This New Cottage was recently featured on Barn Light Electric’s blog: “Peggy describes the recent demolish and rebuild of her 1950s Cape Cod cottage as a massive undertaking. She and her husband wanted to preserve the old Cape Cod feel but add modern systems and construction to meet building code. Inspiration for the project took […]

Creating cottage charm in This New Cottage involved loads of fun upcycling all kinds of furniture and décor! When I started to shop in traditional stores for furnishings, I quickly realized that current designs and styles would not fit in the retro cottage we were building. Neither would they “fit” in the new cottage. For […]

Over the last 20 years we in the building business have seen a consistent move away from large homes. After the 2008 recession, building costs increased dramatically, due to the increased demand for labor and materials, and the adoption of stringent building and energy codes. These cost increases coupled with the demographics of retirees here […]

Details, details, details! Creating an authentic cottage involves lots of details! However, we never expected that one of the most time-consuming challenges in building This New Cottage would be designing a seemingly minor bathroom detail! When original Cape Cod cottages were built, they were often the result of owners piecing together low-cost materials. Many cottages […]

A unique feature that we wanted to include in This New Cottage was the distinctive charm of a cottage’s built-in bookshelves, horizontal paneling on the walls, and a certain style of interior doors. I had clipped several magazines in my idea stage that illustrated these ideas. The clippings showed pictures of shelves built into the […]

Cottage charm is usually visible. Mismatched comfy furniture and built-in bookshelves define it. But it is much more. It is multi-sensory. For example, some cottages have a distinctive musty smell from being closed up more than half a year. The sound of creaky floor boards definitely cries “charm.” Anyone who has been to the unique […]