Recently renovated by Melissa Coleman (designer and minimalist blogger of The Faux Martha), the Minne Stuga is available for rent when she and her family are not using it. Indeed, Minnesotans often vacation in rustic cabins and vacation rentals on the North Shore in the summer, allowing Minne Stuga to host frequent visitors.
The renovation project involved several local Minnesota businesses. However, it was the Norwegian brand Kebony that was chosen to replace all of the chalet's cladding and decking. Melissa Coleman was keen to retain the rural spirit of this chalet, and the Kebony wood provided precisely that natural tactile feel that matched the original Minne Stuga design.
The dark planks of Kebony Character wood help to unite the chalet with its natural environment, while emphasizing its presence and elegance. Its durability, hardness and high dimensional stability made it a reliable and environmentally friendly solution, ideal for this project.
Developed in Norway, Kebony technology is a patented, environmentally friendly process that modifies sustainably sourced softwoods by heating the wood with furfuryl alcohol; a product of organic origin. By polymerizing the cell wall of the wood, softwoods permanently adopt the attributes of tropical hardwood. This unique process gives Kebony wood its characteristic appearance, which continues to improve over time.
It is therefore natural that Kebony wood was chosen for this project. "When we first walked into the cabin, we couldn't see the lake," recalls Melissa Coleman, describing the floor-to-ceiling windows as constantly fogged up. The chalet was run down, the interiors dated. It was in 2020 that the owner began looking for collaborators for the ambitious restoration of the Minne Stuga, and the Kebony brand quickly stood out due to its technical, durable and aesthetic qualities.
Kebony is a real, high-end, ecological and durable wood, used in many outdoor applications: decking, cladding, roofing and furniture.
Kebony technology is a patented production process that improves the properties of softwoods to give them characteristics comparable to those of exotic woods. Thanks to an environmentally friendly process, the woods are impregnated with an organic liquid from agricultural crop waste. By heating the wood, the furfuryl polymers are impregnated into the cell walls of the wood, increasing its density and dimensional stability, and giving it a dark brown color similar to a tropical wood. The company's global headquarters are based in Oslo, Norway, and its production sites are located in Skien, south of Oslo and Antwerp in Belgium.