I’ve been feeling a little detached from the Warming Hut; new projects (yay!) at work are diverting my focus.
I decided to build the remains of a circular cistern for under the hut, both as a plausible once-functional structure, and as a symbolic reservoir to catch and hold ideas :) It was fun and evocative.
But then of course… it drew attention to the barely seen but now unavoidable eyesore that is the shambling way I attached the front steps to the deck. It’s a *little* space under there — the foundation posts are 3 inches (7.62 cm) tall — and it’s torturous fitting my hands in there now, between the posts, over the boulders. It’s challenging just to get a glue bottle in and shaking spoonfuls of beach gravel. However.
So I measured and built a little wall to close off the under stairs. I wanted it old and disheveled, kind of abandoned mine shaft, and I didn’t want to spend a lot of time. I *thought* about doing intriguing doors or more old wrought iron, but really, it’s barely visible.
Here it is all bright. I did more distressing of the bricks before I wrangled it into place.
And here it is in place. I like that it recedes and blends into the background, as it should. The cistern is the center point of interest, holding as it does our random thoughts and stories. But just for a while. Unrealized, they seep back into the ground, and water the deep roots of our imaginations.
Hold on, little cistern!
nancyland.com 
Love it!
Thanks, Jan.
Looking good and real :-)
Thank you, Marion!
How enchanting.
High praise, Keli, thank you.
So many great and tiny details make a story here.
I’m glad you think so, Bennie. And now I just saw more brackets are needed on the interior posts. It never ends :)
This whole ‘underneath’ world is most intriguing!
I think a fascination with ruins (as clues to what once was?) is as compelling as our enduring obsession and delight with miniatures. I feel lucky when I find the odd lump of brick on a beach walk, or a smooth piece of wood that was probably part of something else.