Building My Cabin In The Woods. Or Wood, Singular.

I’m building a cabin in the woods and it is going to be my new place of work. I say woods, it’s more wood, singular, with one tree (an acer, it is beautiful), but the thought is there. Because the entire thing, this writing-hut-stroke-stage-set-stroke-beauty-photographic-studio, is going to be built to look as though it belongs in a clearing in the depths of a fairytale forest. Complete with an oak porch, a creaky old rocking chair and a tiny little tin-pot chimney on the roof.

I know.

Honestly, I can’t seem to do anything in a standard, straightforward way. It’s a problem. The easy option would have been to drop one of those “off the peg” garden offices in, on some sort of incredibly long-armed crane (I live on the top of a very steep slope looking down into the valley), but the heart wants what the heart wants and this heart wanted a cross between something the woodcutter in Red Riding Hood would live in and Beth Dutton’s log cabin. (Don’t tell me you’ve not watched Yellowstone…)

Luckily, my brother-in-law is a bit of a master when it comes to specialist building techniques and “theming” and has created things like this before. In fact most of the projects he works on are far more technically challenging, things like crocodile tanks for zoos and wild beast enclosures and much bigger buildings, and so when I mentioned to him that I wanted to build a cabin in the woods (or a cabin “by the tree”) I think he saw it as a rather enjoyable and creative break from the norm.

At least I hope so. We are still on good terms, despite me repeatedly requesting new additions to the build, which so far are - in no particular order - oak-framed multi-paned windows that look as though they belong in an 1890s midwest ranch house, a hidden “box seat”, cast iron radiators, ceiling beams that look “convincingly old” and a wriggly tin roof.

Anyway I tell you this because I’m going to be filming the build on Instagram (my Insta profile is here) and I thought that it would be nice to have a series of written posts to refer back to. Budgeting stuff, and the rising cost of timber, choosing paint colours, that sort of thing? Sound good?

Let’s get going with the first post: why the hell I’m building a cabin.