If you want to build your own fireplace, or your own cabin in the woods with its wood-burning fireplaces, this book contains cabin plans and detailed instructions you will need. Written for the novice, it not only tells about cabins and fireplaces and how to build them, but about back garden fireplaces, designs for rustic furniture, out-door cooking menus, gateways, guard-rails and fences. It is filled with philosophy and wisdom on living in the out-of-doors. Meinecke was a well-known master cabin builder and do-it-yourself man.

He not only wrote the book, but he printed the original edition himself on a small press in his own home and bound it in craft cloth laced together with stout cord. Still considered a classic work.