Cottage Style

by Better Homes and Gardens

Book Overview

Breaks cottage-style decorating into doable increments. Tip boxes throughout the book inspire readers. Illustrated with 300 full-colour photos. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 069620777X
• ISBN13: 9780696207778
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Better Homes and Gardens Books
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 2.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 9.4" x 10.1"

Customer Reviews

I never put this romantic book away

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.

A happy discovery.

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.

What a find

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...

Wonderfully charming, unpretentious, and helpful

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.

Fabulous

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!