My last post about the cottage was the tour of how we are almost done with the interior! We are so in love with our favorite spot and love to go there to get away. If you missed that post you can read it all here and see what we have done with the place!
I thought I would get a little more in depth and talk a bit more about decor and pieces that I have picked up along the way that I love. The feel of the cottage that I am going for is acquired. I don’t want a feel that we went and bought everything new but rather I am going with a collection of pieces and momentos that we love, that bring us joy, and that will give the place a curated feel like it’s been in our family for generations rather than a few years. To do this I look for pieces everywhere: at thrift stores, flea markets, my grandma’s house, and things that we have at our house.
I will also say that by doing it this was it is such a neat experience to see how God provides. For example, this summer we have been getting serious about stocking our kitchen with more gadgets that we need while not going overboard. After all I don’t want a ton of items to have to take care of, put away, and weed through when I am looking for something. Not cool. However necessities like a pizza cutter and an ice cream scoop have proven to be missing items that are desperately needed, especially when you have kiddos. Well, I didn’t want to go and spend a ton of money on buying a bunch of stuff. I wanted this to be a thing of collecting items. It was hard to go without but I knew the pieces would come. Sure enough, last week I was at my moms and she was giving a bunch of kitchen gadgets away. She pretty much had everything that we needed for the cottage.
All of that to say, we are going slow with filling in the gaps of needed items, knowing that we have all the time in the world and that God will provide in His time.
All that to say I am thrilled to be able to show you a few of my favorite details of the place:
Nick built these shelves next to the kids bunk beds (they are a total mess in this photo but you get the idea) and we love them! He built them out of salvaged lumber from a bookshelf that was in the office of my childhood pastor. How cool is that? The biggest obstacle we’ve had to face with having a tiny place is the lack of storage. There just isn’t room for furniture to store things so we’ve had to be really creative. The shelves have really helped to keep all of the kids things at bay and provide them a solid sense of belonging in their bedroom.
Hello my name is Lindsay and I am sucker for fun towels. Seriously, give me all of the towels. It’s a real problem, folks. I love this one I picked up in Middlebury, Indiana.
I picked this pillow up at an antiques store in Nappanee, Indiana. The color scheme for our cottage is gray, blue, white, and a teeny bit of green. So this fits in great. I love it because my Grandpa was in the Navy at Great Lakes. This is totally something he would have sent home to my Grandma. It is so special to me because of that.
Does anyone else love old boxes for storage or is it just me? This box holds a lot of the kids toys and books…and a shirt apparently.
We found this cold brew coffee press at Bloomingdales and love, love, love it! It works so well, the coffee tastes great, and there have been no grounds in the coffee. This has been perfect for super hot days. Also, I love these cute cups we found at Homegoods and gifted ourselves at Christmas (does anyone else do this???). Sorry guys but I scoured the internet for ours and can’t find them, but I adore these and think they would be a great gift idea!
This fan was a Goodwill find but was a really ugly taupey kind of brown color. Nick spray painted it and now it is so fun. All of the windows that face the lake are in our kitchen so sometimes it gets toasty over there while cooking. The fan helps provide just a touch of a breeze.
I adore our dishes. They are vintage Corelle and they belonged to my late Grandma Wannie. They are one of my most treasured possessions. They make me think of her every time we use them.
The blue dishes on the right were a gift from the sweetest Mother-in-Law ever and I just love them. They were a wedding gift they received and I love using them. They are fun for desserts with friends and other snackys.
Our indoor/outdoor rug was the most expensive decoration we bought for the cottage ($60!) but it has been perfect. It helps it is indoor/outdoor because it can be scrubbed or even thrown into the washing machine. I found one that is pretty darn close here if you like ours.
So those are some of my favorite little details of the cottage! I am always looking for tiny house storage ideas so if you have any pointers or tips for how we can keep clutter at bay, I’d love some ideas!
