Achieving that attractive, aged cottage feel in your home can be as simple as altering a few fittings and furnishings. In particular, Country look windows make a difference to ambience and these are easy to source and simple to hang.

A natural colour scheme inside your home is an important base on which to build your country-style look. Opt for creamy walls, and if possible wood flooring is preferable.

If you are looking to redo your tiling and authentic wood replacement proves to be too expensive, consider either a laminate wood-look surface, or wide, flagstone-style tiling which will emphasise a sense of cottage-bred homeliness. From here, you'll want to find furniture that doesn't clash with the authentic, cosy ambience you're intent on creating. (more...)

The country cottage look is a style that many people want to achieve in their homes. Popular because it is easy to live with and also easy to create, there are numerous fittings and furnishing out there geared especially towards making the interior of your house a homely haven.

Those keen to reinvent their home as a cottage in the country will, ideally, opt for wood flooring or wide authentic flagstones. Since these are expensive and often difficult to come by, budget DIY designers can create the same look with good wood laminate and a big, natural tile. Cottage style DIY is made easy by a host of companies dedicated specifically to the manufacture of country look window dressings and shutters. Your cottage-look will need wooden window frames and shutters, and these should be competed with curtains in a natural fabric.

Soft furnishings should be upholstered in natural linens that coordinate with the curtains. Indeed, the windows, as a key feature, can provide the colour palate and wood tone template for the rest of the rooms. (more...)

Installing your own shutters can be tricky. Those with no prior DIY experience will in particular find the process fraught with numerous possible mistakes and it is in light of this that shutter companies have taken to offering a custom installation option with all of their products.

Those keen to give the business a go on their own, however, will find that with guidance, hanging shutters correctly can be relatively simple. To begin with, it is necessary to hold up the shutter to the window and mark, in pencil, where the pilot holes need to be drilled.

Using the correct drill bit, drill through the marks you have made on the shutters until there are four neatly made holes, two on each shutter. Remember, it is vital that these holes are drilled in the same place on each shutter. If their positions are different, the shutter will hang at a lopsided angle. (more...)