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 Rustic Decorating Hints and Tips
Forest Home Rustic Decor Nature Prints complement any home interior decorating design scheme, but make an especially perfect design accent element for:
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mountain, hunting or fishing lodge or retreat cabin home interiors,
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lake, beach or river cottage house home decorating,
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Country or Farmhouse style interior decor theme,
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Northeastern, Early American, Colonial,
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or Ranch style home decorating.
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Adirondack "Great Camps" Rustic Look: Elegance in the Wilderness.
Located in northern New York State, the appeal of the Adirondacks State Preserve and Parks area is growing
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What home interior design accent elements make you think Adirondack Lodge Rustic?
Antlers and snowshoes on the walls, and Hudson Bay blankets festooning bark-on log couches, bedsteads and chairs. Gleaming natural wood floors and naked beam ceilings rising to a peak. Large fireplaces made of natural stone, with carved wood mantels.
Birchbark covered, or natural root or tree-branch furniture, and log walls. Signs saying "Guests" or "Welcome" with lettering constructed from twisted bark. All the above are interior design earmarks of Upper New York State, home of the Adirondacks' Lodges, or Great Camps.
Other Adirondack lodge "Great Camps" decorating necessities are using natural materials for furniture, wall and floor covering: leather, wool, wrought iron, stone, and furniture made from the trunk, bark and branches of indigenous trees.
Birchbark covered chests of drawers and armoires have a lovely gray and darker gray stipple effect that once seen, always evokes memories of the mountains, lakes and forests of the Adirondack Park.
How did Adirondack lodges get their distinctive interior design pattern? It's different from mountain lodges in the Rockies.
Adirondack Great Camp, "Pine Knot." William West Durant, 1879.
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Pictures and Links to Learn About and See Adirondack Lodges.
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View of Playhouse at Camp Sagamore, built by William Coulter in 1901 for Alfred Vanderbilt and Margaret Emerson
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<<The gable fan, radial stick motif and mitered log siding are typical features of this camp, one of the first on Raquette Lake. It was quoted in Stoddard's guide book as "unquestionably the most picturesque and recherche affair of its kind in the wilderness." (Kaiser, The Great Camps of the Adirondacks, p. 74)
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Adirondack Mountain Lodge Rustic Decor Article continued below.
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Our observation of Adirondack home decor -- or lodge decor, if you will -- of upstate New York, was that these multi-building compounds, nestled in pine tree groves on the shores of beautiful unspoiled lakes in a rustic mountain setting reflected the vastness and majesty of the location, as well as wealth.
For all the size of the "great camps" they were only meant to be summer homes and occupied only a few weeks out of the year.
The Great Camps were a rich man's 'camping fantasy'. The "Great Camps" were only 'camps' by virtue of wryness: crystal chandeliers hanging from bare log ceilings, and Persian rugs on burnished natural wood floors, alongside twig furniture and native stone masonry.
To wealthy New York businessmen and their families in the late nineteeth century, Raquette Lake, Blue Lake, Lake Placid and other Adirondack villages were indeed another world -- 26 hours away.
The distinct architectural and interior design styles were fruit of the late Victorian and early Art Deco styles, with an eclectic imagination of what comprised a "camp" for millionaires.
Surrounded by bark, natural stone fireplaces and the work of local artesans, uber-wealthy families enjoyed afternoon tea served by a butler, private bowling alleys and chauffered rides through the majesty of the woods, forests and lakes of the Adirondacks.
Harmonizing the breathtaking beauty of the Adirondacks lakes and mountains into the opulent rustic decor of the Great Camps lodge buildings was an art, and an expensive one. Eventually by the 1940s almost all the Great Camps had been donated to the private sector or purchased by corporations with the resources to maintain them.
Adirondacks Decor Tip: Mission style furniture and Arts-and-Crafts style pieces add interest and complexity to an Adirondack style lodge decor motif. Decor colors are rust, moss green and shades of red and brown.
A Tip on Saving on Heating a Log Cabin or Lodge: Log walls inside and out give a lodge that wonderful rustic outdoor ambiance, but may cost hundreds of dollars in heating bills in the winter.
Solve that problem by using half logs with high RH factor insulation between. Inner lodge or cabin walls may be solid logs, but you may want to intersperse plaster or drywall interior walls for variety and ease of hanging pictures, shelves, wall decor.
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Adirondacks study showing an "eyebrow dormer", interesting architectural detail
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Octagon-shaped entrance to main building at Camp Wonundra (now called "the Point"), formerly owned by the Rockefellers.
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Adirondack Mountain Lodge Rustic Decor Article continued below.
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