Today is the first installment of a series I'll call Pine Hollow Lodge...
(click any photo to enlarge)
Here, the lodge porch beckons visitors to sit down and makes oneself comfy and cozy with pine rockers, twig tables, and a creative porch railing made with tree branches. On this foggy morning, the sound of the creek and the birdsong was my greeting.
When we went north over Labor Day weekend, my sister and her family were going to be out of town....so she loaned us her house to use for our lodging. What an enjoyable stay we had! I got her permission to share her home with you.
This home was originally built as a summer home for a lumber baron from Saginaw. A few years after he built it, he contracted TB and had to move to New Mexico for the cure. He donated his home in Saginaw to the city, and his cabin in the woods to the YMCA. He was a big game hunter and had many mounts on the walls. This was the first home in the county to have a radio. When they stayed here, they would invite the neighborhood kids over to listen to the radio and older people from the area still remember coming here for that.
My sis and her husband bought it from a judge and a realtor, it had been a YMCA camp with an addition that was still set up like a camp with three bathroom stalls, three sinks and three showers, the upstairs was open with rows of beds lined up under the eaves.
Purchased in 1987, it was their cabin for weekends, and they had a lot of fun having friends and family in to stay and fish, swim or tube in the creek or in one of the many lakes nearby, and watch wildlife. Eventually as her husband's job became something he wanted do from home, they decided to make their permanent home in the woods. They sold what they had downstate and moved in 1995 and remodeled what was there and lived and raised a family in it, and eight years ago, decided to add on and take on the lodge look for the exterior, and for part of the interior.
My sister is one of the most creative and artistic people that I know. Most of the ideas for the inside of the home were hers, and she hired an excellent woodworker to help her make her ideas come to life. She has imagined and then seen delivered some wonderful cabinets and pieces of furniture you could ever want.
What satisfaction she must have as she uses these useful but gorgeous pieces of furniture every day.
The woodworker did a wonderful job and with her help in imagining and with her artists eye and creativity...you can see that she has a one of a kind home. For instance, above you can see some custom cabinetry she drew up and ordered (the designs inside the cabinets are just as detailed as the outside!) and some of the artwork she had done on the doors embellished with birch bark and twigs, with door pulls and drawer pulls being deer antlers! The paintings in the cabinets here are oil paintings done by a local art teacher.
On the table in the foreground, is a photo of the original structure.
The gorgeous fireplace reaches to the high ceilings...artwork on the TV cabinet doors stands in as a painting that would normally be hanging on a wall! Her husband and children did their part to restock the lodge once again with lots of mounts on the walls by bringing home the mounts year after year from hunting trips near and far.
And I remember the day we both spotted these twin Woolrich wool plaid hunting couches in a nearby town's furniture store display window...what could be more fitting? And they're complete with bullet-shaped nail heads on the front of each arm! This wool pattern reminds many of us of our dad's hunting clothing worn back before hunter's orange was required. 
Mary had these insets made for the railing and posters were cut apart and are mounted in the ovals cut out of a piece of birch bark. Each one a different outdoor or wilderness scene! A lot of the pine used to make the tongue and groove on the ceiling, the doors and trim and entertainment centers and living room cabinets came from the land where this home sits. The stairway, hardwood floors and kitchen cabinets are ash, and it was cut when the ash borer plague hit Michigan, thereby making it a good buy. This home sits in a huge forested area where lumbering is king. So there are plenty of lumber mills nearby that will work your trees into usable lumber.
The chunky 4" ash stair treads are such a work of beauty!
This coffee table was designed by Mary and the workmanship is delightful, her ideas for trimming the drawer with twigs are seen here.
An extra seating area in the living room near the window showcases some gorgeous antique finds that have been reupholstered to match the lodge theme.A view from the stairway and landing overlooking the living area.
A grouping of outdoorsy "tree" mirrors with a birch bark planter beneath them. Mary loves to decorate for Christmas and she pulls out all the stops and this place lends itself to old-fashioned Christmas decorating...I hope to be able to show you that in December!
Delightful cabinets hold some of Mary's collection of china sets, this one being an outdoorsy pattern.
Want to see more?
Next up in the series? A blueberry kitchen in the lodge! Soon.
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Jamie and Thad in Colorado this summer....
