A Word in the Woods

Who says a secluded retreat needs to be rustic and run-down? House & Home‘s Suzanne Dimma and 3rd Uncle Design‘s Arriz Hassam walk viewers through their amazingly designed cottage in this six-minute-long video.

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Tags: construction, cottage, off-grid, Suzanne Dimma
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A while back, I posted about the cottage that Suzanne Dimma was building in Southern Ontario with her husband-to-be, and I thought I’d follow up with a link to Arriz Hassam’s blog post on the same subject. Unfortunately, it seems like it’s just the one post, but there are such beautiful images of the countryside that I had to share. There are no pictures of the cottage itself, which is a shame, but you can get your fill with Suzanne’s blog posts. Some of it is about her personal experiences, or the design of the cottage. I like seeing how they’ve managed to make a very comfortable, secluded place in the woods. I have never thought that camping, canoeing, hiking, living, or just retreating to the woods has to be about “roughing” it. This couple has managed to prove this point in a graceful way.

See Arriz’s photos and blog:

• Treehouse: first impressions

Read Suzanne Dimma’s Blog posts:

• Survivor: Cottage Edition (The original post)
• Survivor Part 2: Cottage Construction
• Hours before the wedding (One of the nicest outhouses I’ve ever seen!)
• Cottage Kitchen Installation

Tags: Arriz Hassam, construction, cottage, Suzanne Dimma
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Suzanne Dimma | Canadian House & Home

Great blog post about Suzanne Dimma’s cottage build. I’m very very jealous. She describes the truly epic process that it took to get her dream cottage ready for her wedding to Arriz Hassam. It helps that they and their build team (Level Design Build) are all very talented and this definitely has the look of a labour of love.

The cottage is water-access-only, and off the grid, so their methods had to be innovative and creative to get the level of  refinement and quality they wanted. A series of pulleys and ropes were used to haul all the materials. There was no power, no machinery once they got to the dock by barge, so from there, every single piece of lumber and other building supplies used manpower alone to get in place.

I love that this demonstrates an unplugged approach to build a very modern, elegant cottage. Nothing rustic about it, yet some ‘rustic’ cabins use much more modern building techniques.

Read the entire article on Suzanne Dimma’s blog at Houseandhome.com

Tags: construction, cottage, off-grid, Suzanne Dimma
Posted in News | 2 Comments »