Heavy, man.

We have been furnishing and outfitting our cabin.  It's been a lot of fun.

We started with a concept, and decorated/outfitted it according to that concept.  We did the same thing with Nuestra Casa in Mesa--the concept for that home was the French Quarter in New Orleans.  So we have a lot of very bright colors (no white), cast iron, and outside gardens all around the home.

Our "concept" for our cabin is, well, a mountain log cabin.

We have an excellent start because it is a log cabin--literally.  So the entire outside is logs, and with the exception of a few interior walls, the inside is all logs and wood.  The ceilings are all wood, for example.  And the floor is a wood laminate.

Outside, the "yard" is not grass, but instead is whatever native plants choose to grow here.  And our lawn decorations are the elk who graze in our yard--sometimes walking within two feet of our porch where we are sitting.

So part of the thought was simply not to mess up what it is--a mountain log cabin.

The other piece of our concept for the cabin is one of our favorite songs, Ripplin' Waters by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.  It is a song written by a band member, Jimmy Ibbotson, and released in 1975.  Here are the first part of the lyrics:

I've got ripplin' water to wake me
To the mornin', my woman and love
And tall pine trees are pointing us easily
To heaven above

 

Blue spruce flaming on the grate in the evening
Takes the chill away fine
Cut the telephone line
And the story's the same

 

There's a worn red chair by the window
That we found at a sale down the way
When some old women said that they
Needed more room for the winter

But people like pulling out the stuffing when they sit down
And so it passes the time
Cut the telephone line
The story's the same

 

Oh, like a bubble on a windy day
I start to flutter when I hear you say
That you feel too good to go away

 
And you make me feel fine

And you made my world a warmer place
By the sparkling of your diamond face
On a frayed spot put a little lace

 
And you make me feel fine
Warm as the mountain sunshine
On the edge of the snow line
In a meadow of columbine

 

Here is a youtube link.  One of the all-time great songs.  Ripplin' Waters.  We love to do the Nightclub 2-step, one of our favorite dances, to this song.  We just push back the couch, roll up the rug, and go at it!

So, how do you decorate in "mountain log cabin?'  

Wood.  Wood.  Wood.  Nothing that looks modern. 

And old stuff.  So we have brought a number of our antiques here, and they fit well.  We bought two loveseats off of Amazon that are a perfect match in our opinions.

And we are decorating in "cowboy," using a number of the 40s and 50s vintage items that Dan has collected over the years.  After all, cowboys lived in log cabins.

 

We have shown a number of photos of how we are decorating.

 

But we are not just "staying" here in our 50's cowboy mountan log cabin.    Instead, we are "living" here, which means, for us, that we use this cabin as a jumping off point for outdoor activities---just like real  cowboys did.    :)

One of our main activities is hiking.  We can access hundreds of miles of hiking opportunities easily.  Some of them start right outside our home.  Others require a 30-minute drive to access the unlimited potential of the Mogollon Rim.

Another activity that we can access is something completely new for us--mountain biking.  

We have purchased two Rad electric-assist mountain bikes.  We do not have the knees, back, or leg muscles to do straight mountain biking.  After all, we are in our 70s.  But we also didn't want motorcycles.  Electric assist bikes mean just that---they can assist us when we are cycling up steep hills, but we still have to work at it ourselves.  We get to decide how much assist we want.  We are so excited to be trying something new.

 

Our bikes.....before assembly by us:

 

 

 

And for the "something old," we have room in our home to dance.

 

And play ping-pong.  We ordered a ping pong table for the cabin and had it delivered.

 

So, we have had moved into our cabin, up the 10 or so steps, a ping pong table, two 110 lb packages containing bikes, two couches, a trailer assembly to haul the mountain bikes, wood TV trays (twice because we had to return the first set), my Yamaha organ, six real-wood end tables, two chests, a large TV,  etc.  

All of these items are heavy.  HEAVY.  And it has been an adventure watching some of them being delivered.  UPS drivers and FedEx drivers have been able to lift the bikes and some other items up onto our porch.  That has been quite impressive.   But then we had to take them into the house and, for some, up the stairs to the loft.  

We did it! 

 

 

The ping pong table was a different story.  It was delivered in a pickup bed by two 70-year-old+ men who, between them couldn't get it onto the porch.  No wonder.  They were too old to do this, and too infirm. One of them (believe this) was actually on oxygen.  Dan had to do it for them.

 

We now have all of the "heavy stuff" into our mountain log cabin.  We still have work to do to settle in, but the heavy lifting is done.....thanks to us and to a few very strong and pleasant men and to two guys who were doing their best.