Red Bird Cabin

My new art studio is coming together!  Adam, my partner-in-crime, has been painstakingly building it over the past 2 months (with my help here and there), and now we have the doors & windows in, the siding on, shingles on the roof, and sheetrock installed.  I haven’t tallied up the total cost of the project yet, but it was done on a tight budget.

Art Studio in Progress

We bought the windows & doors on craigslist, the stained glass window on Ebay (which had to be reframed), got the shingles for free, and bought the Board and Batten redwood siding from a local guy who sustainably harvested & milled a few trees on his property.  Board and Batten is one of the most inexpensive ways to cover a building, and is easy to install.  It also gives the studio that rustic, barn-like feel that I love.

Hours and hours of hard labor

Our cabin came with those flimsy particle board walls that rattle when you shut the door too fast.  You know… the kind that you don’t want to lean on too hard for fear of falling through. The house wasn’t insulated either, which added to the general “hollow wall” feeling.  So, they had to go.  Equipped with a hammer and crow bar, the walls came down pretty fast.

inside the wall

What’s Behind an Old Wall?
Mostly, we found empty space.  But, there were quite a few dead spiders, abandoned webs, and other creepy crawly remnants.  (We also found an old black & white photo of a toddler and a rose quartz crystal.)  Yes, it was a little eerie.  Now that the walls are off, the cabin is ready for rewiring and plumbing.  After that, she’ll get a fresh set of real sheetrock walls.