This weekend I was reading Paradise Lost by Wendy Dennis in House & Home's Notes From Home, one of the few shelter magazines that stills devotes precious pages to essays about the meaning of home. The author laments the advent of the McCottage and the loss of the simple ways previous generations have appreciated the beauty of Ontario's Muskoka region.
In response to her question "Do you like your cottage?" the renter next door replied, "It's fantastic. It has this unbelievably massive media room downstairs." That response captures it all...With all the beauty of the surrounding area, rain or shine, why a media room?
I think in the end it's not the square footage of the summer place but what you do and who you are when you're there that matters.
Architecture and design can, if we let it, help us truly vacation - leave behind the usual and find the extraordinary of summer time.
What architecture can create this way of being? Here are some pics of my version. (Click here to see a gallery of cottage pics from House & Home)
A gathering place for meals and card games or the 3,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that takes a whole summer to complete. Everything is simple. (via House Beautiful, photography by Don Freeman)
via Pointclick home, photography by Eric Striffler via PointClickHome, photography by Mark Lohman
The bedrooms are small and cozy and made even better by oddly angled walls. above images via House Beautiful, photography by Don Freeman
image via Coastal Living, photography by Jean Allsopp
There a bikes with baskets in the front and a bell on the handlebar.