A Score and More of Cabin Ideas

Rustic furniture, of course, is attractive in most cabins, but it frequently takes considerable skill and ingenuity to make it comfortable.

Where considerable room is required to sleep weekend party guests, give a thought to furniture and fixtures that can be converted into comfortable beds on short notice. Studio couches provide lounging by day and sleeping by night. Double-deck bunks use a minimum of floor space and provide attractive and comfortable sleeping accommodations. Hinged wall beds that disappear under shelves and curtains or into closets are likewise popular.

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A good cooler. Make a large box-shaped frame and cover with several thicknesses of burlap. Put it in shade under a water hydrant set to drip continuously but very slowly on the top of box.

These diagrams show the various steps in making a comfortable barrel chair. The seat, which may be the barrel head dropped down until it wedges tight, can be upholstered to suit your own taste or you may make a rope lacing for seat support as shown above.

1-INCH HOLES SPACED 4 INCHES APART and 1¼ INCHES BELOW LINE OF CUT

ROPE LACING FOR SEAT SUPPORT

FURNITURE WEBBING OVER ROPE SUPPORT FORMS GOOD UPHOLSTERY FOUNDATION

Here is a simple and sturdy cabin table that can be built in a few hours. Allow two linear feet of space for each person, and build the top of the table 29 inches from the floor.

2-INCH SLABS

HALF-ROUND SPLIT-POLE CLEAT

HALVED JOINT WHERE TABLE LEGS CROSS

SPREAD OF LEGS AT BOTTOM EQUALS WIDTH OF TOP

An extremely simple yet effective camp stool made from a smoothed half-log. Bore four holes at least two inches deep for the legs and be sure they are spread well apart.

This “dummy waiter” type of underground cooler consists of a hole or well about 10 feet deep lined with concrete or bricks, with a frame over it to hold a series of shelves hung on a pulley with a counterbalance.

A small skylight trapdoor above your cabin cook stove serves as a ventilator and an escape for smoke and hot air. The drawing shows how it should be rigged. The box keeps out rain and snow and should be flashed all around with drain holes on the lower side.

BOX

WIRE SCREEN

FLASHING

The simple two-way stool shown here is made by knocking out one side and one end of a fairly strong box. Round off the corners and fill the box with pillows or tack pads inside. It can be used as a low backrest on the floor, and when inverted makes an ordinary flat-topped seat.

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A rope-wound keg with sponge rubber cushion makes an unusual stool. A similar keg may also be used as a table base. Tack rope to hold in place.

SPONGE RUBBER CUSHION

½-INCH ROPE

LINOLEUM COVERED TOP

Any home craftsman can make this hurricane candlestick. Vent holes should be drilled on the underside to provide air for combustion. An ordinary lamp chimney is used. It will not smoke the chimney nor blow out in the wind.

An old-fashioned, long-handled skillet, an electric clock and the skill of a manufacturing jeweler are the ingredients that go into the making of this unusual cabin timepiece.

Steps in making traditional backwoods chairs. Seat and back can be woven of rawhide or covered with plywood and padded. If bending is not done when wood is green, steam wood in very hot water in covered trough.

TWIST ROPE WITH STICK

WOOD BLOCK

BEND

WEDGE IN TENON TIGHTENS JOING WHEN DRIVEN UP

SLOPING SHOULDER

MORTISE & TENON JOINT

This wagon hub lamp is simple enough to make and carries out the farmyard motif.

A wagon wheel gate makes an interesting entrance to the cabin pathway.

This illustration shows how the guest-book may be given a permanent support. It might be placed in the living room or on a covered porch.

Guest Book

A chandelier made of an old wagon wheel and with the electric fixtures encased in old-fashioned lamps is an interesting and appropriate lighting fixture for the cabin living room.

A novel hatrack made of the mounted head of a buck and four legs that have been cured and tied to make a right angle and then inserted and securely fastened in holes bored into the back board.

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Refinished shutters from old ranch houses make ideal and attractive screens for use in vacation homes. Put them together with small brass two-way hinges, patch up old cracks and holes with plastic wood, scrape and sandpaper all of the old finish until the wood is in fair condition. You can then give the shutters any type of finish that will fit in with your decorative scheme.

If your vacation home happens to be situated where you have R. F. D. mail service or a daily newspaper delivery, why not get away from the ugly and conventional mailbox? Your own cabin built in miniature will make a mailbox that is unusual. Your name on the side of the cabin or on the post below will help to guide the guests to your place.

The apartment idea of using cupboards to divide the kitchen and the dining alcove merits consideration when you are planning your cabin. These cupboards give you the effect of two separate rooms and, of course, supply a good deal of storage space without taking up valuable floor space.

Mountain Cabin Pictures

A mountain cabin scarcely requires the conventional kind of pictures on the walls. However, here are two kinds that fit the cabin picture. Have some extra large enlargements made of photographs of your choicest scenic spots. Mount these and frame them with strips of cedar bark. Geological survey maps or the forest service maps of your vicinity, similarly framed, are an appropriate cabin decoration.

Metal Lined Closets

It is a good idea in every mountain cabin to provide one metal lined closet with floor space the size of a single bed mattress and high enough to store your entire supply of mattresses and bedding, as well as other things you do not wish to go into chipmunks’ and packrats’ warehouses. Tin or zinc is a satisfactory lining. One or two metal lined food storage compartments should also be provided in the cabin kitchen.

This old-fashioned but rustic dining room table is easy to build. Four seasoned posts, some heavy plank, and a supply of nails complete the bill of materials. The table is particularly effective when rustic chairs are used with it.

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Starting the Fireplace Fire

A cupful (not more) of Diesel oil over the laid hearth fire just before lighting is a safe starter with no flare such as kerosene gives. It allows a successful immediate fire with no paper, less kindling, and greater warmth. Diesel oil is efficient and cheap, and the small quantity used for this purpose seems to make no obvious increase of soot. Its safety and cheapness can lead to many adaptations of it as a fire starter in camp or lodge.

If members of your family are not familiar with lighting such fires, warn them against tossing gasoline or kerosene on the flames. It is positively dangerous.

Ordinarily there isn’t space for a bath tub in the average cabin, but a shower is usually acceptable to all but the very small members of the family. If you have young children, you can solve the problem by walling up the shower with cement to a height of two feet from the floor and providing for a stopper in the drain. This makes a small tub that young children will appreciate, and it is easy for adults to step over the wall.

This ox-yoke lighting fixture fits into the cabin atmosphere.

Any wrought iron worker can make this door knocker from an old horseshoe.

This interesting lighting fixture is made by suspending an old kerosene lamp on a hame from a discarded set of harness.

Horseshoe andirons give a ranch effect to the cabin fireplace. Branding irons also make good andirons.

These horseshoe hinges will add interest to the cabin door. The nails shown are ornamental, the necessary support being provided by strong screws countersunk in the iron.

A sheep bell hung from a strap iron spiral makes an interesting door bell. A pull at the bottom sets the bell to jingling gayly.

This portable and collapsible table is easy to make and a great convenience in the kitchen or at the side of the barbecue when you are entertaining outdoors. You can make it of rustic materials or of ordinary lumber. Cover the top with strong canvas or a good grade of oilcloth, or both.

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