Does anyone have an old cottage?

13 years ago

I'm hoping other people on the forum have old, but small, homes.

While there are some lovely homes here, many seem to be much bigger than my little farmhouse. It only has a living room, dining room, very small kitchen, downstairs bedroom and bath. Upstairs, it's an attic, that's been "sort of" remodeled into two bedrooms, no bath.

It doesn't really look like a cottage right now, but it easily could be changed into a cottage style. I really like the big living room (well big to me 14'x18') with the beautiful brick fireplace, but the tiny kitchen is terrible, so I hope to open it up to the dining room and end up with a space that's 13'x22'. I love to cook, bake, garden, have nieces and nephews over to bake cookies and cupcakes and live on a farm. While a formal dining room is lovely, I could use a much bigger kitchen.

I would like to add on a sun/screen porch along part of the back of the house and redo the old side porch into a laundry/mudroom. There's also the old bath addition (kind of a bath and a half, but scary) that needs to be torn off and redone. That's about the extent of money that I can budget for adding on, so it's pretty much make do with the space that's there.

If anyone has pictures, I'd love to see them. I need ideas for the kitchen, which I want to look like it might have been around in the early 1900s. Not so much built-in as free standing units and appliances, maybe a hoosier cabinet. The original part of the home is from 1904 and that's the look I'd like to try to recreate. This includes trim work, windows, lighting, staircase, etc. Thanks for any ideas :)

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Comments (3)

columbusguy1
13 years ago
Check out this site, it has lots of pictures of period rooms. Some great kitchen ones especially.

Here is a link that might be useful: Old Interiors
oceanna
13 years ago
Oh boy, do we have pictures! Drop by the Home Decoration board and browse our Gallery. We'd also love to have you post there (on the discussions side; the gallery is for photo collections) and show us lots of pictures, and there are a lot of folks there who make wonderful suggestions for each of your rooms.

In the Gallery, there is a Cottage Decor thread that might particularly interest you. Scroll down to where the pictures start. I'll give you a link to it here. When you're done with it, look at the porches thread, then enjoy the rest. Pour yourself a nice glass of wine and enjoy the eye candy! Here is where to find all the other threads: A kazillion scrumptious cottage decor photos

RE: Does anyone have an old cottage?
- Posted by: powermuffin (My Page) on Wed, Sep 15, 10 at 10:22
Hi again LL. We have a cottage, which has an addition on the back. The kitchen is about 11 X 12 and works for us most times. Since the back wall of the kitchen is the start of the addition, we are thinking of taking the wall out to open the kitchen to the addition. This would allow me to have room for my 1938 Chambers stove and maybe even a dishwasher. The dining room is on the opposite side of the kitchen and I love it. It is big enough for our family holidays and closed off enough from the kitchen to maintain some formality. I love a pretty dining room, but I totally understand your desire for a bigger kitchen.

Our side porch is the laundry room, barely deep enough for the washer and dryer and the space could have been better utilized. But it works and is not on my list of things to do. As long as your porch foundation (if there is one) can handle the weight, I think your idea of a laundry room is a good one. My husband poured all new footings on our enclosed porch (another porch) and while it took a lot of digging and concrete, it wasn't expensive or difficult to do.

The thing I love about old houses, especially those that haven't been remuddled, is that their preportions are great and the details are too. Ours was a humble, small house, but the mouldings and windows are wonderful and the room sizes are comfortable. So you have something nice to start with, imagine what you could end up with!
Diane

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powermuffin
13 years ago
Hi again LL. We have a cottage, which has an addition on the back. The kitchen is about 11 X 12 and works for us most times. Since the back wall of the kitchen is the start of the addition, we are thinking of taking the wall out to open the kitchen to the addition. This would allow me to have room for my 1938 Chambers stove and maybe even a dishwasher. The dining room is on the opposite side of the kitchen and I love it. It is big enough for our family holidays and closed off enough from the kitchen to maintain some formality. I love a pretty dining room, but I totally understand your desire for a bigger kitchen.

Our side porch is the laundry room, barely deep enough for the washer and dryer and the space could have been better utilized. But it works and is not on my list of things to do. As long as your porch foundation (if there is one) can handle the weight, I think your idea of a laundry room is a good one. My husband poured all new footings on our enclosed porch (another porch) and while it took a lot of digging and concrete, it wasn't expensive or difficult to do.

The thing I love about old houses, especially those that haven't been remuddled, is that their preportions are great and the details are too. Ours was a humble, small house, but the mouldings and windows are wonderful and the room sizes are comfortable. So you have something nice to start with, imagine what you could end up with!
Diane