Embrace English Cottage Style In Your Home
Image Credit (left to right) - Owen Gale
Love English Cottage Style? With cottagecore seeing massive popularity in everything from decor to gaming, it's no surprise that people are gravitating more toward this style of decorating.
With a cult following of its own, the English Cottage Style has long transcended its geographic boundaries, becoming a favourite style of decorating for legions of design lovers worldwide. Thankfully for us city dwellers, English Cottage-style interiors aren’t restricted to cottages themselves – anyone can bring a touch of this traditional design into their home.
Defined by its cosiness and usage of local and traditional materials both inside and outside. This is a style that you can truly make your own, incorporating classics of cottage style along with your own quirks and sense of nostalgia. It's cosy, comforting, and casual, which many of us are looking for.
Making your home a retreat and a place of safety and solace is more appealing than ever. While there can be modern touches in an English cottage interior, most of what pulls people toward this style is that sense of softness and warmth. It creates a place where you can snuggle in for a relaxing read, put your feet up and relax, and just feel comfortable for a while.
Ready to add some cottagecore style to your own home? There's just something about the countryside aesthetic that makes us want to curl up with a good book and unwind. Read on for everything you need to know on implementing this design style into your home, even if your home doesn’t classify as a cottage.
EMBRACE COLOUR AND PATTERN
Image Credit (left to right) - Francois Halard, Leslee Mitchell
The English cottage aesthetic leans heavily on playful patterns and bright colours - especially wall treatments and textiles. Reds, pinks, yellows, blues and greens, florals, checks, and paisleys are part of the decorating vocabulary often mixed and matched to charming results.
Culture and climate have a great influence on the use of colour palettes in decorating - a cheery, bright-hued interior is the best antidote to England’s notoriously grey skies. Do you prefer a lighter colour scheme for your English cottage-inspired interior?
Instead of overhauling your space with a whole catalogue of different patterns - consider starting with a statement wall or investing in slipcovers and going from there. Experimenting with different schemes can be very satisfying and can lead to great results if done right.
GO BIG WITH LAYERS AND TEXTURES
Image Credit (left to right) - Heidi Caillier Design, Fingals Folly
Much of the cosiness and warmth that people love about the English cottage style of decorating is due to ample use of texture and layers. Rugs, pillows, cushions, throws, wall hangings, and even textural wallpapers all add to the uniqueness of this style.
At its best, English cottage style feels like a home in which items have been lovingly collected over time, resulting in a cosy mish-mash of layers and texture. Find vintage linens and blankets, or even scour online retailers for items to add that comfy feel to your decor.
Rugs over rugs, or even over hardwood or tile, are the most striking and effective way to add colour, texture, and layers to your home. And don't forget curtains, drapes, and blinds, all of which provide another way to create a cottage feel in your home.
MIX THE OLD AND NEW
Image Credit (left to right) - GPShafer
The best English cottage-style interiors combine the old and the new in a way that makes both play off each other beautifully. Smart planning and making the best out of limited space are key to creating a timeless space - it should feel like the items in your home have been collected over the years.
A wonderful aspect of English cottage decor is making the old new again and incorporating vintage pieces into the home. You can pick up reclaimed furniture, antique trinkets and ceramics, and traditional lighting like ornate chandeliers from flea-markets for a small price.
Patterns, textures, moods, and eras can and should be united and recreated to get that rich, comfortable, playful style in your home. At its heart, this is an eclectic style and one that invites disparate elements that would almost seem to clash to instead work together.
GO WITH THE OVERFLOW
Image Credit (left to right) - Candle Wood Cottage, Paul Massey
Diverting from minimalist style: cottage design adopts clutter and the lived-in look of a space, from kitchens to bedrooms. One of the great things about decorating in an English cottage style is that a room never looks finished or decorated but rather like it has evolved over time.
Embrace the overflow of ceramics in your kitchen with open shelving and lots of decorative dishes to display. Different elements – textiles, furniture, paint colours, art, and other accessories – go well together without being colour-matched and coordinated to perfection. The overall effect is harmonious and pleasant, without feeling contrived or artificial.
In the end, decorating is all about telling a story - the story of who we are, who we’d like to be, and mood is essential in getting our personal narratives across. English cottage style exudes nostalgia and appreciation for the past, for the “simple things” in life, for colour and art, and for entertaining family and friends.
What you end up with is a home that is uniquely you, very stylish, and oh-so-comfortable. Here are three gorgeous hand-made Persian and Oriental rugs, selected especially for this cottage-core aesthetic.
