I was talking the other day with a good friend, about cabins, and the cabin we’ll be designing for her, about the multitude of small details that will define it as hers and elevate it to its greatest purpose, to be a personal sanctuary to go to for times of quiet solitude.
It’s the finer details that will transform even the simplest buildings into unique expressions of the owner’s personality, making a place that’s special and deeply satisfying, and perfectly unique. If you’re creating your cabin from scratch, or having one built for you, you will have many opportunities to add your own custom touches throughout the process, details which will, when all combined, create a place that’s absolutely, uniquely, yours. Remember, you’re the cabin’s alpha user, and it should reflect your needs and wants, your character, personality, history and tastes. When it does all that, your cabin will be unlike any other and give to you in ways you cannot begin to predict.
Today I’m thinking about some of the larger, fundamental details you can tinker with to personalize your place, like window and door sizing and placement, skylight placement, and even the location of the roof dormer, and the orientation of its window and skylight.
Let’s start with windows. I love lots of natural light, and use windows copiously in my designs to define how things look and feel and relate to the surrounding landscape and light.
I’ve designed the Raven family of cabins to allow easy resizing or alternate placement of any of the windows, without the usual requirement to redesign structural elements: want a bigger window here, or a smaller window there? Go for it.
You get the idea. The point is to remain open to possibilities and explore all the ways that you can customize your cabin so that it is uniquely suited to you and your needs and preferences. Some things you build into your cabin, some things can be chosen and added in layers afterwards, over time; no matter when they will happen, it is always important to modify your plans with the customizations you want, so that everyone involved with your project knows exactly what the end goal is.
Ultimately it’s about you; make it count.
