Category Archives: Cabin Style

Before & After: Dry Bar

Here’s another part of our dining room redesign (that I shared a couple months ago). This time, I thought I’d show you how much a pint of paint and some new hardware can do to completely transform a piece of furniture (and even help you designate a new use for it).

The dresser below was a piece of midcentury furniture I bought at a garage sale in college for $40. I haven’t liked it for a long time, but our apartment has so little closet space/built in storage (and I have too much stuff) to have been able to do without it.

20130120-124452.jpg
So, for a $10 custom pint of paint and $12 for Anthropologie hardware on super-clearance: antler handles $1.98/ea. and knobs $.98/ea. we have a modern rustic dry bar with great storage for linens and bar supplies.

20130120-125449.jpg

20130120-130115.jpg

20130120-130231.jpg

20130120-130331.jpg

20130120-130317.jpg

Come on over for a drink!

Living in TOAST

TOAST is a British-based company that purveys clothing and goods for the home that have a distinctively rustic-bohemian spirit. Their lookbooks are filled with landscapes, details, buildings, and textures that engulf the senses and evoke a strong desire to adopt the environment and lifestyle of its pages. It makes you actually yearn for cabin fever.

Here are a few of my favorite images from their Autumn and Winter catalogues. Sadly, they do not ship to the US, but you can download the lookbooks and check out their Christmas book here. All I can say is baggy sweaters and pajamas never looked so good!

Now, if they’d only ship to the US…

Quilts

Recently, I’ve had a fetish for quilts; though I can’t say I like very many of the patterns, and must add that there are more garish color palettes out there than otherwise! Quilts, when done right, can bring an instant extra cozy to a room, but when not carefully selected can look too country–to walk this fine line, I think you need to keep the pattern simple and the color palette sophisticated.

My two favorite quilt patterns happen to be the two that I own. Both are traditional North American patterns, and both are vintage examples bought on Etsy.

The first is Log Cabin:

I love the rich, earthy color palette of this quilt and its fabulous use of scraps from clothing. This quilt is in need of some TLC, but I’m looking forward to making the repairs it needs this winter.

My second quilt is in the Flying Geese pattern:

 

 

some other beautiful quilts, these ones from the Semiologie Collection, can be found here at Felt & Honey.

Before & After: Dining Room

I’ve finally gotten around to tidying up and taking some pictures of our cabin-redecorating. This was a project that came to me after getting married and coming home to our apartment–nothing felt different and everything looked the same. We finally had all this fine china and no place worthy of eating on it. While fine china is not generally a part of my vision of cabin life, my husband and I do dream of owning a cabin as our first piece of real estate. This is at least several years down the road yet, but the inspiration was a great jumping off point for decorating our Chicago apartment with the cabin in mind.

Our dining room is the first transformation I’ll be sharing with you:

Before

Before, the dining room was actually our office!

After

The dining room. This change was relatively inexpensive. We traded up on our former formica 1960s table for this Milo Baughman Parsons at a loss of $100. The chairs are outdoor bistro chairs from IKEA, $15/each. The credenza was a midcentury piece bought on craigslist for $125 and holds all of our china. The painting above it was $18 at a thrift store, I repainted the frame and added the letters on a whim. The lamps are also IKEA, $6/each, plus grey linen lampshades from Restoration Hardware, $5/each (on super sale). The framed maps are from the National Geological Survey and were about $8/each; the frames are IKEA, $20/each. The mounted antlers are a purchase from an auction, and were $15/each. We painted the room grey (a color I’m currently obsessed with), Olympic Thin Ice–I don’t like the name, but it is a true shade of grey, no blue or purple or brown in it to my eye.

It feels so much more grown up!

Leonard Baskin, printmaker

Things have been crazy at work as we gear up for our fall art auction. I’ve been meaning to post on the artist Leonard Baskin for a while now, and as I am otherwise up to my eyes in all things art and business, why not carry it over a bit here…While we don’t have any of Baskin’s work in this sale, I’ve got my eye out for some of his Native American series. Baskin is one of those artists who is widely known and recognized as highly talented, but remains an attainable artist for the collector of more modest means. His work is often available at galleries which sell mostly very successful established artists whose work command very strong prices. Adding his work to your collection might not make you richer down the road, but it may draw your eyes and heart in each encounter, and gain you respect amongst the print collector and general fine art community!

Cabin Getaway: Dickie Lake, Canada

A Stay in a lakeside cabin to drool over!

A wood burning stove, soft neutrals, frayed edges, pebbled kitchens and bathrooms, natural wood, exposed beams, and heirloom rustic furniture make this getaway a cabinstyle-enthusiasts sanctuary.

If you’d been wanting to visit Canada before, after these pictures, you’ll know exactly where to go: Dickie Lake Cottage near Baysville, a 2.5 hour drive north of Toronto (at this point in August, probably best saved for next summer if you want to actually swim)! Weekly rates only during the high season (June 23 to September 3) of $2,750 for a four bedroom cottage/cabin that sleeps a max of 10. Dogs allowed with owner approval:)

A whole week here with friends is a recipe for an Amazing Escape. Who’s coming!?

The Cabinologist is now on Facebook!

I hope you all had a Happy Summer Weekend. This post is a shameless self-promotion: please “like” The Cabinologist on Facebook!

It will get you regular access to all things cozy and cabin as well as facilitate the sharing of your ideas and discoveries. Please post requests for what you want to see more of and the cool stuff you find while searching for ‘your someplace cozy’.

Such as this beautiful homestead in Montana, the perfect, poetically spare writer’s retreat. The beauty of the contrast between newly milled honey-colored lumber and the gently weathered grey of the trim is an adornment that is thoroughly rustic and sensual in its simplicity. It makes you want to give it all away for this idealized spartan dream.

All things cabin, outdoors, cozy and generally awesome are welcome!

Cape Cod Supply List

We’re headed to the Cape in less than ten days for the week of the Fourth, and with a weather forecast barely breaking 70 in the day / 60s at night, I’m thinking I need a good cable-knit fisherman’s cardigan, and a few other things to vacation in laid-back, tomboy-esque style beyond the requisite preppy swimsuit and plenty of reading materials.

You can’t really go anywhere on the Cape without a sweater at night, its a year-round necessity. I’d prefer a classic fisherman’s cable knit cardigan (lots available on Etsy).

The Downeaster small sport duffel (L.L. Bean Signature, sale! $16.99), the perfect bag to swing over your shoulder for a bike ride to the beach or the Nantucket Ferry.

Old Man and Sea by Joan Drury Cox is a recently released contemporary visual interpretation of Hemmingway’s timeless novel that preserves his punctuation to emphasize the ebb and flow of language across the page. Read a review here.

Camp Wandawega

With our one-year anniversary fast approaching, my husband and I were in search of a little cabin getaway not too far from the hustle-bustle of Chicago.  What we found is a time-capsule gem of a place, a true nostalgic’s delight, a wonderland of simpler times: Camp Wandawega in Elkhorn, WI, just two hours northwest of the city!

Owned by Tereasa Surratt and David Hernandez, the rustic lake resort was the site of David’s annual boyhood family vacations, and was purchased by he and his visonary wife; together they lovingly restored the property to a point beyond its former idyllic rusticity to its current nostalgic (im)perfection.

I’m so looking forward to canoeing, swiming, tennis, archery, campfires, bugs, hiking, beers, and more. The property offers a variety of whimsical accommodations, including a lodge, boy scout canvas tents, and several cabins.

We’ll be staying in A Very Modest Cottage, an 11 x 11 foot one-room cabin. I. CAN.NOT. WAIT. (!) The cabin was rescued from its old location nearby Surratt’s grandmother’s home in Illinois and moved to the Wisconsin lake resort.  Over the years it has served as a cabin court, a brothel, a truck stop, and a hunt club’s cabin.

here’s the cabin before rescue:

Read more about it:

Chicago Home Mag

Country Living

Apartment Therapy

Buy the book: