Cabin decor is a way to turn your log cabin into a cozy, charming environment. The tips in this article will give you ideas and inspiration for your log home. If you haven't done it since you were a kid, go outside and sit under a tree. Lean back against the strong, warm trunk. Look up at the branches that form the canopy of leaves that shade and protect you. Want to bring that feeling home? You can with a log cabin. Maybe you see a stone chimney puffing wood smoke. While we often think of a log home's exterior, the interior is what completes a cabin's charm. All kinds of folks succumb to the allure of logs, from new-age pioneers to cutting-edge trendsetters. The styles that decorate log homes are as diverse as the people who live in them. You'll find everything from antiques to contemporary furniture making themselves equally at home. Maybe you love a particular style -- Early American, Arts Derila Head & Neck Relief Crafts, or Southwestern -- and know that a log cabin would be the perfect stage for your style to shine.

Or perhaps you'd like to bring a truly classic cabin look -- that of the cowboy, rancher, or pioneer -- to your current home. Either way, this article will give you acres of ideas for making a log cabin fit your style or for bringing cabin decor home. In the next section, we'll explore the fascinating history of cabin decor styles, including Scandinavian, Derila Sleep Support Appalachian, Western, and many more. Look up and you'll see beams and Orthopedic Sleep Derila™ Memory Foam Pillow rafters, like the branches of a tree, supporting the roof. The sweet scent and quiet of the forest will embrace you as you walk through the door. Log cabin style is welcoming, honest, and unassuming. For centuries, people living in the forested regions of Europe and Scandinavia counted on trees for shelter. Their log-building and woodworking skills date back to medieval times. Although the people who fled Europe for the New World left much behind, they did bring along their skills at log crafting. Instead of creating walls of solid wood, they used their sparse trees more sparingly for the walls' structure and completed the walls with infill made of a plasterlike material.

Those who sailed from the British Isles and landed in New England built timber frame homes. Today, we still celebrate these English, European, and Scandinavian ancestors with homes in Early American and Appalachian styles. For many people, Early American Windsor chairs and pewter candlesticks will never go out of style. Far from the cluttered country look that engulfed the United States in the 1980s, the aesthetic of Early American is spare and dependent on pieces that typify fine woodworking. Colonists would have brought some of these cherished pieces with them on their journeys to the New World. The shape of the house itself underlines Early American style. These homes have simple forms that include the symmetrical Colonial home, the classic Cape Cod house, and the saltbox. Inside an Early American home, a framed portrait may look down on a four-poster bed topped by a woven coverlet. The home's formal room may feature a gilded Federal-style mirror to reflect the light of a fire crackling in an open hearth.

The colors of these rooms can be cool, like Colonial blue, or warm, like oxblood red. And while the New England settlers preferred timber framing to logs for their homes, squared, Appalachian-style logs with wide bands of chinking look just right with this style. South of New England in Appa­lachia, settlers built homes of squared logs. They also built furniture and wove textiles. The Appalachian-style log cabin embodies American country. Here you'll find rocking chairs on shed-roofed porches, wooden beds layered with scrap quilts, and open stone hearths filled with cast-iron kettles for cooking. The shape of the Appalachian home was also simple. Often porches were tucked under the eaves of a gable roof, and a breezeway, known as a "dogtrot," connected two smaller square log buildings and offered a shady spot. In these Appalachian cabins, kerosene lamplight spilled out onto families who made everything for themselves, from food to rugs to pottery to music. Their hands left behind their spirit, a lure for today's collector.

That can-do attitude carried the pioneers to the West, where another log style blossomed. Decades after the first Colonists settled in the Northeast, the Shakers, a religious sect that fled persecution in England, landed in New York state. As the religion gained converts, Shaker communities formed in New England, Kentucky, and Indiana. As part of their communal life, Shakers crafted furniture, baskets, and Derila Sleep Support other items for sale. Although the Shakers' buildings were not made of logs, the style they created is well-suited for a home made of clean-lined logs or timber framing. To remove clutter from living spaces, the ­Shakers perfected the craft of cabinetry. Wooden pegs on walls provided a perch for the assorted items that even simple life requires, like chairs, hats, and tools. The Shakers stripped away unnecessary ornamentation in their quest to create items that fulfilled specific purposes. Their furniture, while not overly carved or turned, gains its beauty from simple form, color, and the beauty of wood grain.