10 Shortcuts To The Cottage Look
1 Search out flea markets for charming vintage storage
containers, such as the tin picnic pails Colleen favors. Cottage is about adding beautiful details to the necessary functions of living. Such containers are great for bills, income tax receipts and mending, and look adorable when stacked in a corner.
2 Don’t be afraid of mixing patterns, such as patterned china with patterned fabrics and wallcoverings. Just stick to the same basic colors so the patterns don’t fight; experiment with the mix until you achieve a personal comfort level.
3 Put a different spin on objects typically used out of doors. The picket fence fireboard is like a breath of fresh air simply because you don’t expect it.
4 Cottage rooms are often, by definition, small. Visually expand space by hanging mirrors at strategic spots. And rethink what can become a mirror. Old windows are perfect, as Colleen’s home illustrates.
5 Fight the urge to perfect timeworn objects. When Colleen found the seafoam green cupboard at a flea market, it had oil all over it. (A guy had been using it in his garage!) All she did was give it a good scrubbing and begin filling it with Debbie Mumm plates and white pitchers. It’s the imperfection that gives it special cottage appeal.
6 Consider an allover floral wallcovering to cozy up a bedroom. You may find it actually increases the feeling of spaciousness as well as charm.
7Think color. A touch of red in the form of a geranium plant, or a burst of sunny yellow breathes welcome light and life into the dreariest of rooms. You may find, as Colleen did, that you never tire of these vibrant hues.
8 Place objects to surprise and delight the eye at unexpected locations, like a row of birdhouses just below the ceiling. Magic!
9 Faced with a large room you can’t decide what to do with? Break it into several cozy functional areas—one with a table for dining or board games, a couple for intimate conversation areas.
10 Layer, layer, layer. Area rugs atop wall-to-wall carpeting... piles of pillows...you get the idea. |
 roblems. We all face them, whether we live in a custom-designed country home on picturesque prime real estate or whether our definition of home is a one-room
apartment while we get through graduate school. Thankfully, though, within every home-decorating problem is the seed for its solution.
In this issue, we introduce you to Colleen Cook, a Chicago-area homeowner who possesses the unique vision to see the rich potential in every problem.
Although the Zion, Illinois, home she moved into five years ago was brand new, it was plain and characterless, with small, boxy rooms and white walls. Undaunted, Colleen focused her creative energies toward transforming  the sterile interiors into the cozy, colorful cottage that she, husband Edward and their 8-year-old son now call home with a capital “H.”
Colleen’s homing instinct is very much inherited, and she is quick to point out a small wooden chair in the great room that once belonged to her grandparents. “They came to  this country from Finland,” she relates, “and ran a boarding house in Princeton, Michigan, from 1916 to 1954. I never met them, but the story is that they would take in everyone, and my grandmother would pack the men’s lunch pails every morning.”
Small wonder, then, that home to Colleen means a welcome mood that beckons wherever her family may roam. “It’s our haven,” she says. “Even when we’re on vacation, we’re happy to come home.” |
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