Our Little Cottage Home




This afternoon I was thinking about our little home and thought how sweet a place it is to dwell.
It meets our needs, is paid for, has room for guests to stay, and has a living room that is conducive to the amount of company we often have. The dining room has plenty of room for big family meals and holiday parties. The kitchen is an old fashioned sort, room to move around and a place for a table to eat at.
I did some looking on line to decide if our house was a cottage or a bungalow and this is what I found.....cottage is a bungalow: a small house with a single story. Cottage it is, one story, and a small house, complete with low ceilings and very little closet space as in typical older cottages. I also found this definition of a cottage that suits us just fine....In modern usage, a cottage is a dwelling, typically in a rural, or semi-rural location.
The driveway is lined with roses and Lilly's, giving it a very old world look and I like that.
Home to each of us is perhaps something different. It is to me, this very poem that I recite often to myself as I dust and clean and sometimes wish for more space, bigger closets, higher ceilings and perhaps more electrical outlets in the living room. This home of ours is the place our grown children love to return to and enter through the door that opens the wrong way and notice not its faults, but notice only that is smells the same as in their childhood days, of fresh baked goodies, mixed with the scent of incense perhaps or drying herbs hanging from the beam. Where pies cool on the counter and wool is spun on the wheel and knit with love into some useful item. It is where they kick off their shoes, hear the same squeaks in the floor as when they tried to sneak down the hallway early in the morning. It is the same place where Dad read them stories of his boyhood and where games were played in the evening by the soft light of the lamps and where their toys remain in the attic for the next generation to play with. Our little home, so old and plain is still the place our children love to be and to me, that is what makes it home. This little cottage of ours, that fits all the definitions of a cottage home filled with love.


The Little Home
Edgar A. Guest

The little house is not too small
To shelter friends who come to call.
Though low the roof and small its space
It holds the Lord's abounding grace,
And every simple room may be
Endowed with happy memory.
The little house, severely plain,
A wealth of beauty may contain.
Within it those who dwell may find
High faith which makes for peace of mind,
And that sweet understanding which
Can make the poorest cottage rich.
The little house can hold all things
From which the soul's contentment springs.
'Tis not too small for love to grow,
For all the joys that mortals know,
For mirth and song and that delight
Which make the humblest dwelling bright.

Comments

Lovely poem.

Our home is called a villa - I suppose because it has high ceilings, how I would like lower ones to keep the warmth down low - & ease to clean.
We have no built in wardrobes in bedrooms and also very limited storage space - but thats how it was 100 years ago grin.

Love Leanne
cheryl said…
What a lovely post Patty , we too have a very modest home and it is all paid for but could I get your opinion on something . Someone in our family thinks our home is not good enough for this person to come to . What do I do ?
Your blog so often hits the spot, but today this is perfect. Just last night, we moved my sister and her 3-yr-old daughter out of her husband's house, where she loved him to distraction but was not loved back. She's heartbroken but at peace that she needs to take her little one to a home environment where they will be surrounded in the unconditional love they give one another. We moved her into a tiny little place that we promptly dubbed a cottage, and tonight, I will convert this poem to a whimsical design and frame it for her to hang in her new little cottage. Your timing is impeccable.

Thank you,
Teri

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