Pâtisserie Paris: Cottage Chic

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Cottage Chic

When we were younger my brother, Andrew, and I were forced to leave our lives in the city to move to our cottage in the country for the summer. In a town with a population of less than 1600, there is not much to do. We missed our friends, the movie theatre and the mall. To cure our unrelenting boredom, Andrew, our friend Eve and I decided we wanted to build a little cabin for ourselves; a hang-out to escape the dull lives of 3 pre-teens in the country. We even came up with a name for the cabin...The CEA (an acronym for our names, but also to pay homage to the fact that it would be near the ocean). We would bake raspberry muffins with freshly-picked raspberries from bushes up the street and have a bake-sale, paint rocks with sailboats on them and sell them in front of the yacht club, spend endless hours making friendship bracelets out of the ugliest shade of yellow yarn imaginable and sell them in yard sales along with our old Ty Beanie Babies. We saved up a fair bit of money, but our plans eventually fell through.

Now, being a bit older, I miss spending time in the country and frequently visit the cottage with my husband.

The reason why I bring up this story is because dreams of building a small retreat for oneself do not always fall through. Such is the case for one Sandra Foster of Catskills, New York. She renovated a 9x14’ hunting cabin into the most gorgeous retreat of which any woman could ever dream.

Photo courtesy of nytimes.com

The exterior consists of a gingerbread trim and a porch door painted hunter green. The interior houses crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and white petunias which line a flower box in the window next to the charming lace curtains. There is a small sleeping loft above with a dreamy white bed. The total cost of both renovations and furniture...$3000. Now, there’s a woman I admire!