How to Decorate a Fishing Lodge

Almost all fishing lodges exude a rustic, wild ambiance. The decor, while welcoming you into its cozy confines amidst its hearth fire, remind you at the same time that wilderness, desolation and large fish lurk just outside. While a lodge's focus is immediately apparent from the large wall mounts of locally caught fish, its accents may be those evocative of the region and its history or they are organic and earthly in style, color and construction. Rarely, if ever, will you find art deco chairs or modern plastic furnishings.

Instructions

Taking In Your Surroundings

1. Before heading down to a big box sporting goods store to purchase antler chandeliers and camouflage duvet covers, consider the lodge's natural surroundings. A salmon fishing lodge in the northwest, perhaps may feature totem accesories and large lodgepoles will accent not only the inside but the outside as well. If setting up a fishing lodge in the southwest, Native American accents, colors and patterns would be far more appropriate and well placed than a lodge decorated with lodgepoles and other things you would not find in the area. For the lodge in the Rocky Mountains, such as Montana, leather chairs, stone fireplaces and reclaimed barn wood are quite typical. The goal when decorating a fishing lodge, or any other outdoor lodge for that matter, is to achieve a balance between the outside and the inside so that, perhaps, the difference is imperceptible.

2. Color choice is key if you're working with a structure other than lodgepoles. Use organic colors. Brown, green or most any color associated with autumn lends itself well to developing a rustic, down-to-earth lodge setting. When selecting lighting fixtures, consider its art, function and its luminosity so as to not interfere or take away from any natural lighting that may enter the lodge. A wide variety of art would complement a fishing lodge, in addition to antique rod and tackle, which lend a strong hint of nostalgia to the lodge when the fishermen talk about the way things used to be.

3. A lodge does not have to be accessorized with posthumous animal decorations, especially for the lodge specific to hosting anglers. Always consider what will make the clients and visitors of the lodge comfortable and satisfied. Though a lodge may appear to be rustic and simplistic upon a first glance, most of them have the amenities that a paying client rightfully expects. The guest rooms should be comfortable as well as complementary to the rest of the lodge, and some may have added touches of modernity, such as an innovative showerhead or flat-screen televisions. Anglers and other lodge clients, when attempting to rough it, will generally pay vast amounts to attain the same comforts they enjoy at home. When decorating or adding amenities to a lodge, try and maintain a high level of comfort and class with a congruent balance of wild rusticness.