Customer Reviews

Cottage Style (Better Homes & Gardens)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

All we want is a cozy, comfortable, inviting home. Nothing formal or pretentious or for show. This book was on my neighbor's coffee table, and I fell in love with it right away and ordered my own copy. Now that it's fall, this book is giving me more than a winter's worth of decorating ideas to make our home comfortable. I like that this book is not limiting my sense of style but helping me to come up with my own style by showing so many varied cottage style looks. The pictures of what I can tell are actual homes are beautiful, and the writing explains how to decorate instead of just describing what is in the pictures. There are lots of tips on arranging collections and furniture, choosing fabrics, and so forth. This book is great as a dream book, and I ooh and ahh over page after page. But when I stop to read, I get information to help me take ideas from those pictures and do them my own way in our home. I'll use this classic book often and for years. A wonderful buy. Good for Christmas gifts...

Where we live, a lot of people have second homes. That isn't possible for us right now, but this book, Cottage Style, is helping me give our suburban house that weekend-house look. At first, I thought cottage style was just one decorating look, but it isn't. It includes LOTS of looks (farmhouse, Adirondack, and so on) with one thing in common: giving any home that "getaway feeling," as the author explains. The book is just great. I'm planning right now on how to turn our family room into the northwoods "cabin" that my husband and I have always wanted. Another winner from the Better Homes and Gardens people.

This book stays on my coffee table because I use it all the time. It has changed my life because I've used it to cozy up every room in our home. It's made me fall in love with my home. I love the ideas that are shown in the pictures but really like the simple tips that the writer has emphasized which let me add romantic cottage touches to what I already own. I looked at other cottage books but they seemed too much about architecture or about rooms from Europe that don't look like my suburban home. This book has shown me that I can have a cottage wherever I live.

This book is one of those happy little discoveries. It's empowering me to make my home "happy" and a lot more fun. I saw the author on a Christopher Lowell rerun and jotted down the book's name, which I promptly forgot. But then I walked into the bookstore and came face to face with the same book on a display, so I knew I had to buy it. It's my decorating fate! This book defines various cottage looks, all the while talking about how to use those colors, furnishings, fabrics, and so on to turn your home into a cottage getaway. An interesting approach. I want to escape when I go home, so I am using this book as one of my guides in creating that "great escape" look in the suburbs. What I love is that my husband is getting into it, too. He talks about going away to his "cottage" on the weekends. This book doesn't focus on kitsch or clutter (but it did help me organize the teapots I collect) but on creating a look that can make a home seem like a farmhouse or a log house or a nautical seashore cottage in simple, tasteful ways.

I picked up the book at a big bookstore before ordering from amazon. (Amazon's price was better.) What I wanted (and got) was an excellent decorating book but not a ditsy, cutesy book filled with projects. This is a kind of interior design primer that seems to cover the bases of such things as color and arranging accessories but with a yummy, cottage-style focus. There isn't another book like it, and I've been looking. Very helpful and also a wonderful book so flip through because the photos are gorgeous.

I have to say this is my favorite decorating book. I could spend hours looking at this book and always see something new. I love the photos and the ideas. If you like masculin-homedecor, very contemporary, or very, very formal this may not be for you. The ideas are very easy to apply to your own home and style. I have a new home and the ideas work. If you have an older home this book is even more perfect for you! With these ideas we can relax and have style! I would call it Cottage Chic! Some Shabby Chic too. Beautiful!!! I highly recommend this book you will not be disappointed.

I didn't know my decorating style had a name until I found this book. It's all about decorating in a different way and avoiding the dull sameness that we usually find in suburban homes. There is something freeing about cottage style. It's all about freshness and fun and ease and escape. We are using this book and another cottage book called Second Home to inspire and guide us as we decorate our home.

Cottage Style can mean so many different things and this book can help you to find your own cottage style.
 
This book covers the different modes such as beach house, primitive country, Victorian gothic, English country  rustic western and southwestern,  romantic (like Rachel Ashwell's shabby chic), French country, farm fresh country cottage, and garden style.
 
The book is generous with photos for inspiration (over 200 to be exact)- no doubt some re-purposed from the pages of Better Homes & Gardens - but examples are all somewhat "country" in appearance with all the painted, stenciled, stamped and embellished windows, walls, and floors.  And all cottages are not country. If you want a real beach house, coastal living theme or a real English or French country look, you may want to look elsewhere. 
 
But the be-all, end-all knowledge of all forms of cottage style decorating is not what the book promises to be.  It's a good primer to introducing you to ALL of the cottage styles so that you can see what speaks to YOU and your tastes.  Then you can research each particular style that you want to achieve.
 
No matter what, the book is a helpful reference for trekking your cottage style giving you specific suggestions on color, fabric, and accessories.  Then, the book gives you specific examples for different areas of your home:  living room, dining room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and porch...there is even a nursery decorating idea page.
 
Perhaps one of the most valuable sections of the book is the glossary of terms in the back. It may only be a two-page spread but it is smattered with terms essential for decorating today.

There are only a few real how-to instructions for completing specific projects in this book, but who cares?  There are tons of decorating tips and snippets for added touches in creating cottage style home décor.  All in all, a great feel-good book, great for thumbing through and making notes with a cuppa joe in hand.

This book finally defined my decorating style - I didn't even know it had a name. The photos and the info help you figure out what appeals to you so you can make decorating decisions that produce your desired effect. We have been able to give our home that "cozy-comfy-bed&breakfast" feel that is very relaxing. I look at this book whenever I'm stumped and always get a new idea. Get it today!

As soon as I read the customer revivew that referred to this book as a "chick flick" book, I knew I had to have it. I wasn't disappointed, either. It shows styles ranging from serene and pared down to kitschy, but each of them is lovable and cottage-cozy. And that is what we want in our home. I design all kinds of rooms for clients, but when I get home I want to sink into overstuffed chairs and have my favorite things around me. I have a lot of clients, too, who want me to use cottage furnishings and fabrics to turn their homes into "weekend cottages." As a designer, I appreciate the fact that the book doesn't promote cluttered decorating but offers sound design advice on mixing colors, fabric patterns, and arranging collections and furnishings. This is a happy, snug little book on a style that never seems to die.