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features | main feature Lake cottage décor trends

By Jaclyn Youhana Garver

Northeastern Indiana is home to so many lakes, we don’t even bother to name them to each other. We spend weekends, holidays and firefly-lit evenings at, simply, “the lake.”

The very idea of a lake cottage brings about the feeling of a getaway, even if it’s only an hour from home. It’s a place that’s cozy and welcoming; what family looks like if you built it with wood and stone.

This season, décor trends for lake cottages keep things simple: Colors are neutral, and lines are clean. It’s less farmhouse and more contemporary coastal. Allison Hanford, an interior designer at Niche Market Furniture in New Haven, shares some of 2021’s lake cottage design trends.

It’s all about texture

Think woven light fixtures, natural fiber rugs, baskets and pillow tassels.

Keep it bright and airy …

Colors are light and neutral for everything from sofas to wall paint. Natural wood tone, too, is popular. Ditto cotton and linen fabrics.

… but mix in modern touches

Hanford says designers are mixing light, textured pieces with, say, an über modern coffee table or end tables with black metal legs. Combining these trends gives rooms a clean, calming, light feel.

How to achieve the vibe

Short of financing a complete redesign, Hanford suggests some small, inexpensive ways homeowners can spruce up their lake cottages: • Update your fabrics. New throw pillows can change the look of a couch. Choose pillows with textured fabric and solid, natural colors or light stripes. White drapes, too, can lend a coastal vibe to a lake cottage. • Get some new coffee and end tables. To keep it on-trend, select natural wood tables. • Switch out heavy, ornate rugs with natural-fiber rugs. • Give a room a repaint. Previous trendy colors were vibrant reds and blues. Today, lighter colors are more popular. “We will throw some navies in there, but you wouldn’t have a bright red couch or something like that,” Hanford says. • Ditch the themes. Previous lake cottage trends focused on nautical items — like oars and anchors hung on the walls and small boats around the home. This year’s coastal vibe is more subtle than that. “It might have a little bird here and there or a fish here and there, but it’s not in your face,” she says.

Looking to 2022 and beyond, Hanford suspects cottage décor will move even more toward a modern vibe and away from the previous farmhouse trends. Heavy frames and curved lines will phase out for clean, straight lines and soft textures.

“You might have some metals mixed with woods mixed with soft textures,” she says, “but it is going to be more of a contemporary coastal vibe.”

Allison Hanford, an interior designer at Niche Market Furniture in New Haven, recently helped her parents with the kitchen update in their Lake of the Woods home in Hudson.

“We painted all our cabinets, which were a dark wood, and got a lighter countertop and subway tile backsplash,” she says.