How to Design a Cabin

Decorate your cabin getaway space with'organic authenticity.

The interior design and style of a cabin should reflect one of many "organic" elements. Cabins located in the mountains or nestled in a forest may be suitable for one style of design, while cabins located on the prairie or the seashore will properly show off a different design agenda. Determine the direction you will go in decorating your cabin based on geographic or historical style clues as well as the appropriate color palette and your lifestyle.

Instructions

1. Consider where your cabin is located. A cabin in the Florida Keys will require a totally different design look--if it is to be authentic--compared to a cabin sited in Buffalo, New York, Mountain Home, Arkansas or Taos, New Mexico. Cabins, like traditional homes, should be reflections of their roots and interior decors inside these cabins should be just as rooted. The kind of furnishings, colors and fabrics typical for The Great Northwest will look ridiculous inside a cabin along the Gulf Shores. A pelican and sand dune wallpaper border in a cabin near the Ozark Mountains, will scream "fake." Draw design inspirations from the land around the cabin to achieve an authentic look and feel to your design.

2. Find a historical period that suits your cabin's architecture, location, and your interests. Cabins are normally decorated in a special if not theatrical way. Most of us don't live in a cabin year-round so cabin decors can be a little more dramatic or whimsical than our day-to-day homes. Do research on historical periods in the region of your cabin and mine the data for design ideas. A cabin in the Smokey Mountains might be ripe for a full-blown Civil War theme. A cabin on the Outer Banks of North Carolina could easily support a pirate theme. A cabin in Texas could reflect an Old West or a Mexican Colonial look. If you would never dare "theme" your regular home, your cabin decor may offer poetic license.

3. Select a color scheme that is suited to the time and place of your cabin and your design scheme. Each major geographical area of the United States has a distinct color palette. Southwestern colors are muted pastels and mixed with earth tones. Great Northwest colors are natural: pine greens, slate blues, granite grays. Coastal colors are pastel, as if weathered by storms, and bright like the colors of Caribbean islands: happy turquoise blues and greens, sunny yellows, and pinks. Fortunately, most retail decorating materials will come in properly coordinated colors, patterns, and styles along these lines.

4. Choose furnishings that fit your cabin lifestyle. If you look forward to escaping to your cabin and reading all the latest best sellers, you'll want to choose furnishings that are generous and deeply upholstered, not classic Adirondack "twig" settees with skimpy seat pads. If you hope to spend most of your time outdoors engaging in rigorous exercise, your bed may be your most important furnishing: choose a big one and equip it with a soft down mattress top and piles of quilts or down comforters. If your idea of a cabin getaway is entertaining, a massive pine dining table with chunky legs and pull up benches may be the perfect choice, not a traditional dining room suite. Throw some of your design rules out the window, if necessary, to achieve this level of lifestyle comfort in your escape cabin.

References

• "Cabin Style: Decorating with Rustic, Adirondack, and Western Collectibles": Dian Zillner; 2004
• "The Orvice Book of Cabins": Amy Laughinghouse; 2007
• "Rustic Revisited: Innovative Design for Cabin, Camp, and Lodge": Ann O'Leary; 2006

Resources

• Rustic Bedding
• Northwest Cabin Decors
• Cabin Decorating Ideas