Clare Martin's Page

In an ongoing attempt to educate myself by reading classic novels I somehow missed in school, I chose to spend a good chunk of my summer reading Walden, Henry David Thoreau's manifesto on living simply. Given that the book's subtitle is "Life in the Woods," is it any wonder that I constantly found myself comparing Thoreau to all the log-home dreamers I've encountered in my two years working on Log Home Living? There was one passage, in which Thoreau describes his dream home, that I felt particul… Continue

To anyone else, the weather would have been perfect—clear and sunny, with a crisp breeze that made the day particularly invigorating. But to this Southern-born girl (who gets chilly when the temperature drops below 80 degrees), "invigorating" is just another word for cold. And cold is something I never expect to be in July. Of course, I was in Wisconsin, just north of the "tension line" (the line that marks the halfway point between the Equator and the North Pole), so perhaps I shouldn't have be… Continue

It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I realized the extent of my love affair with stripes. I was looking around my apartment one day and suddenly noticed that every single room had something striped in it—a potholder in the kitchen, an area rug in the living room, a lampshade in the bedroom. I'm not sure what it is that draws me to stripes (perhaps my mom dressed me in a lot of striped clothing as a kid?), but they always seem to project a cheerful vibe. Plus, they're an easy pattern to wo… Continue