When you walk through the front door of Julie Fields and Malcolm Taylor’s cabin in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, you’re greeted by a wall of windows that frame countless green treetops in spring and summer, floating red, gold, and orange leaves in autumn, and branches blanketed with bright-white snow in winter.

“We like to say the house borrows space from the forest, because it sits on a 4.5-acre lot under a canopy of mature maple, birch, and oak trees,” says Malcolm. “The experience changes with the seasons. You hear wind rustling through the trees in the summer, and in the fall, you hear foxes running through fallen leaves.”

Julie and Malcolm, who live in Baltimore, first visited Berkeley Springs upon the recommendation of a friend. “They told me about it in passing, describing it as a quiet, beautiful, wellness-focused artists’ community,” says Julie. “Some years later, we celebrated our sixth anniversary there.” The town, known for its mineral hot springs, was everything Julie’s friend had described. “It felt like an escape,” she says. “We left feeling reconnected to nature and each other.”

The couple were so taken with Berkeley Springs they decided to search for a cabin there—a place they could run off to on weekends and holidays, and occasionally rent out for additional income. They searched high and low for months. “We weren’t looking for a particular style,” says Julie. “We were looking for a feeling.” They wanted something that felt isolated, special, and connected to nature.

When they saw a listing for a chalet-style cabin enveloped by trees, with not a neighbor in sight, they knew they’d found their new home. “It was perfect,” says Julie. “The house was as magical in person as it was in the listing,” agrees Malcolm. “The first thing we saw was that wall of windows with forest views, and this beautiful trim work—it was incredibly warm and inviting.”

They wrote a personal letter to the sellers, describing their draw to the cabin, which they submitted at once alongside an offer. “We closed the day that would have been my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary,” says Julie. “The owners left a note that read, ‘We hope it gives you as much pleasure as it gave us.’”

With a kismet feeling in their hearts and a budget of $55,000 in their pockets, Julie and Malcolm got to work putting their own stamp on the cabin. “It has great bones and it clearly had been well-loved, but it needed a refresh,” says Julie. “It was built in 1990, and there was gold and wood hardware, beige light switches and outlets, and laminate counters.”

$1,322 Electrical	$3,759 Plumbing	$5,000 Paint
$12,720 Furniture	$3,459 Appliances	$2,300 Lighting
$14,000 AC/Heat	$1,250 Countertops	$8,500 Deck/Exterior
$2,859 Flooring
Grand Total: $55,169

Julie and Malcolm were eager to create a more open kitchen, repaint walls, replace furnishings and fixtures, and update the exterior, but, they were intent on maintaining the oak trim and stair rail, the kitchen’s track lighting, and the living room’s vintage Kent woodburning stove.

They began by removing an awkwardly placed island that separated the kitchen from the living room and trading the laminate counters for butcher-block ones that cost $1,250. The couple spent $3,459 on new kitchen appliances and repainted the cabin’s entire interior with Benjamin Moore’s Simply White for $5,000. They swapped out the gold and wood hardware for black leather pulls and replaced the beige electrical outlets and switches with white ones.

“The first impression of a house is important, so one of our biggest expenses was painting the exterior cedar siding and redoing the decks,” says Julie. For $8,500, they painted the cabin with Sherwin-Williams’s Black Magic and repaired and stained pine decks on the upper and lower levels. “Black Magic is a warm shade of matte black that plays off the bark of the forest’s tree trunks,” says Malcolm. They also splurged on furniture and lighting, spending a total of $15,020. “Both dictate the mood and feel of a space, and they can be huge expressions of style,” says Julie.

The couple saved money by completing a lot of the renovation work themselves. “We’re both handy and we have a lot of experience updating our 100-year-old row house in Baltimore,” says Julie. “We demoed the kitchen, installed new bathroom vanities, and sanded and finished the kitchen counters.” Malcolm replaced most of the interior lighting, and Julie installed new doorknobs, towel racks, and window treatments.

The cozy loft has a black leather sofa and a small workspace. " layout="" credit="Photo by Justin Timothy Temple" photoUserId="6170727170344878080"/>

Doing the renovation work themselves taught Julie and Malcolm a few lessons. “Driving two hours each way every weekend after a long work week makes you appreciate time,” says Julie, whose patience was put to the test while installing one of the bathroom vanities. “I spent hours only to find out that the drawers were blocked by the molding around the door,” she says.

Chairs by Hee Welling for Hay from Design Within Reach pull up to a concrete firepit on one of the pine decks." layout="" credit="Photo by Justin Timothy Temple" photoUserId="6170727170344878080"/>

But nowadays, a weekend spent in Berkeley Springs melts away any stress or frustration. “We live at a slower pace there,” adds Julie. “We gaze at the surrounding forest and appreciate its drama and its subtleties.” Malcolm adds, “When we’re at the cabin, it feels like we’re part of nature.”

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Project Credits:

Designers: Julie Fields and Malcolm Taylor, Forest House / @foresthousewv

Photography: Justin Timothy Temple / @justintimothytemple

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Budget Breakdown: With $55K, They DIYed the Perfect Forest Cabin in West Virginia