Summer Camp Week!

Canvas "Day Bed" Cots + 6 Other Camp Trends Sneaking Into Homes

July 28, 2016

Long before Moonrise Kingdom (and probably long before Salute Your Shorts), camp style had already snuck right out of cabins and into people's homes. Pillows made from paisley bandanas are camp-inspired, if kitschy, as are birch bark crafts and buoys slung across beach house walls.

More recently, however, camp-inspired home decor has reached peak sophistication and popularity, spurred on in equal parts by hatchet-toting hipsters, minimalist-living enthusiasts, and Wes Anderson's knack for finding the very elegant in the very twee. How so, you ask? Here are 7 camp-inspired home trends, to prove it.

Photo by Bobbi Lin

Cots

What was designed as an inexpensive, bare-bones way to support a slumbering human is now being re-introduced as an inexpensive (and in some cases, very expensive indeed), chic answer to the day bed.

Live-edge woods

A little bark on the side of a cutting board or a candle never hurt anyone, and reminds you where it came from: the woods!

...and don't forget their older cousin, the stump stool:

Photo by Mark Weinberg

Indoor tents

Opulent tented rooms are my favorite iteration of this trend (albeit a little more circus than campfire), but more common are pint-sized tents that go right in a kids' room.

Tee-pees might be the most popular form of decorative indoor tent—appropriated by camps from their original use.

Sling chairs + stools

Folding wooden chairs with a canvas sling for a seat—especially when they're outfitted with backs like director's chairs—feel portable but also minimal and neat.

Styling by Common Bond Design; Photo by Biz Jones

Stools, too:

Photo by Mark Weinberg

Fire Pits

Available in materials like stone, steel, and concrete, fire pits have gone from being shallow holes in the ground to high end accessories.

Paddles

By painting the head of a canoe paddle in graphic shapes and primary colors, some have apparently made it classy enough to work as wall decor.

Canvas

On the aforementioned cots and sling chairs, but also waxed on every kind of bag and apron imaginable, and on rolling carts for laundry and firewood alike.

Tell us: How would you style a canoe in your home? (Just kidding, but only a little.)

See what other Food52 readers are saying.

  • Winifred Ryan
    Winifred Ryan
  • librarymaven
    librarymaven
  • Sarah
    Sarah
Amanda Sims

Written by: Amanda Sims

Professional trespasser.

3 Comments

Winifred R. July 31, 2016
And use of canoes in decor? Sure - used in the Adirondacks/ New England for years. Place glass on the open side and use as a rustic table. All the better if it's a real antique or birch bark, and hand made! And agree with librarymaven about not using cultural appropriation.
 
librarymaven July 30, 2016
Gentle reminder that play tee-pees are an appropriation of the real living quarters that some (certainly not all) Native American tribes used (and still use for ceremonial purposes.) Appropriation of cute camp cots for your living space? Yes! Adorable little camp tent in your kid's room? Yes! Cultural appropriation for the cause of kitsch? Not so much.
 
Sarah July 31, 2016
An important reminder and well put! Thanks for this.