TRENDING ON FINEHOMEBUILDING

previous
  • 2014 HOUSES Awards
    2014 HOUSES Awards
  • Clever daily tip in your inbox
    Clever daily tip in your inbox
  • Remodeling in Action
    Remodeling in Action
  • The Hobbit House and More
    The Hobbit House and More
  • 2013 HOUSES Awards
    2013 HOUSES Awards
  • 7 Smart Kitchen Solutions
    7 Smart Kitchen Solutions
  • 7 Small Bathroom Layouts
    7 Small Bathroom Layouts
  • Basement Remodeling Tips
    Basement Remodeling Tips
  • Outdoor Kitchen Inspiration
    Outdoor Kitchen Inspiration
  • 12 Remodeling Secrets
    12 Remodeling Secrets
  • 15 Coffered-Ceiling Ideas
    15 Coffered-Ceiling Ideas
  • What’s the best decking?
    What’s the best decking?
  • Read FHB on Your iPad
    Read FHB on Your iPad
  • 9 Concrete Countertops Ideas
    9 Concrete Countertops Ideas
  • All about Roofing
    All about Roofing
next

Square One: Good Home Design Starts Here

Square One: Good Home Design Starts Here


Design snapshot: A woodshed to remember

comments (0) March 8th, 2012 in Blogs
KHS Katie Hutchison, Contributor

Click To Enlarge Photo: Katie Hutchison

To immortalize a woodshed in this way both amused and heartened me. Of course, this isn't marking any, old woodshed; this recognizes Henry David Thoreau's woodshed, behind his cabin near Walden Pond in Concord, Mass.

The elegant, engraved, flush stone denotes a site vital to Thoreau's solitary cabin life in the mid-eighteen-hundreds. It was here that he stored the wood, vital to stoking the cabin fire that warmed him while he wrote. Without the woodshed, perhaps he never would have had the cabin experience that led him to write Walden: Or, Life in the Woods.

I imagine that the notion of acknowledging and celebrating something as fundamental and essential as the woodshed would have pleased Thoreau, as would the stone marker itself. Simple and rugged, surrounded by a soft bed of leaves, it seems a fitting echo of Thoreau's hardy life amidst the natural world.

It is, after all, the luxury of life's essentials, like wood for a warm shelter, which makes our intellectual lives possible.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast and SquareOne

 

Read more design snapshots by architect Katie Hutchison.


posted in: Blogs, architecture, Design, Design snapshot, landscape stone marker

Comments (0)

You must be logged in to post comments. Log in.