Cottage Living.....

I have been asked a few times, and again just recently, to do a post on organization and cottage living. Our little Jacaranda Cottage is just that, a cottage. It's a small single storey, open plan, 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom home that sits on a large 1/4 acre block not too far from the beach, and yet we're rural enough that there's a pasture full of cows mooing at me as I drive past them on the way home at the end of the day. I have to confess that it did take a bit of getting used to, moving into a smaller home than either my husband or I have ever been used to, but after a few trial and errors we've made it work. I've always been a clean and tidy person, just not as organized as I am now, so that's been a challenge, but now it's coming to me like a second nature. All that being said, I thought I'd spread this post out in a 2 part series to show you how we manage to keep our cottage clean, tidy and organized. And like the above photo of a sign I have hanging on the back door says.... our cottage may be small, but it's full of love and laughter and our door is always open to welcome you all.....


This is a photo of our daughter's recently made over bedroom. I am a big believer in under bed storage, especially when you have no where else to put things! I love looking through IKEA for their storage ideas, and came home with these great boxes for under the bed. Our daughter is very good at being organized, and keeps these boxes seasonally organized. Then with the change of each season she'll switch out her wardrobe and store what's not needed under the bed.


2 out 3 of the bedrooms in our home have built in wardrobes, but our daughter's room does not have one, so she has a free standing wardrobe from IKEA. We chose this wardrobe because the colour was light enough to blend easily, and it's also light enough in weight that she can move it around easily to clean her room or for when she's moving things around in there for a different look.


As you can see, it is quite full (teenagers!) but it's all organized and she can go and find exactly what she's looking for in an instant. These are the things you have to put up with if you live in a cottage! lol For us though, it works well. There's also a hat stand in the room that she keeps her caps, jackets and current handbags on. Between my daughter and I we have a LOT of handbags, so we keep them stored in a huge clear lidded box in the linen cupboard and just switch them out as we want.


The next area of organization that I want to show you is my filing cabinet. I know it's not your traditional filing cabinet, but I bought this sofa table (from the thrift store and made it over. See older posts on make over) to use as our filing cabinet because I still like things to look nice while they're earning their keep here! All six draws of this sideboard are used for filing paper work, and makes life so much easier for me to quickly file things away as they come in, and then I close the draws and no one would ever know, and I get to still look at something pretty!


Here's the top draws to give you an example. I bought a heap of folders and labeled them, so it's quick to find the folder I need to file papers away. The pink bag with the big folder inside is our emergency folder. If there's ever a fire or a reason we have to leave the house quickly, I can just grab that bag and inside it is all our important papers like birth cetificates, passports, etc and a copy of each thing like rates notice, bank statement etc so that I have the account numbers for anything....just in case. I'm also a big believer in "just in case".


Another organizational tool I love are baskets. These ones are in the kitchen next to the dishwasher and hold a variety of odds and ends that would other wise be floating around homesless and most likely......lost. Now we can go to the baskets and easily find what we're looking for as things are individually bagged up in zip lock bags.


I like to also use baskets to hold the magazines that I'm currently enjoying. This basket next to my side of the bed holds what I want to read now......


and this basket under the writing table in the living room holds the magazines that I want easy access to, but am not currently reading.


Another thing that makes life easier for me when I'm in a hurry is to have a basic sewing kit handy, but of course with me it's not your traditional sewing kit.....it has to look good too. Look good and work hard, that's my motto for things in our cottage! lol


Our daughter does a lot of dancing (5 classes a week and numerous performances through out the year) so there's always some costume piece that I'm working on or that needs a quick repair as we're about to run out the door, so having a pretty soup tureen with thread, needles, pins, ribbon and scissors is good for me. In the little glass lidded jar I have buttons. Everytime a new button makes it's way into our cottage, I pop it in the jar........just in case! lol


The last photo for todays post is the wardrobe in the spare room. This room is used as my husband's office, and a spare bedroom for guests. Inside the wardrobe I have put a set of draws. These draws hold all of our things like wrapping paper, cards, craft items, glue, glitter, spare picture frames etc. Each draw has it's own theme for what it will hold, and it makes it very quick and easy for anyone to find exactly what they are looking for. I also keep spare winter coats in here, and some of our daughter's old toys from when she was little that I am holding on to for my grandbabies........way down the track! Then I can close the wardrobe doors and no one is any the wiser at what's inside. That way the room looks neat and tidy for guests, and we can easily access what we need at a moments notice!


So there you go, part 1 of cottage living............my way!

I hope you've enjoyed today's post and if you have any ideas or tips that you do, then I'd love to hear them too! Until next time, have a lovely day........love Amanda (aka Cottage Contessa) xxx.