Kitchen of the Week: A Cost-Conscious Cabin Kitchen Puzzled Together from Vintage Finds

The cabin dates from 1979, but its newly shored-up kitchen has the sepia warmth of a much earlier era. Located in the Poconos, in Bushkill, Pennsylvania, a hike from the famous Bushkill Falls, the hideaway was purchased by a group of four friends for use as a retreat and word-of-mouth rental.

The new owners include Brooklyn-based designers Lauren Lochry and Jeff Gillway who, on the group’s tight budget, set out to remodel the rooms using found objects and materials from the region. “The structural bones of the house were intact, but the interior had been left abandoned and was uninhabitable,” reports Lochry. “We did the majority of the renovation ourselves—but we called in an electrician and plumber.”

While the dirty work was underway, they also dug around in local salvage yards and were first in line at garage sales. Their finds slowly added up to the “collaged” cabinet wall that’s now the star attraction of the revived kitchen. Come see the time-travel appeal of dark wood, old stone, and chainsaw art.

Photography courtesy of Ridge House (@_ridgehouse).

When the cabin was being remodeled, Lochry and Gillway jointly ran the Brooklyn design studio Ridge House; it’s now Lochry’s own business: she specializes in interior design and staging, and offers some vintage finds in the shop on her site.

The icebox holds small appliances; its durable lining was retrofitted with electrical outlets. The fridge, not shown, is hidden behind wooden doors.

The back wall is an easy, effective transformation: it’s 1970s artificial wood paneling painted in Sherwin Williams’s White Flour to creative “a textured wainscoting effect.”

The circular table is an antique butcher’s table “made from a single tree trunk raised on three turned legs: it’s used as a work surface and island with a single bar stool.” Meals are eaten in the adjacent dining room and on the outdoor patio.

Here are two past projects by Ridge House:

• Lovely, Dark, and Deep: An 1800s Victorian House in Nebraska, Restored Down to the Doorknobs
• Scene Stealers: Moody Vignettes in a Brooklyn Loft

More cabins? Check out the Remodelista Cabins and Cottages archive for many more of our favorites.