Low-Toxicity Wellness Cabin near Breckenridge Colorado

What is the meaning behind a Wellness Escape? Lets start from the ground up on how we built a low toxicity cabin for our family in Colorado!

Non-Toxic short term rentals are going to be a huge area of growth for vacation homes in the next few years. Its already happening at resorts who have more capital at their disposal. Not only has the wellness community blown up with saunas and offerings its a whole movement that will sweep the Vacation Rental market in an attempt to stay ahead. Our A- frame started construction in 2021 and it was a cornerstone in how we designed the space for our family and to share with you from the start. Here are some of the things we did to make it a Wellness Escape.

Yvonna (your host) with our children during construction

Our flooring is natural wood from a local company out of Frisco,Co. Vantia, supplying quality, beautiful, and non-toxic flooring options. This was especially important to us because we love the look and feel of natural wood, it's easier to clean, can be refinished at a later date if necessary making it a good long term investment. Since we have radiant floor heating it had to be made with clean products as heat tends to release chemicals so it was extra important that they be sourced clean.

Our interior and exterior siding was also sourced in Colorado. Vintage Woods is a beautiful welcoming showroom with excellent customer service. We were able to see so many styles, textures, colors it was a dream. We were able to select a color pallet that we loved and even got a custom match so that the flooring and the interior paneling matched exactly. A lot of the inspiration photos we saw of A-frames had a different colored wood floor compared to their interior wood cladding and while that was great for them I couldn't enjoy a mis-matched color on the floor and walls to me it had to seamlessly match. The best part is its natural wood and all organic so the off gassing and acoustics would be minimal.

Interior paint, two-thirds of our cabin is painted with natural mineral paint by Color Atelier. This was a huge expense for us so we could only do the main living area and top floor. I love that it has a soft feel on the eyes and is safe when the A gets hot in the summer so no worries with VOC's releasing. I don't know if I would do this again I think it's great for its natural reasons but it just doesn't hold up to scuffs in a rental. I also think we could have done more color contrasting to get a better pop result of the textures but since it was our first time it was a learning experience for us. I love the way it turned out and the darker tone in the master bathroom really shines and holds up well.

We have a special ERV unit in our A-frame that helps not only to be more efficient when cooling and heating our home bur is also recirculating the air to keep fresh air moving inside the cabin. This is very different from central heating and cooling and uses our fresh mountain air to circulate and filter in the unit as opposed to paper filters at the vents. And of course you're always welcome to open the windows to let in fresh air naturally and breath the home. Let the spruce tree scent waft in!

Furnishings and decor, most of the items in the cabin are either leather, metal, wool, hides, or wood. The fabrics had to be durable, able to be cleaned, and hold up to harsh conditions and use. I love the texture hides add and if you use the right ones there is little sedding they last forever and are easy to clean. Wool controversial with its comfort but undeniable with its warmth and natural moister repelling capabilities. We do stock some plush synthetic blankets as they came highly requested by our guests and we do try to cater to all visitors but I love that we have natural fiber blankets avaliable for those who do not want to snuggle a plastic blanket. Since we use natural fibers I've been able to have our carpets cleaned multiple times with them still holding up okay though I wish I choose some darker colors for the ash and dirt that happens in a cabin.

The kitchen, we stock extra virgin olive oil, natrual sea salts, and any snacks that we offer in our welcome bag are seed oil free and made in Colorado. Our pans are Our Place Titanium pans. I spent hours researching and calling brands to find a non-toxic, non-stick alternative pan that could also withstand the dishwasher because people on vacation don't want to hand wash pans and pans that arent dishwasher safe degrade and get ruiend. This has been a great investment so far because I don't have to constantly put pans in the dump and are safe to use.

Cleaning products and Scents: Our cleaning products are sourced from Branch Basics this is what we stock in our cabins for our team and guests to use. Its budget friendly once purchased you use the same concentrate in different measuremnts for everything. This makes it easy and uncluttered under our sinks. Any scents in our cabin have been researched by me to be essential oil based and free from nasty fillers or sythetic ingredients. Our Hand soap for example is clean and beautifully scented by a Denver local business, Merigold.

While we're not perfect by any means we have taken great measure to control what we can in our budget. If you have any questions about anything else in our home we would love to start the conversation with you! The whole goal is to be as direct and transparent with you as we can!