Small furniture for a cottage

[Rebecca]

Hey simple living gurus!

We're buying a quaint seaside cottage on an island. It's in the historic district so i want the furniture we choose to reflect the colonial time period. Here's the thing. The cottage is tiny. It's basically one room downstairs (20x30) divided into kitchen area, dining area and LR area, with a staircase up the middle to go the 2 br and 1 bath upstairs. I need small-scale furniture that won't overwhelm a period house with low ceilings and 28" wide doors (well, the widest doors are that wide.

Locally in stores I see mostly big, poofy oversized furniture. Or ultra-modern styled loft apartment stuff.

I need a couch (I'm thinking leather pull out since the ILs like to visit and I have 3 cats to vacuum after), a cedar blanket chest for the coffee table, a stylish desk for my computer area, a fold-down farmers table. Ugh. Anyone have suggestions online?

[MissMommyNiceNice]

I would check out Ikea. Not all their stuff is modern. They have a nice selection of different stuff, some unfinished, that you can assemble "in room". I have an old house, and not all doorways are compatible to furniture, beleive me. But with ikea, it comes in a box, usually flat, and you can assemle it in the room. I'm thinking specifically about a computer amoire for you, that way, it is all closed up when you have company! You can probably put everything inside and have room for some extra stashing.

Plus, I see you're in NH. I remember coveting a table I saw on eBay made up in mass - they made tables out of old reclaimed barn timbers, and you could pretty much order what you wanted if they didn't have your size. Just go to ebay and type in "farm kitchen table". You have to go pick it up, but worth it, IMO. They were running like $250/$300 last time I checked, and they looked so cool & old with their dings and dents! I was thinking of driving from PA to get one, if that tells you how much I wanted one!

Good luck!

[catholicmama]

overstock.com had some nice small couches when I was looking this morning.

[texaspeach]

pottery barn has furniture for "small spaces"

of course.. most of it is waaaay over priced


also, if you have cats with claws rethink the leather. they will destroy it! even if they do not use the couch as a scratching post, if they jump up on it their claws will dig in, trust me I know from experience :

[onandon]

This is my current favorite cottage, from Cottage Living Magazine. I love it!

In my in laws summer cottage in Maine they have wicker chairs with comfortable cushions that can be pulled around where they are needed for company and they have chaise lounges on the porch, but no couch. You can easily nap on the chaises, but I'm not sure about a whole night. Do you need a couch for the pull out bed?

There's always Maine Cottage Furniture.