Happy Holidays everyone!  We hope you had an wonderful Christmas.  

The day after Chistmas, we headed down to our cabin.

It was at least -20 below inside the cabin that first night.  The poor kids huddled around the wood stove for a couple of hours, while waiting for the cabin to warm up a little bit.  It was so cold inside the cabin that our produce and water froze inside the cabin.  That night, we all went to bed in our snow gear, all four of us in a pile under all the sleeping bags in the big bed.  By morning the upstairs loft was warm, but the rest of the cabin was still cold. This is the downside of building a large cabin in remote Alaska - it takes forever to heat up.

More than a day later, the windows are still all frosted up.  Those triple pain windows are doing their job and keeping the heat in, but we sure miss being able to see out the windows.

The sun is only shining on the lake for about 45 minutes during the day right now, as it's not rising high enough to clear the mountains yet, so despite it being -20 outside, the kids are skating and sledding.  If you dress warm, and keep moving, you'll be warm.

Inside the cabin, it's finally warming up.  We've been doing lots of cooking and baking in the kitchen trying to help warm up the cabin.

We love the kitchen in the cabin so much!  

I wanted lots of light and a window over the kitchen sink.  But with the large windows, the only wall space left in the kitchen is above the stove.  I had originally planned on building wall cabinets there, but with the stove in the middle, the cabinets would have to be pretty small to fit on either side of the stove, with a small cabinet over the stove.  So instead, we opted for open shelving!

In a recreational cabin where your storage needs are less, the open shelving is perfect.  

We used all scrap wood to make these shelves, but even if we bought new materials, this option is so inexpensive and fast!

Check out the plans below!

Enjoy the rest of your Holiday!

Ana