How to bring the whimsy of Cottagecore into your home

If you spend any time on TikTok or Instagram scrolling for interior design inspiration, chances are you’ve stumbled across “cottagecore”. It’s the whimsical, romantic aesthetic harkening back to the rural countryside of England. Cosy, slightly cluttered, and adopting a soft pastel and neutral colour palette, cottagecore has a lived-in, homemade feel with a healthy dose of nostalgia for the pastoral and idyllic sun-soaked outdoors.

Cottagecore design is easy to get started with since it thrives on the eclectic and sentimental and allows for a lot of individual personality.

Put plants everywhere

Cottagecore is about embracing the outdoors indoors, which can be done by adding greenery to your space. Whether you hang a String of Hearts from the ceiling, let Devil’s Ivy drape off the shelves, or add a statement Monstera to your cosy corner, there’s no such thing as too many plants in cottagecore.

If you don’t have a green thumb or the time and energy living plants require, there are alternatives. Fresh cut flowers or dried floral arrangements in pretty vases, pressed flowers in frames, and even fake plants are all possible ways to celebrate the abundance of the romantic countryside.

Curate clutter

Cottagecore design leans towards maximalism rather than minimalism. Instead of paring personal items down, display all your favourite things in ways pleasing to the eye.

Pile books or boxes on flat surfaces to add height before topping the stacks with a decorative item like a vase of flowers. Arrange dishes and other knick-knacks on open shelves.

Show off what’s in your kitchen

If your cupboards and drawers are getting crowded and you have the space, hang your pots from hooks on the wall or above your island and put your wooden spoons and spatulas into a beautiful pottery jar on the counter.

You can embrace cottagecore in the kitchen even more by swapping out your traditional sets of matching cups, bowls, and plates for mix-and-match dishes or thrifted fine china (especially the ones with gold trim edges and floral details). Then, show off your collection. Remove your cupboard doors, hang open shelves or use a statement cabinet to display your kitchenware.

Play with texture, fabrics and knits

Cottagecore loves comfort and one of the best ways to highlight this is through your choice of sheets, bed covers, and blankets. Natural fibres like linen in soft pastels, neutral tones, muted stripes, florals, and checkers are great options for the bedroom. You could even opt for a patterned quilt at the foot of your bed.

Try knitted or crocheted throw blankets to bring the cosy into your living room, den, or reading nook. Drape the statement blankets over the backs of chairs and couches, or pile them into baskets. Just like with your clutter, they’re not to be tucked away but seen and admired.

Highlight your personality through art

As with any design style, your art selection says a lot about you and is one of the best ways of highlighting your individuality. Cottagecore lets you do a lot with art and puts no limits on how or where to display it.

Build gallery walls without fuss, using a mishmash of frames and materials—gold, gilded, and wooden are all on theme. Pastoral landscapes, still life paintings, old photographs, pressed flowers in glass, and cross-stitches are wonderful forms of art that align with cottagecore design.

However, if you want something more modern, stick to the colour palette of muted neutrals and soft pastels. Walls of calming white, pale pinks, and blues are sure to set off whatever art you choose.

These five easy DIY cottagecore hacks shouldn’t require a large monetary investment. In fact, you’ll probably be able to begin your cottagecore design without ever leaving your home, which is perfectly in line with another of the defining principles of cottagecore: being eco-minded and sustainable.

Once you’ve rummaged through your cupboards and have a good idea of what’s there, grab your reusable bags and head to the homeware aisles of your local thrift, vintage and antique stores for attention-grabbing, unique finds!