New Cottage Style: Decorating Ideas for Casual, Comfortable Living (Better Homes & Gardens Decorating) [Paperback]

Better Homes & Gardens (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 5, 2012 | Series: Better Homes & Gardens Decorating (Book 39)

Achieve a casual, easy living style

"Cottage" is a perennially popular decorating style, with the flexibility to adapt to changing tastes over the decades. It's associated with comfort, simplicity, and family-friendliness, and allows for a great deal of personalization. This all-new edition of New Cottage Style is packed with decorating ideas and inspiration to achieve a cottage look that's clean, simple, and light—all from the experts at Better Homes and Gardens.

Completely updated, New Cottage Style shows you what cottage style means today, with new interpretations that keep it fresh, different, and current. You'll discover the secrets to creating harmony and simplicity with paint, furniture, fabrics, and accessories. Examples of homes in a variety of settings—the country, the beach, the city, and suburbia—will inspire you to bring cottage style to your own home, wherever you happen to live.

• Shows you how cottage-style décor can be beautiful in any room
• Gorgeous full-color photos depict a wide variety of cottage-style homes
• Expert advice helps you interpret what makes a cottage-style space work and gives you ideas for implementing it in your home

Who doesn't want to achieve a casual, easy lifestyle? New Cottage Style gives you practical ideas and decorating techniques to create a comfortable getaway look in any living space.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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Tips for Personalizing Spaces

Little things make a big difference in any room. Personalize your spaces with displays that show your personality and interests.

1. Book It: Grab a few of your favorite books and stack them on a table. Top with a small bouquet of fresh flowers.
2. Cute Cluster: Use some old glass bottles to create a centerpiece highlighting garden clippings-it's more interesting than a standard vase.
3. Collective Display: Show off hat collections by hanging them on the walls instead of art.
4. Serving a Purpose: Use a serving tray or bowl to display accessories such as seashells, rocks, jewelry, and more.
5. Memories in a Bottle: Fill old apothecary bottles or jars with sand from vacations and group these together on a mantel or shelf.

Images from New Cottage Style

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From the Back Cover

casual, livable decorating

Learn to create the relaxed look and comfortable feel of cottage style with the hundreds of photos and ideas on these pages.

In this all-new edition you'll find:

Decorating inspiration Discover the new side of cottage style—pared-down rooms that are still comfy and full of character.

Style options Explore the varied looks—classic, sophisticated, modern, beachy—to find a look that suits your home.

Room makeovers Browse before-and-after photos, and glean ideas for your own amazing room transformations.

Style lessons Learn how to freshen up and better organize porches, laundry rooms, hobby areas, and other special spaces.

Quick projects Bring cottage style to your home with do-in-a-day (or even a few hours) projects and ideas.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 2 edition (June 5, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1118170342
• ISBN-13: 978-1118170342
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 0.5 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Home Improvement & Design > Small Homes & Cottages
  • #17 in Books > Arts & Photography > Decorative Arts & Design > Decorative Arts
  • #37 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Home Improvement & Design > Home Decorating & Design > Interior Design > Decorating

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Do You Like Cottage Style? June 12, 2012

By L. M. Keefer TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you love Cottage Style and can't get enough of it, you should enjoy seeing the cottages, bungalows and farmhouses in this charming book. Its focus is the NEW cottage style--there's even a modular home decorated in a relaxed cottage style. (Top designer David Easton who worked at Parish-Hadley and taught design history at Parsons School of Design in New York writes in his book Timeless Elegance: The Houses of David Easton that he is building a pre-fab home in the country with his partner--so it demonstrates these modular, prefab homes can have style and panache.)

I don't know about you, but I have never met a cottage or cabin I couldn't love and wouldn't want to decorate. They are timeless homes which evoke a bit of romance, nostalgia for the past and a "vacation-state-of-mind" as this book describes.

But how to decorate cottage style today without being too cliched or cloying? This book answers that question by featuring many examples of updated cottage. The homes offer a hybrid look that is more streamlined with some modern elements and diverse color choices. While you will see the always lovable cottage elements such as sea grass carpet, relaxed slipcovers, old fans, antique glass bottles and decanters, these are combined and punched up with graphic pillows and carpet, modern art, modern silhouette glass lamps, melamine dining chairs etc.

Divided into house tour sections, you visually tour homes in this book that are grouped by four cottage styles: every day living, classic looks, touch of elegance and welcoming retreats. There are four to six homes in each section exemplifying these different looks.

Illustrating make-over ideas for cottage porches, laundries, hobby rooms and my favorite--home offices--there is a separate "room views" chapter. Finally there's a section on DIY projects and ideas such as painting wicker furniture pieces.

Scattered through-out are original "try this" tips and other ideas in the text on how to decorate in the new cottage style. Some favorite examples with accompanying pictures:

* Swap in reproductions with antiques
* Use cane insertions on kitchen cabinet doors
* Saw an old table in half and anchor to wall as matching nightstands for the bed
* Paint an old scuffed antique dresser a glossy black
* Frame swimwear or book jackets for beach reads for fun and affordable art for a beach cottage

While there were some rooms in the book which lacked a certain je ne sais quoi--maybe the furniture was the wrong scale or the mix didn't seem quite right--there were enough attractive rooms and ideas that really inspire on how to update cottage style for all kinds of tastes whether you like the more classic, elegant, casual, beach or country cottage style. The kitchens in this book are wonderful I thought--it's worth buying the book for the kitchens alone. But I like the warmth and freshness of cottage kitchens. Perhaps because the first kitchens, even in the great country houses of England as we see in DOWNTON ABBEY, had a cottage feel. They weren't sterile labs which is how some modern kitchens can look.

Most everyone yearns for a place in the country, or by the water, to escape to and just enjoy casual, comfortable, vacation-style living. At the least, while perusing this book you can enjoy thinking about how you'd decorate the cottage of your dreams in this iconic and versatile style. If you like the cottage vignette on the cover of this book, you should enjoy the content inside.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice Interpretations of Cottage Style June 10, 2012

By S. Fuller

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have to say I'm very pleasantly surprised by the New Cottage Style book. It's not new pictures of the expected beach and country cottage; it's filled from front to back with delicious images of different interpretations of cottage style. I'm happy to see everything from modern to French, from whitewashed to moody, colorful to neutral, and casual to somewhat formal. The entire book is summery and light-filled, perfect for sitting on the porch with a glass of lemonade and perusing for ideas to steal. I've already looked through it at least 10 times, but I see something new each time. It's definitely a great book to have in the library to refer to again and again.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun Cottage Book June 17, 2012

By Denise C.

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I buy many Cottage books, this is a new favorite! I love the House tours which include an exterior shot of each home, which, many times, books or magazines do not show. The photos were varied and informative. A fun cottage escape!