I recently came upon a piece of furniture in an antique gallery I can only describe as so-bad-it’s-good: a rustic cabinet, painted dark red and green, and ornamented with birch bark, branches, and tiny pinecones.
It’s hideous and I love it.
Had I encountered this hutch inside the log cabin it no doubt came out of, I might have dismissed it as too theme-y — or as something belonging to that particular strain of rustic decor that includes lots of bears holding signs.
But here, surrounded by worn-in brass, pottery, and a beautiful knobby lamp, I saw it differently. It wasn’t so much giving “cabin décor” as it was giving English country house by way of upstate New York.
And in the interest of sending you down one of my favorite kinds of rabbit holes, I thought it high time we discuss this oft-overlooked category of things to search for.
Enter: vintage Adirondack furniture.
No, not this kind of Adirondack furniture:
Most people hear “Adirondack furniture” and picture the above, very familiar outdoor chair; you probably had a plastic version in college. This is actually a descendant of a much broader rustic design tradition that has its roots in The Great Camps.
Now, for the “extremely rich people go camping” portion of our program.
