winter/Cabin Fever Escape,” and I hardly even feel the drag that Chicago winters usually smite me with by this time of the season. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take the trip–I’m so excited that a bit of Louisiana has crept into the title of this post and I might not even come back owing to how awesome NOLA is going to be–but am really wondering if those snowshoes are going to sit unused until next season!

We rented them through REI last winter, and decided that the MSR Evo 22s were a well-priced, lightweight, slim profile shoes accessible to amateurs and liked by veterans as a highly versatile model great for hiking, trekking, backpacking, etc.  If you’re fond of hiking and wilderness landscapes, snowshoeing is a great winter sport activity that requires minimal specialized gear and will get you outside and having fun at a time of year when its otherwise pretty hard to do so casually. (Interested in snowshoeing? Get introduced here).

Plus, snowshoes will come in very handy when we need to hike in over several feet of snow to our super isolated future cabin. I’ll call it an Investment in our Future, albeit one that will provide some fun along the way.

I am so excited to spend more time in the beautiful state of Wisconsin doing just that. Someday. Maybe next winter if global warming doesn’t send all it elsewhere.

Garden & Gun

I must confess that when the current FEBRUARY/MARCH issue of Garden & Gun arrived, I  sat down immediately (as I usually do) to read it and turned directly to the article A Southern Restoration: Cabin Fever. First, I simply cannot sing the praises of this magazine loudly enough–if you live, or have ever lived, in the South or just feel a kindred affinity to a slow, sweet lifestyle, you will not go wrong with this magazine. Every issue features fine, well-written articles on diverse regional topics, pure visual escape, and introduction to new ideas, businesses, and places; its like a insta-vacation every two months.

The couple featured in the article above set about collecting and restoring historical cabins into a lovely, rambling rustic estate. The print article features some fabulous images, and more are available on the G&G website. It is evident that they labored long and painstakingly to create this idyllic escape that exhibits the spare, simple beauty of cabinlife that I crave. The warm, natural, worn wood in the furniture, paneling, exteriors, etc. soothes the senses and spirit. Here are a few of my favorites:

see the full gallery feature here.