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Oh, the things I would do if I owned this cottage. Over the years we have rented numerous spaces from apartments in complexes and old factories to a condo and the upstairs apartment in an 1800s house. Now we find ourselves in the cottage we are renting in the countryside. Five years ago I had no idea I would be here. We’ve been in studios and two bedrooms in big cities and small towns. One thing they all had in common is that I longed to decorate them on my modest budget.
Yet, I’ve never gone all out. We painted an accent wall a few times and once our entire bedroom, knowing we had to paint it back before moving out. In the Maryland condo we rented we painted our bedroom a light aqua blue and a teal accent wall in the living room. I painted it while David Bowie’s song came out of our stereo, “Blue, blue, electric blue, that’s the color of my room, where I will live… blue, blue.” On occasion I hung some photos on the walls and once I made a small shelf for teacups and hung it in our factory studio kitchenette. I didn’t buy much furniture or curtains because I knew one day when we moved it might not fit into the next place due to size or layout.
The longest we have been in one place was three years. Now that we have been at the cottage for over a year and a half and we have renewed our lease for another two years, I’m ready to finally make the house feel more like a home. There is no guarantee that we will be able to buy the house (or afford the asking price) and if we could, doing too much for a rental might look nice, but it could hurt our chances of buying if it makes the house raise in value. We also don’t have a budget to pay for a house we do not own. So while we don’t want to do too much for a house that is not ours for common-sense reasons, there are things we want to do to enjoy where we are living now. Plus it feels good to take care of a home we live in, even if it is not ours.
So far we have repainted the while walls in the basement and I repainted the downstairs bathroom a medium shade of green to improve the look of the basement bathroom. It was pretty sketchy before the paint. We used mold killer to kill the mold and painted white over the trim and the rusty ceiling. It truly brightened up the space. Matthew repaired broken outlets and we dealt with all kinds of infestations from moths to wolf spiders. We had to find the whole where some milk snakes have crawled into the downstairs and we still have not figured out how to keep the mice out, although Monet our cat, loves the hunt.
In the back of the house there are two three-season rooms that were in serious disrepair. They need new floors and windows, which we won’t do of course, but we did patch up the walls in one room and sanded down an uneven ceiling to make the “tearoom.” Matthew painted the cracked floor with cement paint, sanded walls, and painted the ceiling and walls. He re-trimmed the windows and the floor and painted the door to make this a room we could use. He made me a tearoom and I adore it. We bought a rug to hide the bad floor and have thrifted furniture to make the space joyful. The other room we are leaving alone, as much as I would love to jazz it up and turn it into a mudroom with a spot to hang our coats and an area for Matthew’s tools and my gardening supplies, that simply cannot happen right now.
Recently, I have repainted the trim inside the front door and the door to our kitchen entryway a light historic shade of blue. It was a simple way to add a subtle pop of color. It adds cottage charm to the room. I’m thinking about stenciling a small accent wall in the kitchen and I have some renter-friendly ideas I would like to do, such as covering the ugly 70s countertops with a white marble print contact paper. I have a lot of decoration ideas in mind, especially to cozy up the kitchen.
Shortly after we moved in, we purchased a beautiful vintage dining hutch for only $50 on Facebook Marketplace and we bought a sofa for the downstairs space. Slowly, we are making the cottage feel furnished and comfortable. Most of the walls are still a bare white, but this year I plan to hang more of our art and photographs, even creating a small gallery wall in the staircase.
Last year we made the empty concrete porch into a cozy sitting area with a small patio set with a bench, two chairs and a glass top coffee table. This spring I would like to add a rug and some lighting. Hopefully I can find two rocking chairs at the thrift. We turned the weed patch in the front of the porch into a mini pollinator garden, which became Matt’s hobby project from spring until autumn. We built a platform for my pop-up green house, and we tended to raised garden beds and the rose bushes I planted shortly after we moved in. If we do move away one day, the roses will be our contribution to the legacy of the cottage. In the meadow we planted wildflowers and Matthew made us a walking path. This spring I hope to add sunflowers and till a patch behind the barn to plant quash varieties, pumpkins, potatoes and garlic.
In the new year I plan to add paint to a couple walls, hopefully our bedroom. I want to hang art and furnish a few more corners. The windows need curtains, and I would like to put up a couple shelves in the kitchen. Some may think we are doing too much for a rental, while others may still see our space as spartan and empty. We’re walking the line of doing too much for a rental and making a rental feel more like a home. I dream of the day when I own my own space and can decorate exactly how I wish to. For now, I’m looking forward to setting up a few more roots and making myself a home for once.
I will be sharing the journey this year as I focus more on home and what it means to me, especially as a renter and in these tumultuous times. If you enjoy cottages, decorating, picnics, gardening, cottagecore and dining al fresco, this is our year to focus inward and create a safe haven for ourselves.
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