The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Turning a closet into a window seat

A closet turned into a window seat

Mark's been promising to add a window to my office ever since we moved to Ohio. But I didn't take him up on it because I couldn't quite visualize what I wanted. Then, in November, a burst of inspiration consumed me. Of course! I wanted a window seat!

Since I'm not a clothes horse, my closet was half empty. That made it easy to move those clothes elsewhere and reinvision my closet as a cozy little nook overlooking the forest. Once I dreamed it up, Mark made it happen.

Lots of saws

First step was cutting a hole in the wall. Since the weather was nippy, Mark did this in two stages. Initially, he took out all of the inner layers, leaving the metal in place. This required lots of different kinds of saws.

Installing a window in a trailer

Then he framed up the window, lifting the window in and out a few times until he had it just right. Now it was time to cut away the metal on the outside of the trailer with an angle grinder. A bit of touchup and a lot of caulk had me sealed back in.

Building a window seat

The window seat itself was framed up out of leftover lumber. I used this two-part cushion to give myself some padding. Throw on some trim inside and the project was done in record time.

Anna Hess's photos

Since then, it's been hard to tear myself away from the window seat. I sit there with a book or a notebook, relaxing or researching while watching the birds. Half the time, I end up with the window open, hanging halfway out with my camera so I can snap wildlife shots.

Which is a long way of saying --- while I've barely been posting here, you can see lots of nature photos if you follow me on my new instagram page. Hope to see you over there!



Anna Hess's books
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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Good to see you back here! I love the window seat, and your pictures. I don't do Instagram or other social media so I've really enjoyed seeing you here!
Comment by Maggie Turner Fri Feb 11 18:36:41 2022





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