A cabin entrance greets visitors with a pine t&g tongue and groove feature wall with antiqued Etsy wall hooks. Also a single modern black candle wall sconce is centred above the hooks. Plaid country jackets and coats hang from the hooks.

Warm, Relaxed and
Welcoming Cabin Entry 

Stepping into this Cariboo cabin addition, guests are immediately greeted by a warm honey pine feature wall — a thoughtful design choice that sets the tone for the experience ahead. This new side entry addition blends seamlessly with the original cabin, where honey pine finishes were already a defining element of the interior.

Professional “After” Photos: Lisa Novak Photography, Kamloops, BC

Before/During Photos: Kelly Grimes

Warm Forest Colors Shape This Cabin’s First Impression

Pine log posts and pine log railings adorn this cabin's front entry deck. It is a side entry deck with a an open ceiling, gabled roof, lined with honey pine tongue and groove boards on the soffits. Lake view from the deck. Three steps up to the deck.

Honey Pine Stain— an Inviting Accent Color

Even before you step through the door, the material story begins: honey pine 10” posts and railings sit beneath an open gabled roofline, complete with pine tongue-and-groove soffits.

This warm tone has always been part of the cabin’s character, and continuing it felt like the natural choice — a color as inviting as the orange pine needles around it, harmonizing effortlessly with the landscape.

Honey pine is warm by nature, and seeing as you’re surrounded by nature, it feels perfectly at home.

It also complements the cabin’s green metal roof and dark grey-blue cedar-stained siding, balancing warmth and contrast in a timeless palette.

A cabin entry greets guests with a vertical honey pine feature wall, a live edge bench with black iron legs and a performance fabric cushioned bench seat. The floor uses Daltile 2 x 10 brick in assorted rustic browns and laid in a chevron pattern

A Consistent Color Palette Creates Cohesion

The entry was designed to introduce the cabin’s character — a relaxed wall of plaid coats on vintage brass hooks and a cushioned bench upholstered in durable performance fabric, suited to withstand the Cariboo elements (mud, wind, dust).

The honey pine feature wall not only connects to the original cabin’s interior finishes, but also creates a seamless visual transition from outside to in.

Space Plan Design

The new entry serves as a practical transition space and bridges the newly reimagined indoor storage room (formerly the principal bedroom) on the left, with the cabin’s first indoor bathroom, on the right.

By keeping the spaces tight and flowing from room-to-room, we eliminated hallway space which often increases the need for more square footage.

In this cabin addition/redesign, maximizing the useable space was the priority.

2D Plan of three rooms for a cabin addition. It consists of a mudroom, or a storage room, an entry, and a new bathroom with corner cabinet and corner shower. A composting toilet is plumbed.

Small Space Design—Eliminate Hallways

Mudroom / Storage Room

A single industrial black wall sconce sits amongst vintage brass coat hooks on a vertical pine tongue and groove wall in a cabin entrance. Sherwin William's Tanbark SW 6061 is accented on the addition wall that leads to the main cabin.

Entry

A green Ikea storage room uses Ikea green cover panels. The cabinet doors have Bodaq architectural film applied to blend with the IKEA cover panels. The ceiling is tongue and groove pine paneling. The floor is 9" wide Tarkett LVP flooring.

Bathroom

A cabin bathroom is located just off the cabin entrance which allows the fisherman or hunter or outdoorsman a quick cleanup before heading in to the main cabin. Also there is a shower with green tile laid horizontally with white small hex tile.
A white fridge sits outside a back door under a covered back porch. It doubles as the second fridge and recycling center. Three blue recycling bins with a table over top with holes cut out indicate which bin to use.
4x8 pine paneling sheets are wall mounted. Hooks are on the wall for coats to hang. A map of the area and kids coat rack hang on the wall. Below is a narrow dark green bench for shoe storage.
This back door opens into the main cabin, but it also opens onto a closet making it difficult to access the storage closet space.
Narrow homemade pine shelving unit sits next to a backdoor and is host to the storage items that are needed as you come and go. Like flashlights, batteries, sling shot. Upper shelves are open and three cabinet doors are on the bottom.

Before Photos…

A path from the back door of this cabin leads you out to the back porch and beyond is the meandering path to the cabin's outhouse. The outhouse was erected in the late 70s. Located in the Cariboo BC.

New Storage Room—Improved Space and Functionality

Because the original cabin had so little interior room, the outdoor space did a lot of the heavy lifting—everything from the outhouse bathroom to a covered deck with the extra fridge and recycling setup.

Now, the new storage room replaces both the narrow pine storage unit and the small closet that once sat behind the old entry door, offering the same capacity in a far more efficient layout.

The upgrade provides a larger, more functional space with easier access to stored items, plus added countertops for much-needed workspace. See Storage Room for more details.

A vintage fly fishing collection is framed in oak and hangs to the right of the doorway. It leads to a bathroom. Ahead is the corner shower with modern stacked brick porcelain tile in deep rustic green with small white horizontal hex stripes.s
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