I don’t know about you, but I always save the best for last—the cookie dough balls at the bottom of the soupy ice cream bowl, pizza after salad, lunch then a Justin’s Dark Chocolate Almond Buttercup. But I’m going out of order in sharing rooms of The Minne Stuga, showing you the cabin kitchen way before I share the rest of the spaces. It’s a cookie dough first kinda day because the kitchen might just be my favorite spot in the cabin. That is until I show you my next favorite spot and the one after that. I have so many favorite spots that take me to the deepest of cozy places, but the kitchen just might be at the tippy top. Read more

Life seems to come in waves, in seasons. And after a long season of construction (and other hard things), we’ve made it to the other side of this big idea called The Minne Stuga. When we, Kev and I, took on this idea, we weren’t sure we’d be able to pull it off. I mean, we thought we would, we hoped we would, but it felt a little risky. And then we found out we were pregnant 4 days after putting in our offer on the cabin. And then COVID hit right as we were finally about to start construction, at the same time Linnie was born. (Construction didn’t start for another year.) And then the sky kept falling, for everyone, not just us.  Read more

I have a page permanently bookmarked in a book with a title more provocative than its contents, which are great by the way. The book is called Steal Like an Artist. And the bookmarked page is titled “The Life of a Project.” And on that page is a line graph with a point way up high called “This is the best idea ever.” Have you ever been there? (I’m always way up there.) The line steadily drops lower and lower into the “dark night of the soul.” They are to be expected yet always show up completely by surprise when working on a new project, especially something you’ve never done before. We are currently in one, a dark night. But one thing we know to be true in Minnesota—the dark days always get shorter and brighter and longer. In fact, light hangs in the sky this far north into the 10:00 hour. Read more

I haven’t been posting much lately, but I’ve been working like crazy, at a pace that’s not sustainable, into the night and on into the weekends. Designing a cabin and building a new tiny company (a cabin rental) sounds so simple and easy when you tuck it into a sentence like so. But it’s taken every last resource to pull off something like this during a pandemic, with a baby, school at home for most of that time, plus a postpartum mushy brain. I keep saying, “We did it, we’re doing it!” I even said it while talking to the bank last week. That was awkward. I’m not sure if I’m willing it to happen or looking for something to celebrate. Probably a little bit of both. So in the spirit of celebrating, I’d love to show you what I’ve been working on—the cabin interior mood boards. To read more about the what and the why of The Minne Stuga, head this way. (Note: I’ve often sounded like the antagonist in Thomas the Tank Engine, saying things like “I think I can’t.” It’s not all roses over here.) Read more

There are tick marks on the wall in our painted black bathroom made from chalked lines and scribbled dates, memorializing the passing of time and the changing of heights. We measured Hal on that wall, thinking it had been a while. It had. Three inches of growth, yet no mention of 2020 on the wall. Everything stopped last year, from the chalk lines to The Minne Stuga cabin, a special project that we announced almost exactly a year ago, a project we thought we were just about to begin. And then the pandemic hit. With job cutbacks at Kev’s work and a maternity leave for me, unpaid because I work for myself, we weren’t sure we were going to be able to pull off this little cedar-clad getaway, for you and for me. Read more

I have a big, little secret to share with you. Not just to tell you, but to share with you. An invitation of sorts. To a place and a space that’s become quite special to me, to us. A place they call “Up North” around here, known for its breathtaking beauty and superior shores with craggy coastlines and wild woods. If you’re from Minnesota, it’s a place you probably intimately know and love. And if you’re not from here, like us not so long ago, I’d like to invite you over or up or down, but especially away. Read more