It’s all a little bit country
Experts on the cottagecore trend tell LISA SALMON how we can all achieve the feel of a cosy rural retreat
MANY of us dream of living in a cosy rural cottage with exposed beams, a roaring log fire and roses all around the door. But reality often means it’s an unachievable fantasy.
However, while work, finances and simple geography might mean you can’t move to your dream rural idyll, don’t worry, you can achieve that traditional country feel – at least to some extent – whether you live in your own period property or an inner city two-up two-down, thanks to the phenomenon that is cottagecore.
Yes, cottage living is now a ‘thing’ – an internet aesthetic trend that has boomed during the pandemic, as people seek ways to make the four walls they’ve been locked behind for so long more cosy and comfortable.
The #cottagecore vibe is championed online by a community of people whose Instagram posts are laden with photos of gorgeous cosy cottages, vintage furniture and cute cottage gardens, often with a seemingly obligatory dog lazing in front of a blazing fire.
“Cottagecore definitely exploded during the first lockdown, as people began to dream of a healthier, simple lifestyle, surrounded by fields to roam and land to achieve self-sustainability,” says Rebecca Lovatt, a member of the #cottagecore community, whose Instagram account My English Country Cottage has more than 37,000 followers, who lap up Lovatt’s dreamy photos of her 400-year-old thatched cottage “in the middle of nowhere” (nowhere being on the Suffolk/Essex/Cambridgeshire border).
“It involves dreamy interiors with lots of old wooden beams, florals, roaring fires and summery picnics in rolling landscapes,” she explains. “It’s brimming with nostalgia.”
Fellow cottagecore aficionado Naomi Stuart, whose @grove_cottage_ Instagram account has more than 19,000 followers, adds: “It’s seen as a romanticised interpretation of countryside living, where cottage dwellers are making homemade jam in their kitchen, living off the land and basically enjoying escaping from the fast-paced environment we all live in.
“The trend has become far more popular since lockdown, with people looking for rural properties now they can work from home. Gorgeous images on social media of living in the countryside has sold the dream that life out in the sticks is less stressful.”
Here, Lovatt and Stuart explain what it takes to create the #cottagecore home of your dreams…
What are the essentials for a cottagecore home?
Lovatt also runs the website My English Country Cottage (myenglishcountrycottage.co.uk), which features a different cottage every week and asks its owners to reveal what they think truly makes an English country cottage.
“There are several basic elements that every single cottage owner on my blog has cited as a necessity,” she says. “An Aga, a woodburner, blankets and cushions – it gets very cold in old and draughty cottages – fresh flowers, a multitude of fabrics and natural materials like wood and slate, comfy chairs and slouchy sofas – and a dog! These all sum up rural cottage living – it tends to be rather dark and cold in the winter, so warmth is an actual necessity.”
But Stuart says: “Open log fires and wood burners do add to the aesthetics, but an Aga isn’t essential or even a range – I chose a contemporary kitchen that integrates with the rest of the cottage perfectly.”
What should cottagecore homes be filled with?
“To achieve the look in perhaps a less draughty home, I’d say cottagecore is about filling a home with beautiful things,” says Lovatt. “Always fresh flowers or foliage, dressers stuffed with china and pottery and pictures, Agas surrounded by copper pans and whistling kettles, an obligatory rocking chair with cushions and blanket.
“There may also be bookcases rammed with old books – their spines visible so you can read the titles – lamps and candles lit in every room, thick floral curtains, soft paisley patterned eiderdowns and checked blankets.”
As well as fresh flowers, she says, baskets of dried flowers can add to the cottage feel – Lovatt’s got a basket of them on top of her toilet.
“It’s about layering and creating a warm and cosy home, filled with sunshine in the summer and candles and fires in the winter,” she adds. “And there’s one final necessity – rugs! Lots of them – colour, texture, design, history and more warmth – they complete the cottage layered look.”
Stuart, whose beautiful home, Grove Cottage, is nestled in a conservation area of a pretty Buckinghamshire village, says: “In my opinion, to get the cottage look, it’s all about using natural materials, indoor plants, soft fabrics and a muted colour palette.”
Do you have to have a garden?
Although nature also plays an important role in the cottagecore aesthetic, you can achieve the look without having any outdoor space, explains Stuart. “Even if someone doesn’t have a garden, they could have pots outside or windowsill planters to attract butterflies and bees,” she suggests.
Do you need to live in a cottage to really achieve the cottagecore look?
“I personally don’t think the property needs to be old,” says Stuart. “There are houses that are designed and constructed to look as though they’ve been around forever. It’s then how you style the interiors.”
AFTER a bitterly cold snap, it was a pleasure to feel the rise in temperatures and a sense that spring may be on the way. So whether you are working from home and need a little break from staring at the computer or you haven’t been doing much gardening over the winter, it’s time to venture outdoors!
First of all, take stock of your equipment. Good tools will make light work of heavy jobs. A sharp and strong pair of secateurs is an invaluable tool for pruning jobs. The secateurs I’d recommend are the Classic Felco No 4 and they will last a lifetime. Spades, shovels and forks should have long handles which will save your back from too much bending. Keep a stiff brush and clean rags in your garage or potting shed to brush soil or garden debris off the tools after use. A quick wipe with the cloth prolongs the life and performance of your tools.
A spongy mat or kneeler can be a great benefit if you’re on your knees for hours on end planting or weeding. A sharp pair of garden shears are good for trimming hedges and cutting back larger areas of plant growth. They’re typically used for cutting back or shaping shrubs and ornamental grasses, and cutting back flowering plants after blooming season.
It’s handy to have a large durable bucket to collect weeds, mix compost and fertilizer in and drop damaging snails and slugs into.
Robins make great company
Check your lawnmower engine and if necessary have it serviced before grass growth takes off. Always change the oil before grass cutting gets underway. If you haven’t been out much, there is probably a lot of tidying up to do, cutting back those decayed perennials, weeding and mulching.
If you are working in areas where you have spring bulbs emerging, you’ll will need to adopt a delicate approach so as not to damage new foliage. It’s a job I love – I pop my earphones in and enjoy getting to grips with the borders again, usually accompanied by a robin redbreast on the lookout for worms.
As the soil thaws, it’s a good time to do some moving of deciduous shrubs while they are still dormant. All of us make mistakes – perhaps planting too close to another shrub or simply in the wrong place so now’s the time to shift things around. Replant at the same depth as the plant was in its previous position as planting too deep can kill trees and shrubs. Depending on the size of the shrub, this can be hard work so pace yourself and be realistic about what you can achieve or what you will need assistance with.
February and March are really an excellent time of year to prune many shrubs to ensure they look and perform their best for the rest of the year.
When shrubs are leafless, it’s much easier to assess their overall outline and see exactly what you are
doing with them.
To encourage the best flowering possible on deciduous shrubs that flower on new wood later in the summer, an annual shearing is necessary. Established deciduous flowering shrubs should be pruned back now to 2-3 buds of the previous season’s growth and remove about a fifth of the old stems.
This will help encourage the shrub to produce some vigorous shoots that
will carry flowers in summer such as buddleja davidii, deciduous ceanothus, perovskia, ceratostigma, cotinus, hardy fuchsia, lavatera and spiraea japonica.
What you don’t want to do is to remove flower buds that are about to open – eg forsythia, ribes and kerria, so leave these shrubs alone until after they have flowered.
Once you get out, you’ll see there’s plenty to do – happy gardening!