How to Get the Cabincore Look in Your Home

With vintage style, après-ski chic and rich, cozy materials, on-trend cabincore is the perfect way to celebrate natural splendor and creature comforts all at once. HGTV’s design team reveals how to make any space feel like a woodsy retreat.

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By: Lauren Oster

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Photo By: Ryann Ford, Sanders Architecture

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Photo By: Ryann Ford, Sanders Architecture

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Need a Vacation? Retreat Into Cabincore

Imagine an evergreen-scented mountain breeze wafting through a rustic cottage-style space, cozied up with nature-inspired apres-ski decor and a layer of Scandinavian hygge, and you’ve got cabincore. This into-the-woods aesthetic is a natural extension of the design world’s ongoing fondness for organic materials and interiors that feel both intimate and connected to the outdoors. Its old-school motifs offer symbolic relief from the 21st century’s technological distractions. Ready for your own breath of fresh air, courtesy of cabincore? We’ll show you how to bring it into your home.

SEE MORE: Rustic Redefined: The Best of Modern Cabin Style

From: Scheer & Co

Celebrate the National Parks

Re-create the golden age of road tripping and rugged family vacations by keeping your eyes peeled for antique shop and flea market finds that reference wild destinations. Gallery walls with images of those places are lovely, but mementos, like the ones in this Montana ski-retreat bedroom, can be even more atmospheric.

SEE MORE: Montana Antiques Meet Modern Chic in This Family Ski Retreat

Brings Exterior Treatments Inside

This bedroom owes its rugged feel to the boards bringing texture to the walls. More dimensional than shiplap and less literal than stained wood paneling, these dark green surfaces evoke forest feels. Speaking of greens, cabincore is all about foliage-inspired hues; anchor your palette with a tone like this one and you’re halfway up the mountain.

SEE MORE: Sage + Forest Green: An Enchanting Color Palette You'll Want to Try

Lean Into Birdwatching and Nature Guides

Designer Julija Stoliarova infused this hotel lounge in the Catskills with an indelible sense of place by framing and displaying classic illustrations of local fungi and fauna. She then doubled down on her theme with a statuette of a duck in flight, wild greenery clipped from the meadow just outside and a pair of binoculars for the coffee table.

SEE MORE: How to Make Vintage Decor Look Fresh and Modern

Bold Plaid + Sheepskin

Cultivating coziness the cabincore way means combining geometric and textural throws. For instance, the black-and-white buffalo check throw, seen at the foot of this bed, with ultra-textural layers, like the sheepskin. Supplemental bedding items are ideal for the cabincore-curious, since they’re easily added and stripped away.

Swiss Army Blankets Complement Cabincore

The silvery-gray greens we referenced a little while ago and the buffalo check we just mentioned both pair beautifully with graphic Swiss crosses, as seen here in an old-school blanket repurposed as a pillow. If you fancy cabincore that tips over just a bit into midcentury modern style, textiles like these — available both as vintage items and in contemporary versions inspired by the original gear — should top your shopping list.

From: Unscripted Interior Design

Cast Iron in the Kitchen

Their non-stick surfaces improve foods’ flavor, they get better as they age and they look excellent displayed on a counter-to-ceiling pegboard — is there anything cast-iron pans can’t do? Give your kitchen a hint of rustic cabincore seasoning by creating a chic heirloom arrangement.

SEE MORE: 1940s Texas Lodge Nestled in the Pines

From: Scheer & Co

Delightful Fireplaces

Cabincore would not be complete without a fireplace to cozy up next to while enjoying the picturesque forest views. Whether your fireplace is wood-burning, gas or electric, the warm ambiance it evokes is still the same.

SEE MORE: Step Inside Stylist and Designer Sarah Reid's Heirloom A-frame in New Hampshire

Literature is Imperative

Literature in a cabincore space is essential. Built-ins and bookcases are lovely if you happen to have them, but if you’ve got a makeshift library stacked in a hutch or against the wall, you’re right on trend as well. Elevate the look by arranging volumes by color, as in this tawny guest suite.

SEE MORE: Gold Guest Suite From HGTV Dream Home 2023

Reclaimed Wood + Rugged Fixtures

Textural barn wood creates organic patterns and highlights the walls’ dramatic angles in this rustic lake cabin. Menswear-inspired plaids, a faux fur throw and a cowhide offer a rustic and cozy look to this space. The sitting area’s pendant lacks glass panels, but its silhouette mimics installations you might expect to see outside. Cabincore avoids delicate chandeliers but instead uses pieces with strong lines, like these.

From: Martha O'Hara Interiors

Display Vintage Gear

The HGTV Dream Home 2022 in Warren, Vermont, boasts a bedroom wall treatment that’s peak cabincore. The wall boasts antique geometry of not one but eight pairs of vintage snowshoes from local shops. The lesson here is that while a few bits of mountain memorabilia might feel out of place, commitment to a theme is greater than the sum of its parts.

SEE MORE: Main Bedroom From HGTV Dream Home 2022

Layer Neutral Tones

Pale wood armchairs and floorboards, untanned leather, white faux sheepskin and a nubbly sisal ottoman contribute understated organic hues to this cabin’s sophisticated, Scandinavian mezzanine. This is the futuristic, minimalistic side of cabincore.

From: Duet Design Group

Incorporate Antlers and Well-Weathered Leather

Make the most of natural forms by topping your cabincore space with a many-pronged antler chandelier and reaching for seating that’s acquired some patina. In this sitting area, petrified-wood occasional tables and shapely brass figures in the built-ins counterbalance more masculine elements with a bit of glamour and polish.

SEE MORE: 23 Rustic Log Cabins

From: Thurman Design Studio

Work With Local Materials and Natural Stone

When designer Leanne Ford wanted to restore some of the soul to her century-old home (which spent the first decades of its life as a hunting cabin), she scoured her property for stones to re-create the look of the building’s original stone fireplace. That new-but-old structure brought so much summer-camp character to the space that futuristic touches like her mirrored coffee table and midcentury arc lamp snuck in without compromising her rustic vibe.

SEE MORE: 40+ Fabulous Fireplace Design Ideas for Any Budget or Style

Try Mushroom Terrariums

Moody terrariums, like this one sprouting with mushrooms, bring your cabincore look to life.

SEE MORE: Here’s Our Favorite Mushroom Decor — and How to Use It in Your Home

Anchor With Woodsy Wallpaper

Forest-inspired patterns like Cole & Son’s iconic Woods & Pears can turn a powder room into a cabincore grove. Moody, photorealistic mural paper can pinch-hit for natural vistas in spaces that lack views.

SEE MORE: 20 Gorgeous Nature-Inspired Wallpaper Patterns

From: Forum Phi Architecture

Reconsider Wood Paneling

If you’re prepared to make a big-ticket commitment to cabincore, consider how fresh the warm, wraparound wood feels in this restored Texas cabin. The key to keeping this bold move from overwhelming the space? Counterbalancing the rustic walls, ceiling and trim with contemporary white tabletop items, a super-sleek bench and a Roman shade in crisp linen.

SEE MORE: 12 Wood-Paneled Walls That Are Anything But Dated

From: Scheer & Co

Cozy Up With Flannel

Touchable flannel delivers a cabincore-inspired punch of character in this tailored bedroom, where the window treatment combines graphic plaid curtains with natural shades. Like throw blankets and sheets, rustic fabric accessories are a versatile, seasonal way to experiment with a new aesthetic.

SEE MORE: Choosing the Best Window Treatments for Your Home

From: Design 4 Corners

Layered Botanicals Bring Cabincore to Life

This space’s sophisticated formula for cabincore (a dried bouquet perched atop a rustic wood-and-cane dresser + a potted Norfolk pine and a Boston fern + wall-mounted skis) is both classic and contemporary. Evoke this feel in your rooms with a more-is-more approach. Start with a small floral arrangement, add a few hardy container plants or just-cut greenery, and keep going until your interior feels as invigorating as a walk outside.

SEE MORE: 13 Great Indoor Trees

Live-Edge Wood Lends Character

Like coastal and Scandinavian design, cabincore celebrates the materiality of objects, like this coffee table, a single plank of wood with lacquered edges that preserve the texture of its original exterior. We can’t all live in hand-hewn cabins, but living-room centerpieces put heirloom-worthy rustic character in everyone’s reach.

SEE MORE: Tour This Cozy Industrial Minnesota Lake Home With Dashing DIYs in Every Room

Cabincore Is All Things Pendleton

With a history of manufacturing trade blankets since 1909, Oregon’s Pendleton Woolen Mill produces instantly recognizable textiles that are synonymous with the Pacific Northwest and cabincore. Start with a graphic sham or throw and work your way up to, say, a blanket-wrapped faux moose head for your mantel.

SEE MORE: 40 Tips for Decorating Your Fireplace Mantel Year 'Round

From: Brian Patrick Flynn

How to Get the Cabincore Look in Your Home

Related To:

Shop This Look

Need a Vacation? Retreat Into Cabincore

Celebrate the National Parks

Brings Exterior Treatments Inside

Lean Into Birdwatching and Nature Guides

Bold Plaid + Sheepskin

Swiss Army Blankets Complement Cabincore

Cast Iron in the Kitchen

Delightful Fireplaces

Literature is Imperative

Reclaimed Wood + Rugged Fixtures

Display Vintage Gear

Layer Neutral Tones

Incorporate Antlers and Well-Weathered Leather

Work With Local Materials and Natural Stone

Try Mushroom Terrariums

Anchor With Woodsy Wallpaper

Reconsider Wood Paneling

Cozy Up With Flannel

Layered Botanicals Bring Cabincore to Life

Live-Edge Wood Lends Character

Cabincore Is All Things Pendleton

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