I Lived a “Cottagecore” Lifestyle for Three Years. Here’s What I Learned: Part 4

The Great Plague of 2020 ended some time ago, but it left an everlasting impact on society. That impact is Cottagecore, an internet aesthetic popularized by adolescents and young adults celebrating an idealized rural life.

Arts and Crafts Expectations

I wanted my home to reflect all of the beautiful Pinterest boards boasting their rustic kitchens, woven wall decorations, and other whimsical details.

This would be the first time I would renovate with intentionality: I planned out the colorways, materials, and design. But this wasn’t just about the look; I wanted to make everything.

I already know how to knit and crochet, but I picked up sewing and even some basic carpentry and masonry skills to put me on the road to that perfect cottagecore abode. The end result would show a mixture of Western, African, and American Indian art, as reflective of me and my husband’s ancestry.

To bring the feel together, I planned to have a wardrobe with gorgeous dresses and skirts, all made with natural fibers and vintage notions. The idea was to invest in some good fabric to make those cottagecore milkmaid dresses.

But, of course, the reality is always different.

Arts and Crafts Realities

FIRST, THE ANNOYING

Exhausting Renovations

My cousin and I spent an entire month renovating my house. We required some overdue functional upgrades (which are more important than aesthetics), but since Hubby and I plan to be at our home for quite some time, we decided to make sure everything was both functional and attractive. What I initially thought would take a week or two, actually took four weeks. But, I regret nothing!

No home comes perfect. To get that cottagecore home, I had to balance time with money and style. Luckily for me, my husband couldn’t care less what the house looks like so long as the roof doesn’t leak, so I was excited to have our home reflect something homey with countryside elements. It was six years since we moved into this house, so a makeover was long overdue.

We repainted most of the 1^st floor, built a fireplace mantel, rebuilt the fireplace facing, and added shelving to the kitchen. I’m super proud of the fireplace facing. I used a wet saw for the first time to cut the brick so that it fit evenly on my wall. I then used bone colored sand grout to fill in the spaces.

My cousin built the fireplace mantel, and I stained it with walnut stain and added a coat of polyurethane. To complete the look, I bought a synthetic garland of eucalyptus leaves and white roses.

To ensure the living room color scheme made sense, I sewed all new curtains and pillow covers using a paisley patterned cotton canvas. I also made a patchwork throw quilt to add color to our otherwise super brown couch. I even found the perfect area rug to match the teal, burgundy, and cream color scheme. I completed the look with an old cinnamon broom and some scented candles.

The cool thing about our house is that we already have a lot of antique furniture thanks to my grandmother. When she passed I inherited her Jacobian revival dining room set.

My grandmother’s pieces fit better now than they did with our previous layout.

Cottagecore Dresses Aren’t Really My Style

What’s cottagecore without the quintessential cottagecore dress? It only took me sewing one for me to realize that these dresses aren’t really my thing. Fortunately, the one I made is one I like. I sewed it by hand before I owned a sewing machine. I used a beautiful cotton fabric that fits both the summer and fall, and drafted it using Rosery Apparel’s DIY tutorial.

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Even though I like my dress and it actually does get a lot of wear, it turns out that pinafores, peter pan collars, and milkmaid dresses with corsets just aren’t my style. I think they are absolutely stunning styles, but I feel like I am wearing a costume sometimes. Who knows. Maybe I’ll change my mind in the future?

A little bit of homemade sewing and experimenting showed me that I prefer grungy, goblin-y, and witchy looking things.

NOW, FOR THE GOOD!

I Discovered A New Sense Of Style

This goes for both interior design choices and my wardrobe. I am over the moon with how my new living space looks. Like for many people right now in the United States, housing is just criminally expensive. My husband and I were fortunate enough to buy our house when we did. We are stuck here until further notice, so why not make the place as comfortable as possible?

This was the first time I planned out the colors and decorations intentionally. I am excited to see not just my living room, but my entire house reflect the mood I’ve always wanted. There are of course more design elements I would love to add to my home, but things are rightfully expensive, and it takes years to collect beautiful, functioning items.

My beautifully bound classical literature, art books, and other such interesting items have been collected over time over a period of twelve years, and not as a lump sum. I did not go into debt for this, so if you’re interested in having your own beautiful space, please understand that it is work that takes time, patience, and planning. You can absolutely do it, you just have to change your approach and see this as a lifestyle as opposed to a trend.

Even though cottagecore dresses aren’t for me, I still love antique and vintage style elements. Instead of wearing cottagecore dresses, I found solace in history bounding. I am currently working on a collection of blouses using 18^th century reproduction fabrics and antique buttons. I absolutely love shirts in this style, and I feel that they reflect cottagecore elements very well without me having to make a super girly dress.

I also still use materials characteristic of cottagecore such as linen, cotton, and wool. I might not have tons of linen dresses, but I sure love my linen pants!

Overall Reflections

Overall, I expected Cottagecore to be an entertaining, fantastic dream (and it certainly was)! But, it did add quite a few benefits to my life. Since treating it like a subculture, I learned a lot about myself, my environment, and even how I want to live my life as we step into an uncertain future. Here are some unexpected things I reflected on after living this way for over three years:

• I learned that my career is NOT my identity.
• I learned to appreciate the smaller things in life.
• I found less fulfillment in technology use.
• I began to cultivate healthier and more meaningful relationships.
• And, I became more self-sufficient.

My career is NOT my identity

Even though I am no farmer and still very green in learning how gardening works, attempting to live this cottagecore lifestyle to get away from my city grind, has changed my outlook in terms of how I want to live my life.

For one, I started seeing my career as less meaningful to my identity and more as a financial necessity because I live in a civilization. It is just no longer how I identify myself, nor how I like to identify myself. Don’t get me wrong; I am proud of the work I put into getting my graduate degree, and I am proud of my current profession post baker, but it is not the first thing I am eager to tell people in that very American greeting question: “What do you do?”

At the end of the day, my profession, although scholarly and not related to business, still adheres to a capitalistic system, and still forces me to participate in that system. And, that system is not my dream.

The truth is that we all take part in capitalism whether we want to or not, and its purpose, as Karl Marx put it in his commentary on capitalism, Human Requirements and Division of Labour is to “produce labour” to keep those at the top infinitely wealthy. Essentially, “There would be no production without consumption.” Capitalism FORCES consumption, promising happiness because YOU are considered LESS.

“The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estrange being.”

In simplistic terms, the greater your misery. Playing “cottagecore” helped me to reduce my feelings of doomerism by allowing me to participate less in a destructive system, and instead cultivate my social needs, environmental needs, and creativity.

I learned to appreciate the smaller things in life

This experiment got me thinking about a book I read by political scientist and ecologist, William Ophuls. It’s called Apologies to the Grandchildren: Reflections on Our Ecological Predicament, Its Deeper Causes, and Its Political Consequences.

Apologies to the Grandchildren is a reflection about how Western Civilization’s capitalism, insatiable greed for endless growth, and ecological collapse will eventually push humanity to “live once again on the daily and seasonal flow of solar income” if we are to survive as a species.

In other words, going back to the quote on quote “good old days of living by the seasons” on local commodities and fewer stimuli. Please note that he’s not pushing for a rollback in human rights, but he is insinuating that our current modern lifestyle is unsustainable, and most people know this on some level today.

In a strange way, I look forward to a potential life of simplicity where I can just roast a freshly caught fish over a fire, listen to beach waves, and gaze at stars…. A life in which societal expectations are not supply to uphold a soulless civilization.

Through cottagecore, I actually did begin to appreciate smaller things in life such as getting a phone call from my friends and family; discovering a hummingbird in my garden; or, taking a walk without listening to any music, and actually being aware of the rustling trees and the sounds of the birds.

I loved taking a tomato from my garden, and snacking on it. Sometimes it was the highlight of my day. It sounds a bit corny, but the longer I immersed myself in trying to live life inspired by cottagecore, the less patience I had for many aspects of modern life, such as social media scrolling, shopping, career grinding, and even television and video games. And, I LOVE video games.

Don’t mistake me; I am not one of those people who thinks that the past was better. I like living in the present where human rights are better and medicine is more reliable. What I do wish we had from the past is a healthier environment, less pollution, and less social media.

Which leads me to my next point:

I found less fulfillment in technology use

I still love my laptop, YouTube, and blogging. But, I doomscroll a whole lot less, and spend less time looking for things to entertain myself with. I also use fewer technological resources at work because I’ve found that they’re often MORE time consuming to use, and more frustrating.

I began to cultivate healthier and more meaningful relationships and hobbies

I have more friends and talk to my family a lot more. I’ve also limited contact with people that add to my stress and learned to set boundaries at work and in my personal life.

One of my favorite things to do is go bike riding with my husband on weekends. No music, no drama; just a fun ride on a dirt trail for fifteen miles.

I engage with my artistic pursuits, love meeting new people, and do my best not to take on more responsibilities than I can reasonable handle.

I became more self-sufficient

This is probably the piece I am most proud of. Last year, I wouldn’t have expected to be able to build my own fireplace facing, shelves, lay on brick, make pillows, sew blankets, and curtains. Skill building has given me a sense of autonomy and confidence that I didn’t have before.

Cottagecore as a subculture is more than just frolicking around in frilly dresses, holding woodland animals, and taking aesthetically beautiful pictures.

When implemented as a lifestyle, it requires a lot of work and grit. Mentally, the work itself seems simple, but there is a method to the cottagecore madness, and it requires a specific skillset that mirrors those seen in farmers, seamsters, and other individuals with high value skills.

It reminded me why homesteading, although a beautiful dream of mine, would not be compatible for my current way of life.

But, I do value the new set of skills I obtained and I plan on continuing some semblance of a cottagecore lifestyle, albeit with a more relaxed approach.

Are you a fan of “Cottagecore?” If so, what’s your favorite aspect about it? Why are you drawn to Cottagecore? Tell us in the comments below!