Our $150 Home In The Woods

(Page 7 of 7)

March/April 1972
By Mary Lee Coe 
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We made enough bookshelves along the north wall for a good-sized library and lined the west side of the kitchen with shelves for packaged foods, dishes and cooking utensils. Once the two stoves were in (with their pipes run out windows and air vents) I lined the cabin's walls with the most beautiful "wallpaper" in the world: free-for-the-taking birchbark. I just cut squares of the bark off dead trees and tacked it between the lodge's rustic exposed beams with carpet tacks. It makes the walls light and spacey and sends the sunrays back in bluishpink shadows. I'm also putting up lots of wall hangings that both insulate and add color to the interior.

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In addition to the nearly $120 Van and I spent for roofing and aluminum paper, we only squandered another $20 for the cement, creosote, nails, staples and caulking compound that went into our house . . . not bad for a luxurious, medium-sized home. Fortunately for me, Van already had all the tools we needed when we began construction.

The whole experience has convinced me that almost anyone can build a comparable house for the same amount of money if they'll just take the time (and have the good will) to go around canvassing for old, reusable lumber. Tearing down and rebuilding has also given me an appreciation of functional beauty, a growing respect for the arts of engineering and design, a will to be accurate and—best of all—a home which grew out of the harmony and freedom of mind given me by a new life in the woods.

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