"Clear, practical book ... full-color photos help do-it-yourselfers realize their dreams." -- Log Homes Illustrated The best-selling Cabins is back in print, at the same great value of its original price. This authoritative how-to title gives readers all the information they need to build their own cabin, including: A useful list of essential questions to consider during the planning process - Types of cabin construction, such as pole built, stick built, post and beam, stone, cordwood, wood siding, and the advantages of each - Site preparation, foundations, windows and doors, ladders and stairs, insulation, roofing, electricity, water systems and heating - Essential information on log cabins - Cabin designs and their advantages - Furnishings and accessories Construction methods are clearly illustrated in meticulous line drawings and precise plans with measurements. Cut-away cross-sections and exploded diagrams give the builder the true perspective and detail needed to obtain the best result, allowing readers to get the most enjoyment out of their newly built wilderness retreat. The Stiles ... show how to build a cabin that reflects the builder's lifestyle. ( Library Journal 2001-09-01) If you've ever thought of building a little retreat somewhere ... you will probably enjoy this book ... Cabins is geared to the modern homebuilder -- homes have to meet modern building codes, after all -- and examines a variety of building techniques. ( New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal 2001-05-26) You'll find not only the practical issues ... but also the inspiration to help select the cabin that is perfect. (Kandis Carper Spokane Spokesman-Review 2001-05-25) An invaluable resource ... step-by-step instructions starting with basic planning. (Stacie Gentile Calgary Sun 2001-06-16) The kind of book that stirs the imagination. ( Lexington Herald-Leader 2001-06-03) A primer for anyone with dreams of 'getting away from it all.' (Ted Hainworth Saskatoon Star Phoenix 2001-07-21) Clear, practical book ... full-color photos help do-it-yourselfers realize their dreams. ( Log Homes Illustrated 2001-11-01) With this study of the what, when, where, and how of cabin building, anyone's yearning for the last great place can be satiated. (Patrick A. Smith ForeWord 2001-10-01) [The book will] lead the clumsiest carpenter through the necessary steps to build a cozy getaway. (Annie Stoltie Adirondack Life 2002-10-15) You can do it!... For tips read Cabins: A Guide to Building Your Own Nature Retreat. (Rebecca Sawyer-Fay Cottage Living 2005-04-01) David Stiles is a designer/builder who, together with his wife, Jeanie Stiles , has written articles for publications such as Better Homes and Gardens and the New York Times and authored 15 books, including Sheds and The Treehouse Book (which won the ALA Notable Children's Book Award). The Stiles divide their time between New York City and East Hampton, New York. Foreword by Don Metz, architect In North American culture, the cabin holds a unique place in our collective consciousness. Enshrined in the best traditions of grassrooted nostalgia, the cabin symbolizes those bedrock frontier virtues of self-reliance, sturdiness, simplicity, humility and ---by inference -- honesty. By its very lack of pretension, the cabin connotes a purity of life whose loss we yearn to recall. As a genre, it stands at the moral center of a particularly American ethos defined by a cast of characters as diverse as Abe Lincoln, Davy Crockett and Henry David Thoreau. During the colonial era, the cabin was home on much of the frontier, and is still remembered in folklore, song and verse as a safe and cozy haven. Today, the notion of the cabin as Home Sweet Home persists in literature and film. Whether in the mountains, on the prairie or by the lake, it remains a symbol of all that we value. Today, the cabin has become the place we get away to when the place we're in has worn us out, a retreat from anxiety, a place dedicated to renewal. From the moment we lift the latch, push open the door and inhale that smoky-creosote-camphor cabin scent, we are altered for the better. More than a home away from home, the cabin reminds us of how -- we like to think -- life used to be lived in simpler times. It provides us with an opportunity to be closer to nature, and closer still to one another. The cabin is where we go to replace the hum of technology with the buzzing of insects, where cyberspace is out of place, where a mouse still has two ears and four legs. The cabin is a simple, sacred place where food and drink always taste better, where music sounds brighter, where evenings with loved ones linger longer into pleasure, where sleep is deep and dawn is fresh with wonders we've elsewhere forgotten. Cabins seeks to address not only the practical issues involved in the design and building of a cabin, but also to encourage the impulse. Life is long, but need it be so hectic? Imagine: