Hand Crafted
Home & Garden Decor
The Appalachian cabin of yore was a 16 x 20 foot windowless room decorated with
a fireplace at one end, a crudely fashioned table, nail less chairs or
puncheon stools, home made candles for light, a spinning wheel for making
thread, and maybe a quilting frame, some pottery, and some baskets for
gathering vegetables in the garden. A bed frame, "stitched" with taut rope
that held a mattress of straw, was a "modern day" convenience that gave us the
saying "Sleep tight, and don't let the bed bugs bite." (Probably a bigger
summer problem than winter.)
Today's cozy homes and cabins are made that more decorative with
hand-crafted furniture and accessories from the past. Of course we've put our
own finishing touches to yesteryear's improvisations.
Garden Decor
Gardening in the highlands took on a much different meaning in the pioneer days of yore. Fruit and
vegetables were grown for food or trade; and perennials, chiefly herbs, were used for spice or medicine. Flowers, like marigolds
or petunias, kept out the rabbits. Bulbs from Europe were planted around the cabin, and native plants like sweetshrub and silverleaf were prized for their cosmetic as well as aesthetic attributes.
If you'd like to find out more about Appalachian gardening, we invite you to read our Plant by the Signs section. From it, you'll gain insight to planting by the astrological and moon signs, a highland mountaineer tradition.
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