The Hill & Hearth Studio Update

With camera, sketchbook, and flower press in hand, I headed to mom's old cabin to join my Carpenter midweek. It's been three years since mom passed and I still can't call this place mine. It was hers and I'm reclaiming it. I grew up here and even went to highschool from this place. It had electricity and that is all. We hauled water from town in jugs and washed our hair in the lake long before there were jetskis and motorboats zooming day and night. 

I was often teased that I smelled like woodsmoke. Honestly, we all smelled like our parents' cigarette smoke back in the 70's and 80's! Why would the smell of a good campfire would bother anyone?

Who needs boys anyway. lol

I just liked the flowers and birds and music and a good sunset.

So here I am now, in my 50s. I lost my studio in 2018 and then my mother in 2020. Slowly, ever so slowly, through my grief, my dreams are still coming true. I am so incredibly grateful. I can't describe the depth of it, but I believe that when things grow this slowly, they will (like a perennial) outlast. They will (like a perennial) be a permanent fixture in the next portion of my life. I can understand that now: the value of patience and the resulting gift of longevity.

It's like good art, slow craft, waiting for baby, growing a garden, cultivating a relationship... even healing a wound. Permanence takes time. And there's a bonus! Effort and hard work can be spread out over time. Little by little, we can do anything if we take out time with it.

First of all, I never thought I'd be able to tackle my mother's potato garden. It slowly became weeds. Then it was higher and thicker weeds. The year she passed away, grass took over. The next year, grass again. And again. Finally, last week, I filled a **screaming loud** gas-powered whipper snipper thing (twice with fuel), and spent and hour+ taking down thigh-high grass over a 75ft x 25ft garden plot. I DID IT. Then I covered it with sheets of tarp and pinned those down with old fence posts I hauled out of the bush. I'm doing it! 

I hope mom is happy. She's probably doing her happy dance (she has one).

That didn't stop me. I raked half the yard - there were 2 drought years worth of elm seed caked over the lawn. I counted. The small yard is surrounded by 24 elm trees. IMAGINE the amount of seeds.

I'm the groundskeeper out here while he builds. I cleared the path 2 stories down the cliff to the water. There's bush growing here I've never seen grow here before. And then I take breaks to cook meals over the fire so he can keep working.

And here it is! Before:

1958 family property, building circa 1962
Late winter view over the potato garden.

In progress from last fall:

Loft & new roof added, old addition removed.

I took this photo from the garden. See the beautiful lake behind? The cabin was one big room to the left and two bedrooms to the right. My mom removed all the inside walls and had an addition added to the right, like a bunk house (literally full of bunk beds). You can see in the top picture that the cabin looked wider there. That addition had so much water damage and rot, so it was removed and my vision is for that end to be a big shady, cool porch (north east wall). I can imagine really enjoying that as an extra work and living space. I'd like a lake-facing porch door from there as well. That would be prefect!

Where the 2 little bedrooms were will now be a kitchenette. The main open area will be Studio. Above the kitchen is a dropped loft floor. The upstairs walls are only 5ft high. The kitchen will be 7 ft from floor to ceiling. It LOOKS massive, but it's condensed. Above the porch and at the end of the bedroom loft then, can be storage space, because this little place has zero storage. What a great solution! The way the wind and rain comes off the lake from the west corner, that porch will be pretty protected from the elements. I'd like the kitchen to have and entry door from that side so we can go back and forth from there without letting rain or wind or snow in. So we'll come in and out from the wood pile through the kitchen, not my art space.

The cabin floor is the same, 20ft x 24ft for the entire building. The upstairs bedroom is then 10x12ft or less with the stair way.

Sleeping loft up, kitchen door out back, wood cookstove central

And LOOK!!!!

Up above the bedroom window xoxoxox

baby robins

How beautiful is that?

I'm really proud of all this. There were times where I felt like it wasn't happening. But wow... it really is. It all started with a very clear goal. I NEED A STUDIO. Paul the Carpenter said, I CAN BUILD THIS. I knew what I wanted. I designed this and Paul helped by letting me know what would work and what wouldn't.  The BEST part for me personally is that slowly as we went along, I bought every piece of 2x4 and Plywood. Last time I brought out as many sheets of OSB as I could fit in my mom-van. I'm super frugal. I don't buy shoes or go to hair salons. Every spare dollar went to lumber or shingles or windows from the Re-store. 

As for Paul the Carpenter. ***This man***. He built this on his own and without scaffolding. The ladder doesn't even reach the roof's edge. He carried everything up by himself, often through the loft. All the beams, all the joists, all the sheets of wood.

West Corner. 13ft Studio walls, double doors, windows, Elms

I love that my cabin corners point to the 4 directions, and that the center will be stationed the hearth. I took this picture above on the last morning I slept there. I can't wait to go back. Paul stayed a few more days and now the roof is done. He just sent me a photo on my phone. Nearly all the shingles are on. All of the sheathing I purchased is on the exterior! How exciting. 

I'll post my Fieldwork photos in the next post.

xo

~Monika K.