House Beautiful Digital - Phillips Cabin Ohio, Dec 2022
Our Ohio cabin is in House Beautiful!
House Beautiful Digital featured Phillips Cabin on December 27, 2022 as "Tour a Family Retreat in the Rolling Ohio Hills" — and it was named one of House Beautiful's Most Popular Home Tours of 2022.
Phillips Cabin is tucked into the rolling hills of central Ohio, near Columbus. The family wanted an easy weekend escape — a colorful farmhouse-style cabin that still felt like a retreat, not a hunting lodge.
The challenge: wood covering the ceilings, beams, and trim, plus an enormous stone fireplace. All that wood and stone is warm, but it can easily feel heavy, dark, and dated.
So instead of fighting the wood, we lightened around it.
We used light wallpapers and soft paint tones to open the rooms while preserving the warmth that makes a cabin feel like a retreat. Blue-gray textured wallpaper in the living room, creamy whites on the remaining walls — the wood becomes a warm accent, not a heavy envelope.
High ceilings bring that airy, grand quality, but we balanced them with low, cozy seating around the fireplace, layered textiles, and intimate textures so it still feels like a family gathering spot.
My favorite piece House Beautiful called out is the Rug & Kilim Scandinavian geometric kilim in the living room.
It's the central anchor — flatweave with graphic blues in Swedish geometric patterns. Against the wood ceilings and enormous stone fireplace, it's that modern pop that keeps everything fresh.
Unlike our Bunker Hill project which is neutral and nature-driven, Phillips Cabin leans into color — blues, warm reds, soft yellows — that farmhouse feel with plenty of color the homeowners wanted.
Durable enough for weekend guests, kids, and dogs, but still intimate and inviting.
Thank you to House Beautiful for featuring Phillips Cabin, and to photographer Joshua McHugh for capturing how wood, stone, and modern textiles coexist.
This project is also Chapter Phillips Cabin in our book Design Happy: Colorful Homes for the Modern Family (Gibbs Smith, 2023).
Read the full article: House Beautiful
See the project: Phillips Cabin