Decorating a Northwoods Cabin with Vintage Camp Style
How do you make your cabin cozy? These vintage camp style decor ideas will bring charm to your old cabin interior. Retro finds add nostalgic charm to this northwoods cabin.
Anyone love vintage camp style decorating? If so, you’re in for a treat today! Recently a friend and I spent the weekend decorating her Northwoods cabin. Sarah used to sell her vintage finds at my former store. Her “new” family cabin was needing a decor refresh. Join us and get tons of styling tips on our adventure of Decorating a Northwoods cabin with Vintage Camp Style.
Sarah has quite the nose for finding vintage goodies at great prices. She has great taste and a wonderful collection of fun vintage. But she always tells me, “I need help making it cute!” Luckily, this cuteness queen was plenty happy to enjoy a relaxing weekend with a friend decorating all her amazing vintage finds! Hopefully you’ll get some ideas for decorating with your vintage, especially if you love vintage camp style decor, like Sarah does!
Decorating a Northwoods Cabin with Vintage Camp Style
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To Begin Decorating, Clean the Slate and Gather Your Accessories
Begin the decorating process by clearing out anything you don’t want to use or that is out of season. Gather everything you may want to decorate with and corral it on a table. Yes, so far it will look like a big mess!
Sarah packed up her Christmas decor and scrounged around for anything else we could use. Being in the middle of the woods in a rustic cabin does have it’s drawbacks, we found. Sometimes you need things you just don’t have access to! Sarah started a “homework” list to bring back with her next time.
Once we had piled everything on tables, we dusted the flat surfaces and wiped down all the cute vintage collections.
Here are the main places to decorate in their “clean slate” stage. The antique stone fireplace is amazing!
Next, Move Furniture that Needs a New Spot
Sarah had the furniture in the cozy cabin arranged beautifully, but I wanted to make one change. The cute bank of lockers in the above pic needed to move to the right corner in this little nook. It was lost in the shadows and was interrupting the windows. Sarah also wants to find a short bookshelf for next to the lockers (she’s also planning on painting the lockers). This little nook is perfect for games or kid’s crafts. All the things can be stored in the lockers and on a bookshelf.
Look for Themes in Your Vintage Collections Decor
As all Sarah’s wonderful vintage collections covered the table, I was noticing several themes:
(click on item to shop online)
Kind of looks like a vintage shop in Northwoods cabin country, don’t ya think? I am kind of jealous of her plaid thermos collection , to be honest;)
Decorate and Style Your Cabin with Sentimental Touches
Sarah loves vintage camp style decorating and strives to fill this family and friend’s gathering place with sentimental touches. A friend who makes hand-painted signs created wall art from Sarah’s memories at a childhood cabin. The 3 vintage-styled signs hang prominently behind the sofa and set the stage for the rest of the cozy space. Aren’t they awesome?
***If you love the idea of decorating with sentimental, custom-made signs or any vintage-inspired signage, definitely check out Lindsey’s online shop, which you can find HERE. I’ll tell you about the special she’s offering for Lora B readers down below!***
Decorate by Grouping Themes Together
Old Games Decorate the Vintage Camp Style Mantel
Once you’ve identified the themes in your vintage collections, decide where you want to group those items. To play up on the family-having-fun-together theme, I decorated the beautiful stone fireplace hearth with vintage games. The game boards themselves became colorful backdrops and an old folding chair gave great height and balance to the big space.
Simple glass jars become art as they show off the vintage cards and game pieces. A clock tucked in hearkens, “Game Time”! And vintage cameras remind that this special place is all about making precious family memories.
To personalize the rustic cabin hearth, we glued each family member’s name to an old Bingo card and strung them pennant-style as the centerpiece. Most of the games can still be used and are close at hand when the Dominoes urge strikes!
Sarah’s “homework”:
- Use an extension cord to plug in the white lights in the minnow bucket for night-time glow.
- Add spring/summer branches to the thermos for vertical height and texture.
- Buy artificial grass to place as a foundation under the decorating.
The charming vintage graphics on these old games typifies Sarah’s desire to make memories in this beautiful Northwoods cozy cabin! It was only fitting to place these vintage games in the center of the space. This fireplace hearth tells all who enter that they’re going to have fun here!
And what better way to communicate fun than to have your own candy machine? The cousins voted what types of candy needed to be in the three spots!
Thermoses Decorate the Gathering Spaces
So many cute thermoses meant we could spread the love around! The front window had a wonderful ledge that was asking for cuteness without too much busyness. Each end of the ledge got treated to thermoses, plus the adorable yellow lantern for a pop of color.
Over the weekend, I taught Sarah how to make Origami flowers {“How to Make Easy Origami Flowers”}, so we popped some into a couple of the thermoses. She will also be adding some artificial grass to the ledge and some spring/summer branches.
There were still more of her awesome collection, so they adorned the side table, too! The plaid thermoses are a perfect combo with Sarah’s favorite buffalo check! Smokey the Bear coasters are perfect for this Northwoods vintage cabin decor!
Vintage Fishing Gear for the Game Nook
The game nook was the perfect spot to feature all things fishing. The lockers were filled with rolled red plaid blankets, with more draping the chairs. Up on top a minnow bucket features the theme, along with red and white bobbers filling up a lantern.
The plan is to hang these 2 adorable plaid fishing boat seats as shelves to the left of the window. Once Sarah finds a bookshelf, she can also hang the 2 fishing theme signs above. We also talked about her finding some small, swivel upholstered chairs to add to this area to enjoy the pretty view and add softness.
Add Organic Textures for Seasonal Changes in your Cabin Decor
As you can see, Sarah had plenty of fun, vintage camp style accessories to decorate her cabin with. But she went home with a shopping list to find organic textures. Simple foliage accents can switch things up for the season, without having to change everything.
It was winter for our weekend, but spring is right around the corner. Here were some organic textures Sarah can add for spring into summer:
- branches: yellow forsythia, gray pussy willows, white apple blossoms
- artificial grass for the pop of green at the foundation of vignettes
- textural orbs: moss, birch, rope
- wood slices
- daisies and sunflowers for summertime
More Pics from around the Vintage Camp-Themed Cabin
This post is getting long! Here are some more pics from around this adorable vintage decorated cabin. (Over the bed is another custom sign)
( A fern will fill up the center of the minnow bucket centerpiece)
A big thanks to Sarah for sharing her adorable vintage decorated cabin with us! We had way too much fun gabbing and decorating the weekend away!
Make Sure You Keep a Cabin Journal
It’s so fun to remember all the special memories you make at the cabin. Be sure to keep a journal, where you write down who was there, what you did, how you spent your time and memorable moments. A journal would be a great gift idea for a friend who owns a cabin, too!
Love the Signs? Here’s a special offer!
Sarah’s friend at Mill City Workshop is offering Lora B readers a special discount! If you’ve been wanting a custom sign with your family name or some other sentimental theme, now is the time to get one!
Visit the online shop HERE and use the code LORAB for 15% off your purchase! Lindsey would love to work with you and design a custom sign, or choose one of her ready-made options!
For more rustic and cabin-styled inspiration:
“Vintage Summer Decor with Cabin Style”
“Vintage Cabin Decor Ideas for Cozy Style”
“Woodsy Bedroom Makeover Reveal”
“How to Decorate to the Thrift the Look, Vintage Lakehouse”
“How to Decorate to Thrift the Look, Winter Cabin Style”
Did you enjoy the tour of this vintage cabin and all the decorating tips? Cabin season is every season in the Northwoods; a wonderful place to make memories with your family and friends. I hope you enjoyed the decorating process and got many ideas and tips from our cabin weekend.
Thanks for reading Decorating a Northwoods Cabin with Vintage Camp Style. If you enjoyed your visit, be sure to Become an Insider so I can send the ideas right to you! You can Sign Up HERE.
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I love your vintage inspired decorating!
Thanks, Lynne! It’s all about fun when you’re at the cabin:)
I love it, Lora! You did a great job and what fun collections! Thanks for sharing at Vintage Charm–pinning!
Thanks, Cecilia!
Oh what fun you must have had, it turned out so cute. I could have looked at more pictures it was fun.
Thanks, Marlene! It was a lot of pics to edit as it was;)
This turned out so nice! You guys did a great job and how fun to get to decorate someone else’s house!!
Tania
Thanks! Yes, it’s always fun to play with someone else’s great vintage stuff!
oooh, so much to love here. All the fun thermos (es)? plaid and cozy decor. the fireplace is wonderful! looks like a great get-away spot!
You’re probably right, Debra…thermos (es), kind of like deer? Should have looked it up;) It was a fun, creative weekend!