Break out the scones and your coziest slippers—your country cottage awaits
Cottages incorporate a range of architectural styles, including colonial to Tudor.
Cottage-style homes are often quaint with one or two stories, and charming features.
The cottage-inspired decor and interior design are often as important as its architecture.
When you hear the word "cottage," it's easy to dream up a cozy one-room house tucked away in a forest with a roaring fire and a flock of particularly clever birds. In real life, you'll find this oh-so-charming architectural style spread across the world, featuring a long list of design elements. Let's look at what makes a cottage one-of-a-kind and how to make the home unique to your style.
Here's a great tidbit for your next trivia night: the word cottage comes from the word "cotter." Cotters were English peasant workers who lived on a nobleman's land in the Middle Ages. The design of the homes are what we imagine from fairy tales: stone or wooden walls, a thatched roof, and a small interior built to hold in the heat of a central fireplace.
While we often imagine English cottages, the style flourished worldwide, from Norwegian hyttes to a small Cape Cod home off the coast of Maine. U.S. cottages are far more likely to be associated with a home in the mountains, along the shore, or tucked in the woods beside a lake. Today, many homeowners use them as vacation homes or short-term rentals because of their charm and simplicity, as well as the connection to nature they provide.
Cottages typically feature a simple, open floor plan. They have either one or two floors and likely only have two or three rooms on each floor. Many cottages still feature gabled roofs with a sharp slope and a central chimney.
As quaint homes remain popular in the modern era, cottages took on the architectural styles of homes of their time. You'll find cottages from throughout the past two centuries as Cape Cods, bungalows, Craftsman, and even Tudor cottages.
More important than the actual architecture is the design elements, although the simple floor plan is a staple of the traditional cottage style as well.
Defining a cottage may not be as cut and dry as a Queen Anne-style home, but there are clear features that fit a house into the cottage category.
While you’ll find cottages in small and medium sizes, the charm tends to outdo the square footage. The frame of a cottage is often simple enough to show off small details like lattice and trellises, quaint front porches, and colorful shutters. More traditional cottages may have hay roofs, but even modern cottages have stone or wood siding that leave the home dripping in charm, all while the floor plan rarely exceeds 1,200 square feet.
The small home will also likely leave room for plenty of yard space, harking back to its pastoral roots, and the architecture makes it easy to enjoy nature. You’ll often see a few key elements that provide this connection:
Large windows that fully open to give you access to fresh air
Exposed natural materials making up the siding, roofing, or interior framing
Decor that includes plants and other natural materials
Location in areas with an emphasis on nature, like in the woods or near the beach
A cottage's structure is typically quite simple, both inside and out. The exterior is often symmetrical with a sloped gable or hipped roof, either facing the street or the side of the home. A-framed cottages have been a popular pick during the past 50 years, particularly with floor-to-ceiling windows to observe the outdoors.
Step inside a cottage, and you'll find plenty of flexibility to stage your living room, dining room, and kitchen, as well as bedrooms on the first or second floor. Open floor plans that allow for creativity and connection to other residents are common.
The traditional layout also encourages the flow of heat in the winter and cool air in the summer, which is in line with the cottage’s tendency to remain eco-friendly and sustainable. While modern room layouts vary, tradition calls for two rooms on the base floor and two on the top.
Less may be more in cottage architecture, but the style encourages personalized accents in all corners of the home. Cottages by the sea may feature one large bay window while Colonial-style homes may place two dormer windows on the slanted roof of the top floor.
Cottages often blend with their natural surroundings quite seamlessly, bringing in the colors of the garden or outdoor area in the stone, wood, or brick siding.
Most homeowners decorate cottages using a simple and nature-focused design scheme. That includes natural colors and materials to complement the charm of the architecture, and the beauty of the outdoor area.
There are a few different types of cottage homes you might see, usually depending on where your cottage is built. Unlike other home designs, the type of cottage is defined more by the decor than it is by the architecture.
An English cottage is the most traditional type, as it varies little from the original design and style that was prevalent in the Middle Ages. These homes usually have stone exteriors and thatched roofs on the outside, while the inside includes exposed beams and a wide-open floor plan. English cottages are rare outside of the United Kingdom.
These homes are sometimes complemented by picket fences and large gardens, which add to the charm and allow for that quintessential connection to nature for which the cottage style is known.
A coastal or beach cottage is one that appears near the coast or even on the beach. The architecture is similar to other types of cottages, but there’s a stark difference in the decor.
With the proximity to the beach, the coastal cottage makes use of light colors that match the sand rather than earthy colors that match trees and soil. The interior decor often consists of maritime pieces, including seashells, anchors, portholes, fishing nets, and more.
The Cape Cod was popularized in New England in the 1600s. The style retains the open floor plan and simplistic design and decor, but the architecture was adapted to stand up to the harsh winters in the Northeastern U.S. These usually feature the following:
A steep, gabled roof to prevent snow accumulation
A large, central chimney and fireplace to keep the home warm in the winter
Window dormers to provide additional sunlight and warmth
Wood shake siding that provides good insulation and can stand up to snow and rain
The Mediterranean cottage combines the simplicity of the cottage style—including the small size and open floor plan—but gets its charm from distinct building materials. These include the following:
Stucco siding, which matches the clay soil and helps keep the interior cool
Clay roofs, which, again, matches the soil color and maximizes the home’s energy efficiency
Arched doorways, which look a little more natural than rigid right angles on a standard door
The cottage is a classic design that provides tons of benefits, but it’s not ideal for everyone. There are some pros and cons you should consider before you decide whether or not you’d benefit from buying a cottage or hiring a local architect to build one for you.
Cottages are ideal for small families who want to connect with nature, and enjoy a timeless and cozy design and decor.
Dripping with charm. Cottages include natural building materials and architecture that make you feel like you’re living in a fairytale. They’re often located in relaxing areas, making them perfect for vacation homes or a laidback lifestyle.
Connection to nature. Cottages feature large windows and outdoor living spaces that help you and your family connect to nature. They also incorporate natural building materials and decor that bring the outdoors inside.
Energy-efficient. These homes are designed with efficiency in mind, so everything from the type of siding and roof to the floor plan can help reduce heating and cooling bills.
Affordable. Cottages have a small footprint, which they make up for in charm. However, that minimal living space means they tend to be more affordable than other home styles.
Cottages aren’t ideal for everyone, and there are quite a few drawbacks you should consider before you decide on this home style.
Minimal square footage. While a small floor plan might be more affordable, it also means limited living space. These homes aren’t ideal for large or growing families.
Limited storage space. With a small footprint comes a lack of storage space, in many cases. The style might inspire you to embrace minimalism, but if it doesn’t, you’ll probably quickly run out of space for your belongings.
Privacy isn’t ideal. With minimal interior space comes an issue with privacy. Everyone in your home will be in close quarters, which may not be ideal if you have family members who value peace and quiet.
You’re locked into a style. Cottages are designed around an interior style as much as anything else. If you’re not going to embrace that style—whether it’s maritime decor in a beach cottage or rustic decor in an English cottage—you may want to consider a different home style. Something like a farmhouse style design may suit you better and is a bit more adaptable to modern design.
As the tiny home trend continues to take off, cottages bring back an old way of simplified living. Living in a diminutive—and sometimes historic—home means there are a few ups and downs you should know about when it comes to design and maintenance.
On the plus side, a smaller indoor space means less time and money spent on designing and caring for individual rooms. Arrange your dining area in unique configurations without sticking to a preordained layout. You can also designate small spaces in a larger room for different purposes, like a reading nook, a breakfast area, or a work corner.
If you've been lucky enough to nab an early-American cottage—perhaps a classic log cabin—you'll need to keep an extra eye on local regulations when restoring your home. On the plus side, your cottage was likely designed to hold in heat, even if you will need to add insulation and update your HVAC system. With the simple, sturdy structure and a traditional gable roof, there are likely fewer restoration projects on your list.
With the rise of simple living comes the celebration of cottages through an interior design trend—cottagecore. Cottagecore reflects the old English style of country living. It's packed with floral patterns, indoor greenery, thick comforting fabrics, and wainscoting. Beadboard lines the walls of the kitchen and stacked stone surrounds a wood-burning stove.
And what's best, cottagecore works whether you live in a cottage or not. Celebrate all things vintage, country-chic, and the simple bed-and-breakfast vibes of a weekend away in the English countryside.
The term “cottage” is subjective, so there’s no rigid definition, but it generally refers to a small home with simple and purposeful architecture that embraces nature and focuses on charm over everything else. Cottages are typically 1 or 1 1/2-stories tall, usually with gabled roofs, and are built out of natural materials that help make the structure a part of the surrounding nature rather than something that stands out from it. A big part of what makes a cottage a cottage is the decor, which includes natural materials from the nearby area.
Modern cottage style holds true to the traditional architectural components of a cottage—including a small footprint, simple floor plan, and a focus on connection to nature. However, it also embraces more modern styling ideas that add some elegance to the rustic appearance, similar to the French country home style. The style includes natural materials, like wood, stone, and linen, but it presents them in a more modern or even contemporary way. Some modern cottage homes even incorporate more ornate decor, which wouldn’t hold up in a traditional cottage that focuses on simplicity and functionality over flashiness.
Most cottages are around 1,000 square feet, making them smaller than most other styles. However, cottages are defined more by their decor and architectural focus on simplicity, functionality, and a connection to nature than they are by a rigid square footage or floor plan. While cottages are defined more by their charm and appearance than size, the smaller footprint does help maximize the comfort and charm, and it keeps the focus on connection to nature and family.
