subject: How Log Cabins First Got Their Style [print this page] There is a huge movement in our country and around the world really to return to simpler times when it comes to the way we live. People are learning that they can live in smaller places don't don't require as much resources to build. They want to use more solar energy and less water. The more each of us can reduce our environmental footprint the better. Of course, people don't want to give up electricity or hot running water, but they are just trying to find better ways to have it.
This is much the way that the early pioneers lived not because they had to worry so much about what they were doing to the planet, but because that was the only way available to them. They lived so much off of the land on their way west into the deep wilderness and they only carried with them the little they had because it was almost impossible to cart it through places that had no roads cleared and where there had never before been real settlements except where the Native Americans sometimes inhabited.
Most of the functional items the pioneers needed they did either bring with them or they made themselves. This is one way the log cabin came to be decorated. Since it was so difficult to bring ready made furniture over hills, valleys, rivers and streams in wagons, a lot of the necessary items like log beds, chairs and tables were handcrafted when they got to where they were going out of whatever trees were available in the area.
While rustic log furniture was definitely a part of the first cabin decoration, so were other things like hand woven blankets and pottery made by the Native Americans. These things were purchased from the few stores that sprang up from place to place or through direct trade with the Native Americans. These items are still commonly seen in cabins today because they provide that original feel of what a cabin looked like in those days.
Most people that choose to live in a rustic styled home these days still want to maintain that rustic look inside too. It is easier to do now than it was for pioneers because you have the Internet at your disposal. You can go on line and order you rustic log furniture and hand crafted accessories and have them delivered to your cabin or log home no matter how far out you live. You might not get your rustic items the same way the pioneers did, but your home can still have the same look and feel as their's did way back then.
