9 Ways to Add Simple European Cottage Charm | Dining Room

I’m excited to share a few elements in our dining room that give it that simple living and European cottage charm. See how we enhanced what was already here!

Simple European Cottage Charm in Our Dining Room

Before I get into all the details of the European cottage charm to our dining room I want to state that most of these ideas can be used when decorating other rooms in your house.

While I have all these elements in our dining room, I have them in other rooms in our house as well.

So just because I’m talking about my dining room, don’t get stuck thinking these elements are just for a dining room.

Another thing I want to say before we get started is if you read or watched my post about our new house then you will see that some of the elements I’m going to talk about came with the house.

We didn’t add them, they were already here!

Honestly, it’s another blessing that I feel like God gave us in this move.

Simple little things that can easily go unnoticed when we don’t take the time to notice.

Life Update

We‘ve been having the best time at our new house the past few months. We‘ve been spending time outside a lot! Swimming in the creek. Homeschool and meals on the front porch. Hanging clothes out on the line. Pruning apple trees, and getting the garden going. Climbing trees (Yes, even this 30+ year-old Mama climbed up a tree. I had no idea how hard coming down was going to be haha!!) It’s been amazing here and everyday I find that we have more to be grateful for.

The bush I thought was a lilac is a lilac!! We also found out that we have pink peony’s like we did at the old house! Tulips. Multiflora roses. Mulberry trees. A cherry tree.

Farm life update

This year we are raising meat chickens for some friends and family, which has been such a fun adventure. For us, there is something life-giving; something that makes us feel more alive, by caring for them. We are also renting out our pasture to a neighbor with horses and cows. They aren’t our animals, but it is so exciting to think about what life will be like here when the pasture is full of our animals.

In fact, we just got back from a farm tour where we met a mama cow and calf whom we believe God is telling us to bring home. ‘They wont be ready to join us on our farm until September. But we are so excited and having a lot of fun finalizing the details to make sure we’re ready for them.

Again, I know this life isn’t for everyone. I’m not going to assume that everyone who started doing what we’re doing would feel the same way we do. But there is so much life in the hard work and late nights.

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What is the best color for a cottage?

Okay, so this is something that there is no “real” answer to.

Some will say that the cottage style is calm with neutral colors.

While others will say that European cottage colors are those floral pinks, reds, yellows, and blues.

I know some interior designers would freak out to read this, but what I’ve learned about interior design is that colors can transcend all design styles.

You can have a cottage style home with warm neutrals, cool neutrals, dark bold colors, or light floral colors.

It all depends on the feelings you want your home to evoke.

For me I want a calm and soothing home.

So I’m sticking with warmish neutral colors for my European cottage home.

I also feel like when I look back at period pictures of old cottages and farmhouses that I use for inspiration, bold and flashy colors were not common.

How do you add cottage style?

1. European cottage charm with bead board

This is one of the things that we were blessed with when we moved in.

I had been asking my husband to add bead board to our old house and he didn’t want to.

For a variety of reasons.

But then we moved here and we have it in our dining room and the master bathroom!

(Guess who likes bead board now and is going to help me add it to the kitchen someday haha!)

Anyway, when you’re looking at pictures or videos of modern European cottage style homes many have wall treatments.

• Bead board
• Board and batten
• Picture molding
• Vertical or horizontal shiplap

These add character and charm in a subtle way.

Little details.

If you like modern European farmhouse style and you have Pinterest you should go to the pictures you pin and see if there is a pattern.

I think you might be surprised at some of the patterns you find in your pins that you are completely unaware of.

Bead board is a pattern for me!

2. Picture Rail or Peg Rail

If I were doing it from the beginning I would have probably picked a peg rail.

Mainly because I LOVED the peg rail we DIYed in our old kitchen and miss that functionality.

I actually have plans to add a peg rail to the kitchen once we are finally ready to give it a facelift because I loved it so much.

The picture rail is equally charming.

I like the way that a picture rail allows for displaying beautiful and meaningful things.

Artwork and candles are perfect for displaying on a picture rail.

I have an empty frame that my Grammy gave me a long time ago.

Back when the blog first started actually.

But I couldn’t ever figure out how to display it at the old house.

But when I started decorating the dining room this Spring I realized I finally had a spot for it.

Now I’m just waiting to find the perfect art to put inside of it.

I’m a little overly sentimental about things and I want the artwork that I put inside of it to be something that reminds me of Grammy.

3. Wicker Baskets

Baskets are such a cheap and easy way to add European farmhouse charm to any room.

Especially filled with florals or greenery of some kind.

They speak to a time when wicker baskets were as common as the plastic grocery bag is now.

Not to mention the warmth that they add to the space because of their natural material.

I’ve been thinking of a way to display my baskets in the “mud room” area.

I think I finally have an idea and cannot wait to start working on it.

4. Accent Chairs

Accent chairs are a simple and easy way to add European cottage charm to any room.

But I like that an accent chair against the wall also gives the feeling that there’s always room for one more.

There’s room for one more around the table for a meal or in the living room for fellowship.

I’ve always been drawn to accent chairs for this reason.

But then I started noticing that cottage-style often has accent chairs being used for all kinds of things.

A side table, night stand, or even just empty along a wall!

They also make for nice places to drop things when you come through the door with an arm full.

5. Mix n’ Match Chairs

I’ve been working on replacing our dining chairs for the past 9 months.

The chairs that we had were breaking all over.

And since our girls are little they are often making them worse by playing with the broken pieces haha.

But since I’m all about thrifty living and don’t want to over spend I’m trying to stay around $5 per chair.

I could have found all kinds of mix n match chairs on facebook marketplace, but prices there are hit or miss.

So I’m waiting for garage sale season to finish replacing our broken chairs with new to us chairs.

But by intentionally finding mix n’ match chairs I’m creating a collected and imperfect look, and I’m loving it.

That isn’t to say that a set of matching chairs isn’t beautiful or cottage-style.

But this is just a way I chose to add European cottage charm to our dining room.

6. European cottage charm with collections

This is counter the minimalist movement haha.

But I’ve decided that a collection doesn’t have to mean “clutter” or “chaos”.

A collection can be small and simple.

It also doesn’t have to be all the same exact thing.

I have a collection of crocks.

Some serve a functional purpose and some are just pretty.

But all of them add to my European cottage style home, so I always have them on display.

7. European Cottage charm light fixtures

Our new light fixtures!!

This was so much fun for me.

The one upside to moving into a house that was Amish is that you get to pick out all the light fixtures because it is a blank slate.

I went back and forth with a few different options that I think all the European cottage feeling and ultimately landed on these simple schoolhouse fixtures.

8. Artwork

Nothing says European cottage charm quite like artwork.

I am not a person who believes that the artwork in a room has to match the season.

But when I found this landscape of sheep on the pasture I thought it would be perfect during the warmer months.

Not to mention my husband is doing all kinds of research about sheep and thinking about adding them to our little farm someday.

9. Decorate with Everyday Items

As always this is my last and FAVORITE tip.

Decorating with everyday items is very common in modern cottage decor.

The idea that everyday items have beauty is something that I value in my decorating style.

Especially since I don’t have space for a lot of extra stuff in this small dining room.

• crocks (for fermenting veggies)
• baskets (for garden harvest time)
• bowl full of ABC memory verses (I’m working on doing an updated version of this for older kids)
• candles
• step stool (for the girls to help in the kitchen)
• aprons (I’m such a mess in the kitchen)
• dishes
• tea towels

Thank you so much for stopping by!

I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed creating it for you.

European Cottage Charm Inspiration to Pin!

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Have a great week! XoXo

Open Your Doors,
Aliya

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