If the traditional thatched-roofed, picturesque English country cottage has piqued your curiosity about their interiors, step inside and see. Their imaginative owners have found many delightful ways to retain old-fashioned charm while not sacrificing modern comfort. A Devon home still has a log-burning stove. The washhouse of an Oakhurst cottage allows a glimpse of another century. The fruits of a countrywide search, these cottages show both those quirky imperfections and beguiling architectural details that reveal poignant reminders of past generations.
A guide to decorating and introducing style to a cottage in the country. The book's topics range from the evolution of the cottage to the garden and its crops.
Perfect English Cottage explores 18 inspirational homes that celebrate the best of cottage style in the English countryside. Perfect English Cottage explores 18 inspirational homes that celebrate the best of cottage style in the English countryside. The book explores the decorating and design solutions that make the cottages as attractive inside as out, as well as practical and comfortable to live in. Bestselling author Ros Byam Shaw takes a fresh look at this perennially appealing style, which she divides into five chapters: Character, Holiday, Romance, Simplicity, and Elegance. The featured homes are incredibly varied, from a tiny house with exposed beams to a pared-down Georgian gem, to a picture-perfect cottage with roses over the door—and plenty more adorning the interior. Each section ends with a Get The Look page devoted to ideas for recreating the style in your own home.
The author of Victorian Style now presents a book that captures English country style in all its glorious excess--the softly muted colors and the profusion of furniture, wallpaper, paintings, bibelots, and bric-a-brac that create a wonderfully comfortable and uniquely personal ambience. 65 color photos.
This beautifully illustrated book explores the charm of 24 country and seaside cottages from Key West to California. Mary Emmerling and photographer Joshua Greene ventured across America and found decorating ideas and housekeeping solutions that will prove delightful and useful to anyone who enjoys living informally and intimately in small spaces. Full-color photographs.
Discover design inspiration as a photographer and blogger details the story of her renovation of a 1940s cottage in the California countryside. A little, abandoned vacation house that could, set in the center of rolling fields and trees becomes the cottage home of her dreams. A French country–style cottage filled with original elements and an exquisite mix of rustic and refined. The years of renovation allowed Courtney to create a lifestyle that is fueled by inspiration and beauty, a touch of whimsy, and an abundance of everyday elegance. The journey has been shared on her popular blog French Country Cottage, and now, through the publication of her first book, her readers will experience a reveal of more of her home and property and the inspirations behind her beloved style. Courtney's inspiring photography reveals every nuance of her style and home including a muted color palette, old brassy door knobs, chippy paint, antiques, her greenhouse and garden, and an abundance of entertaining and holiday decorating style. Blurring the lines between indoor and outdoor and embracing well-worn as well loved, French Country Cottage is a style that celebrates simplicity, indulges in romance, cherishes pieces with history and believes a chandelier and fresh flowers belong in every room.
Living today in the houses of the English countryside, owners blend contemporary style with the old, good bones of manor houses and country seats, redefining the notion of English country and creating interiors that are both chic and intimate. English country house style looms large in the collective imagination, inspiring fantasies of life in a centuries-old manor house, overlooking verdant hills dotted with sheep. This book allows us to enter some of the most exceptional of England's historic houses that are lived in and decorated for today by their imaginative owners and designers. Jeremy Musson and Hugo Rittson Thomas have assembled a stunning collection of twenty charming homes that reveal a remarkable wealth of taste and style inspiration, both inside and out, ranging from traditional and classic to contemporary and bohemian, with examples including Haddon Hall, Smedmore, Court of Noke, and The Laskett. Musson's text illuminates the history of each home, showing how each has become a canvas upon which its owner has deeply imprinted their personality. Essays on furniture, gardens, and color expand upon three essential components of country style. Rittson Thomas's superb photography captures the telling details in natural-lit interiors and exquisite gardens. This volume is sure to appeal to Instagram fanatics and traditionalists alike.
A highly detailed look at the English country house interior, offering unprecedented access to England’s finest rooms. In this splendid book, renowned historian Jeremy Musson explores the interiors and decoration of the great country houses of England, offering a brilliantly detailed presentation of the epitome of style in each period of the country house, including the great Jacobean manor house, the Georgian mansion, and the Gothic Revival castle. For the first time, houses known worldwide for their exquisite architecture and decoration--including Wilton, Chatsworth, and Castle Howard--are seen in unprecedented detail. With intimate views of fabric, gilding, carving, and furnishings, the book will be a source of inspiration to interior designers, architects, and home owners, and a must-have for anglophiles and historic house enthusiasts. The fifteen houses included represent the key periods in the history of English country house decoration and cover the major interior fashions and styles. Stunning new color photographs by Paul Barker-who was given unparalleled access to the houses-offer readers new insights into the enduring English country house style. Supplementing these are unique black-and-white images from the archive of the esteemed Country Life magazine. Among the aspects of these that the book covers are: paneling, textile hangings (silks to cut velvet), mural painting, plasterwork, stone carving, gilding, curtains, pelmets, heraldic decoration, classical imagery, early upholstered furniture, furniture designed by Thomas Chippendale, carved chimney-pieces, lass, use of sculpture, tapestry, carpets, picture hanging, collecting of art and antiques, impact of Grand Tour taste, silver, use of marble, different woods, the importance of mirror glass, boulle work, English Baroque style, Palladian style, neo-Classical style, rooms designed by Robert Adam, Regency, Gothic Revival taste, Baronial style, French 18th century style, and room types such as staircases, libraries, dining rooms, parlors, bedrooms, picture galleries, entrance halls and sculpture galleries. Houses covered include: Hatfield - early 1600s (Jacobean); Wilton - 1630/40s (Inigo Jones); Boughton - 1680/90s (inspired by Versailles); Chatsworth -1690/early 1700s (Baroque); Castle Howard - early 1700s (Vanbrugh); Houghton - 1720s (Kent); Holkham - 1730s-50s (Palladian); Syon Park - 1760s (Adam); Harewood - 1760s/70s (neo-Classical); Goodwood - 1790s/1800s (neo-Classical/Regency); Regency at Chatsworth/Wilton/C Howard etc - 1820/30s; Waddesdon Manor - 1870/80ss (French Chateau style); Arundel Castle -1880s/90s (Gothic Revival); Berkeley Castle - 1920/30s (period recreations and antique collections); Parham House - 1920s/30s (period restorations and antique collections). The range is from the early 17th century to present day, drawn from the authenticated interiors of fifteen great country houses, almost all still in private hands and occupied as private residences still today. The book shows work by twentieth-century designers who have helped evolve the country house look, including Nancy Lancaster, David Hicks, Colefax & Fowler, and David Mlinaric
