SUMMER AT THE CABIN | a note from Chessa
Every year my family comes to a little island on the Pacific coast of Canada to enjoy some slow summer days. Bare feet and salty skin, easing into the cold water inch by inch like my grandmothers did. Fresh caught crab and prawns for dinner, eaten outside for as long as the light holds. The kids playing kick-the-can and sardines until dark, then staying up late watching meteor showers.
Both my maternal and paternal family have homes on this little island, layered with pieces accumulated over generations.
A coffee sack from her childhood home in El Salvador hangs at one granny's cabin, beside pottery from East Africa and Latin America. Mexican folk art, hand loomed textiles and woven hats gathered over the decades hang on the walls at my other grandmother's cabin. Everything has a story.
I was inspired to found Twenty One Tonnes in part by these craft-filled spaces that my grandmothers created.
And now some Twenty One Tonnes pieces have found a home here. Lighting and floor baskets woven in northern Ghana by the women of SWOPA add a rich new layer to these special rooms. I love how they look like they were always here.
"There is a continuity here that stretches through generations. Everyone has made their mark."
See more images and read one cabin's background story in this Cottage Life Magazine feature, and this Remodelista feature.