The Country Cabin Tour: Before

As I mentioned in my last post, when the Coronavirus came to Chile, we decided for our safety and sanity to move to the countryside, also known as el campo. And while this might seem like another transition we’d have to navigate with our children, our family is no stranger to the campo. My husband and I were married on this property, and it is the only part of Chile that my kids have ever known. Every time that we have visited our Chilean family with our children, we have stayed in the country in the same cabin that we are living in now. When our boys think of Chile, it’s this place. So apart from my rather lax attempts at homeschooling, these kids have returned to a vacation destination. (Should we call this third summer?)

While staying here has always been a vacation, the cabin itself had plenty of room for improvement. The cabin was built about twenty years ago, and over its lifetime has seen a variety of rearrangements, additions and residents. One of our goals when we moved here was to make some updates to the cabin to make it more comfortable for regular weekend visits. Some things that were less than ideal for our family of four were:

1) Teeeeeeeny weeny kitchen. This bite-sized kitchen boasted a small electric cooktop, no stove, minimal counter space, the shallowest little sink that made it almost impossible to wash the dishes without getting soaked with water, and a refrigerator across the room. The cooktop and counter were added for our last visit before moving to Chile in which we stayed for a month. We made it work, but it was limiting. I made a lot of French Toast.

2) No room for a kitchen table. With the addition of the countertop and the refrigerator occupying the corner, there was not much room for eating. We had a small folding table that we would set up in front of that window seat and a larger folding table to set up in the nook next to the kitchen, below.

3) No comfortable sitting space. This little nook is next to the kitchen. Sometimes it was our eating space, sometimes it was storage space, but it was rarely used as a sitting or living space because those benches weren’t very comfortable.

4) No privacy for the bedrooms. Here is another shot of that nook where you can see the semi-private wall separating the “master” bedroom from the living space.

Here is the “master” bedroom. Perfectly fine on its own, but in addition to being open to the living space, it was also the hallway to the kids room. I took this picture standing in the doorway between our bedroom and the kids bedroom.

Turning around, here is the kids room! A set of bi-fold closet style doors separated the rooms. Both of these bedrooms were additions to the main structure. You can see some old outdoor lights in the right-hand corner above the top bunk. Next to those lights you can also see the edge of a window that used to be an exterior window. Keep that in mind as we head to the bathroom.

5. A disproportionately large bathroom with too many doors and windows. This bathroom was much larger than the kitchen and had a lot of dead space. It also had two unused doors and that window that looked into the kids bedroom. The window was covered with a roller shade, but it was still unsettling.

6. Carpet in the bedrooms. Normally, I like carpet in the bedroom. It’s comfortable and cozy and that’s everything I want in my sleeping space. But for a country cabin surrounded by dirt and occupied by young children, it made more sense to have floors that could be easily swept with a broom.

There were, of course, some things that we really loved about the cabin and wanted to enhance. This kitchen window is picture perfect and receives beautiful morning light.

The wood paneling in the original parts of the cabin were also a beautiful feature with that classic cabin vibe.

I am so thankful that we were motivated to get the work done on this cabin shortly after arriving here. The construction crew started in February and finished up just as the world was shutting down. And we have been hiding out in this cozy cabin in the country ever since. But before we jump ahead to the after photos in the next post, a reminder of the very ugly middle.