What do you love most about cottage living?

[Lynzee]

Being a relative newcomer to cottage living, I love this forum and the opportunity to discuss cottage living with others who love it. I'm curious...what do you love most about cottage living?

Lynz

[Frisco]

I'm a complete newcomer to this site, but not to cottage living. I have a 1930's English stone cottage in Phoenix and because of my husband's job, we have had to rent it for a few years while we live elsewhere.

But I can tell you what I love about cottage living because it's what I miss, every single day.

I love the feeling no other place has ever given me...the feeling of being in a home, not just a house. I love the small, but tidy layout. I love the uniqueness. I love the contrasts...lace against stone, sun on hardwood, a hooked rug on a dyed concrete floor, teacups against brick.

I love laying on the couch, looking through the cosy living room into the outside.

I love the old basement stairs, with their smooth, worn cement. I love the places to read - the front porch, the sun room, the futon in the guest house. I love that I can give a tea party on the front lawn and it looks perfectly natural in a city where you usually never see a soul in front yards. (Let alone a tea party!)

I love that everyone wants to see the inside. My home was on a historic home tour with many larger and more expensive homes. I was a little scared! But people on the tour kept whispering to me "I always wanted to see your house the most and now that I have, I love it the best".

I love that I feel a part of something bigger. I have pictures of previous owners framed and displayed and I feel like I am, with them, a part of a chain of history. I love belonging to that chain.

I love being in my stone cottage when it storms. I can peek out from the porch or hide in the basement and wherever I go, I know I am surrounded age-old rocks that will never fail to protect me.

I love waking up with the windows flung open and a breeze drifting in - and even better when I'm awakened by friends outside the open window saying 'Get up, come on, let's get breakfast...we have a lot to talk about!'.

Only a couple more years and we'll be back....home.

[zuzus_garden]

Hi Lynz - I'll share...

I fell in love with cottage living when I was a little girl. My great-grandmother had a cottage on the Big Thompson River in Colorado that family used on weekends. When we’d arrive, we’d run around the outside, opening all the red shutters. We’d prime the pump, and bring in a bucket of water, and my grandpa would start a fire in the old kitchen woodstove.

Inside, there was old ‘cast-off’ furniture (what we call shabby chic today), quilts, Depression glass, a ‘40s radio, old books and magazines, and memorabilia.

We played cards and boardgames, waded in the river, picked berries, and talked for hours in the garden swing while my grandpa fished.

The cottage was swept away in a flash flood in 1976, but I didn’t lose what I loved most - those unhurried times we shared together in that tiny little cottage are the memories I treasure today.

Zuzu

P.S. Thanks for starting the thread, Lynz. Turns out while I was typing, Frisco was too! Hi Frisco - Welcome! I hope everyone who reads this thread will share!

[ccquiltr]

I don't live in a cottage yet, but hope to some day.
I love to go through the magazine and look at all the stuff folks post here to get ideas about how I can decorate where I'm at now to make it look warm and cozy. It's also nice to see all the different types of cottages that are out there that I'll be able to choose from when the time comes!
CC

[ChrisNH53]

Hey Zuzu-I was living in Colorado in the 70's and I remember the Big Thompson Flood. What an awful event.

Anyways, I have always seemed to live in cottage type homes and I have always loved all of them. I grew up in one in MA. Now I live in NH with my husband and we have a wonderful small cottage home and we also own jointly with his siblings a cottage on the coast of Maine that was his grandparents (It's the picture in my avatar). When my 2 kids were small and having all their friends over I used to think how it would be so much easier to have a bigger house. All the kids seemed to gather at my house. But recently one of my sons friends told me he used to love to come to my house because it was so welcoming and I think that is the part of the cottage feel that I love. It is warm and welcoming.

In Maine where our cottage is and in NH all around us they are building bigger and bigger homes and I can't tell you how much that bothers me. In Maine, especially, people are tearing down cottages and building these McMansions. They look so out of place. I hope people get back to building small homes.

[Lisa S]

Frisco ~ I loved what you said about being a part of something bigger in your cottage home. That's exactly what I love too!

Sheryl, the granddaughter of the gentleman who built our house is coming to visit today. She's been here before and I love her company! She tells me stories about things that happened when she was a little girl in this house. She's given me a picture of her grandpa when he was in a marching band. She told me how much her grandfolks loved music and how much a part of living here was wrapped up in music. Perfectly fitting for our family to be living here ~ my husband is a musician and our kids have his music gene. We're always singing and playing the piano.

Last time she was here, Sheryl gave me a few bags of canning jars that her grandma used in the 1920's in my/our kitchen. Of course, I had to can with them right away. I love the feeling of continuity that I get when I see them in the pantry.

Sheryl’s aunt lived in this house while she was growing up. (Her parents built the house.) She came to visit one time and I was able to give her a bouquet of lilacs that came from a bush that was here when she was little.

Living in a cottage home is like marrying for love instead of money. It’s like a handmade quilt verses a sleeping bag. It’s preferring a chipped tea cup made of fine china over a perfect plastic cup. There is history and beauty living in a simple, old cottage home. I wouldn’t want more.

[zuzus_garden]

Wow! This is so much fun. I love reading everyone's story and perspective.

ChrisNH53 - where did you live in CO? I grew up in Wheat Ridge, and went to U.N.C. in Greeley '70-72 before marrying & moving to CA. That flash flood was devastating - my sister & her husband were playing cards in the cottage and just did manage to get out safely.

Lynz - jump in when you get time and tell us what you love!

Zuzu

[ChrisNH53]

We were actually living in Denver at Lowry AFB while my husband was in the Air Force but we had been in Cheyenne WY that weekend visiting a friend and saw all the commotion around the exit in that area when were traveling down the highway back to Denver. I remember listening to the radio and they were reading names of people missing. Your sister and brother in law were lucky to get out. So many didn't.

[ptmanan]

I have such fond memories of my grandmother's cottage in upstate NY. Rock walls and fireplace, slate patio - gardens galore. I felt most at home (at peace?) in her cozy home. Those feelings just carried with me. I think the smaller the home, the more cozy it felt.

For a short time I lived in a big colonial (16 rooms). Although it was historical, it never felt warm and fuzzy. I like to feel like I am 'wrapped' in my home, but there, I felt like I was "rambling" around. But the house, at the time, suited the needs of kids and work.

We just move into a home about 1/3 the size and I LOVE it!!!! I look around and feel at peace. It is cozy and inviting, vintage floral overstuffed couch, throws, soft lighting, a lot of mixture of prints (floral, stripes, plaids - the more the merrier) and fabrics (vintage, velvet, lace), old family pieces of furniture.... I walk through the door and it's like I'm in another time? world?

My cottage is my home, and "there's no place like home".

[Lynzee]

I love that I feel a part of something bigger. I have pictures of previous owners framed and displayed and I feel like I am, with them, a part of a chain of history. I love belonging to that chain.

Beautifully stated, Frisco--and so true! My family has owned this cottage as long as I can remember. I grew up spending vacations and school breaks here, as have my children and now, their children. There is a history here--our history--and I love that. We still sleep in the same old metal beds with the chipped white paint, we store our clothes in the same old dressers with the glass knobs, we curl up on the faded cushions of the same white wicker furniture to watch TV, we gather for meals at the same table, we play cards on the same game table in the sunroom, and we still laugh about the kitchen cabinets that a friend of the family made and installed 30 years ago--hanging the upper cabinets only five inches above the lower cabinets so my mother (at 5') could easily reach anything in them--and the built in bookshelves another friend of the family started 20 years ago and never finished. The cottage is small (but cozy), old and in need of a lot of work, but it was the one constant during my life as a mobile military child and wife with countless numbers of addresses and, even with all that I can find wrong with it, I can't think of anyplace I'd rather be. When I step inside and see myself surrounded by things that I truly love--and that my mother loved--there's no doubt in my mind that I'm home.

Hi Zuzu, You're right--this is fun! Thanks for sharing your story. I'm so sorry to hear that your family cottage washed away, but what incredible memories you must have. Glad to know your sister and her husband got out safely. How scary that must have been!

Lynz

[soeur6180]

Hello There! I'm new to this forum, but wanted to add my thoughts here... I don't have a cottage yet, nor even a house, but the philosophy of cottage life is what inspires me. The cozy informality of a small home, a refuge from the outside world, makes each day a simple beauty! Living in an apartment and saving for a small house helps me focus on aquiring pieces that I LOVE and can transfer to any living space I find myself in in the future! I can't paint the walls here, can't change the carpeting or take down the venetian blinds. However, I can hang items I LOVE on the walls and fill this small space with color and make it feel like a cottage home. Thanks for the inspiration, ladies! I've loved looking at all of your websites,etc.! (On a side note: I grew up in Upstate NY, my brother lives in Greeley, CO and I visited Whidbey Island this past weekend! Odd, isn't it?)

[Casual Cottage]

The cozy informality of a small home, a refuge from the outside world, makes each day a simple beauty! Living in an apartment and saving for a small house helps me focus on aquiring pieces that I LOVE and can transfer to any living space I find myself in in the future! I can't paint the walls here, can't change the carpeting or take down the venetian blinds. However, I can hang items I LOVE on the walls and fill this small space with color and make it feel like a cottage home. Thanks for the inspiration, ladies!
Wecome Soeur6180! You stated it perfectly....a refuge from the outside world. It sounds as though you are very focused, and living in a small place dictates that you will only purchase items that you really love. You'll have your little cottage before you know it and then, you can shop til you drop!! :D

[zuzus_garden]

Hi soeur6180,

Welcome - so happy you have joined in!

Just wanted to say that I don't have a cottage-style home right now either, but I agree with you...if you love the look and the lifestyle, you can create it no matter where you live and enjoy it now.

You said...I can't paint the walls here, can't change the carpeting or take down the venetian blinds.

But, that's ok, because there are work-arounds. You can pin fabric to a wall to add softness and color. You can put throw rugs down over the carpeting, and add curtains over the venetian blinds. And, someday, when you move into a little cottage home, you can box it all up, and take it with you. :)

Oh, and about your side note: How fun that your brother lives in Greeley! I went to school in Greeley (35 years ago :eek: ), and it's still a beautiful little town.

Hope you'll post often - it's fun talkin' with you!

Zuzu

[Eleanor Griffin]

Thank you for embracing Cottage Living magazine. I've enjoyed reading your postings, particularly on what's going on with the "cottage industry" phenomenon. Readers, like yourself, are the lifeblood of our magazine.

I'll be logging on to follow the threads and learn more about what our readers are talking about.

Best wishes,
Eleanor Griffin
Editor in Chief

[zuzus_garden]

Hi Eleanor,

I've enjoyed reading what Rex has shared in the forums, and am delighted that you will be visiting too.

No doubt you are aware of how much we enjoy the magazine...and we appreciate that the CL forums are here for so many of us to share our thoughts and ideas.

Warmest regards,
Zuzu

[Lynzee]

Hi Soeur6180--welcome to the forums! Where did you live in upstate New York? We were in the foothills of the Adirondacks for several years. As a military wife, I lived in many rentals with restrictions and I agree with Zuzu--there are definitely "work-arounds". Most military wives that I've known agree...no matter what, no matter where, it's home if love is there. Good luck--hope you'll keep us posted on your progress!

Welcome Eleanor! I love CL and have found that it is one magazine that I can enjoy cover to cover. I also enjoy reading the forum posts and sharing ideas and I really like the fact that you're checking in to see what the readers are saying too. I wish you continued success!

Lynzee

[sararose]

Hello, I'm new to this forum!

What I love most about cottage living is that it reflects the history, memories, comforts, and secret joys of the owners. Virtually every piece of furniture has a story attached to it. I've seen a lot of houses furnished to look like hotels, Starbucks, or museums. All of those places are lovely, but I want my house to look like a home.

:( I don't live in a cottage either. I hope to live in one someday, although I might have to move to another state to find one. Unfortunately all the bungalows and Victorians in my city are in a bad section of town. There is an effort to restore the area, but it's moving very slowly. Right now I live in a 1950's pueblo-style tract home, which isn't too cottage-y. It does have wood floors and a garden, that's a start.

I love this magazine. I got the latest issue last week. I've already read it four times--I feel like a little kid wanting to hear the same story over and over again ("Mommy, tell me the story about how Heather Chadduck decorated her ceiling with old maps again..."). I even order the paint samples shown in the source listing to see how they would look in my house.

It's great that some of you sell cottage items online--I would never be able to find those things locally. I especially liked the furniture appliques.

[bordercat]

I agree that Cottage Living can be a wonderful resource for people who don't live in a cottage house! I love that a cottage can be a home for a young couple with children, empty nesters, as a second beach home...you can find cottages all over the country.

I live in Tokyo, where there are definitely no cottages, but small living spaces! I like the casual, yet stylish and classy interiors featured in the magazine. With so much focus in some magazines as small spaces being "starter homes" to be traded up for bigger and bigger houses in the future, or as cramped apartments for single people, Cottage Living is refreshing because it values living and ENJOYING the charm of a cottage (or any smaller living space, really!).

And also, I can look at the woodland cottages in the magazine and dare to dream! Ha ha. Right now, the urban exterior is not going away, but I can try to create a cozy and sweet home "refuge" on the inside. :p

[mckenzygirl]

I love the "uncompliated" life style of cottage living.
I always feel like, I'm on a permanent vacation!
I love the relaxed feel I get coming home.
Nothing in my cottage is "fussy" it's a kick off your shoes and put your feet on the coffee table!
My ganddaughters come here and I never worry about them spilling anything because the sofa is slipped covered and it's washable.