Cottagecore vs real cottage living – what it’s actually like to live in a country cottage
One is about creating an image, and the other is about living with a space over time
Screen printer Hannah Carvell is one of Ideal Home's new Open House contributors, sharing her thoughts on colourful home design for a creative family to live in. See the rest of her articles here.
Scroll through Instagram and you’d be forgiven for thinking cottage living is all wildflowers on windowsills, linen curtains drifting gently in the breeze and a permanently tidy wooden table bathed in soft morning light. It’s a beautiful image calm, curated and just a little bit nostalgic.
I do live in a Somerset cottage, and I won’t deny that there are moments that feel exactly like that, before I moved I imagined my self wafting around in floaty dresses barefoot picking fresh raspberries for my breakfast.
Real cottages come with quirks that no amount of styling can smooth over. There are beams exactly where you don’t want them, walls that refuse to be straight, and corners that seem to have been designed without any furniture in mind.
Light shifts constantly throughout the day, sometimes leaving rooms feeling unexpectedly dark, our downstairs has very low ceilings, it feels like a cosy cave come winter but can also be unexpectedly dark at times, peeling paint and damp seems to be part of the package (as do the ladybirds and woodlice that appear daily indoors).
Storage is always a quiet negotiation between what you need and what the space will allow, I love collecting old and unique “things” and house plants are a contestant temptation but am having to accept slowly cottage life does not always have space for large items of no use.
And yet, those same quirks are what give a cottage its character. The uneven walls, the low ceilings, the sense that the house has evolved over time rather than being designed in one go they all contribute to a feeling that’s very hard to replicate elsewhere. It’s not perfect, but it has a personality of its own.
I think that’s where cottagecore and real cottage living begin to diverge. Cottagecore often leans towards a kind of softened simplicity muted tones, careful curation, an emphasis on calm. But living in a cottage, at least in my experience, is much more layered than that. It’s not a still image; it’s something that shifts and builds over time.
As a screen printer, I’ve realised that I approach my home in much the same way I approach a print. I’m used to working in layers adding colour, adjusting balance, responding to what’s already there rather than trying to control everything from the outset. That mindset has completely shaped how I decorate.
Where a perfectly styled room might aim for restraint, I find myself drawn to contrast and repetition. Colour doesn’t feel like something to be used sparingly it’s something to be explored.
I often think about how tones sit against each other in the same way I would when mixing inks: a deeper shade to ground a space, something brighter to lift it, and flashes of pattern to tie everything together. In a small cottage, this becomes even more important.
There’s a common idea that compact spaces need to be kept light and neutral to feel bigger, but I’ve found the opposite can be true. Strong colour can actually bring a sense of cohesion, especially when the architecture itself is a little unpredictable.
Pattern, too, has a way of softening awkward angles and making irregular features feel intentional rather than inconvenient.
That’s not to say it always looks perfectly put together. Real cottage living isn’t about achieving a finished look and keeping it that way. Things move, evolve and occasionally don’t quite work.
There are stacks of prints waiting to be framed and I move art around the house all the time to give a refresh to different rooms, textiles that get swapped around depending on the season, and surfaces that are sometimes more “in use” than styled.
If it's harvest season in the garden then pumpkins, flowers and crates of apples get stored and displayed around the house. The egg basket I keep on my kitchen windowsill full of colourful eggs from our free range hens; they bring me as much joy as a beautiful ornament as they are an ingredient for lunch.
But that sense of movement is part of what makes it feel like home. It’s less about maintaining an aesthetic and more about responding to how you actually live in the space.
The kitchen table isn’t just a centrepiece it’s where we make chutneys and plant seeds, or pack a big greetings cards orders for my screen printing business, and then its all hands on deck for days with boxes everywhere.
Shelves aren’t styled once and left alone; they shift as new pieces come in and others find a place elsewhere, vases and jars are always being used and swapped about, when my dahlias are in season I like to put vases of flowers in every room.
Perhaps the biggest difference between the cottagecore ideal and real cottage living is this: one is about creating an image, and the other is about living with a space over time. One leans towards stillness, the other towards change.
For me, embracing that difference has made decorating feel far more natural. Instead of trying to soften the cottage into something it isn’t, I’ve learned to work with its character highlighting the wonky walls with art, layering pattern where the architecture feels uneven, and embracing the imperfect.
In the end, that’s where the charm really lies, not in recreating a picture-perfect version of cottage life, but in letting a home reflect the way you actually live in it mess, colour, creativity and lots if pets running about the place.
