Nearly 1 in 3 millennials say butter dishes, French doors and even old-style teapots are making a comeback in their homes. Interest in cottagecore, driven by a desire for simpler times and embraced by celebrities like Taylor Swift and Harry Styles, stays strong in 2025.
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As spring stretches into summer in the kitchen, it feels like the perfect time to turn to something fresh and, at the same time, old fashioned. You don’t need a farmhouse or a big garden to bring a little cottagecore charm to your kitchen.
The B&Q study highlights millennials’ sudden attraction to retro farmhouse aesthetics, and how, according to The Guardian, famous personalities are also joining the trend. Thankfully, the movement is more about a mindset shift than anything else. It’s about slowing down, being present and finding joy in the ordinary.
Examining Cottagecore
Cottagecore embraces simple, home-centered living inspired by old-fashioned charm. This lifestyle focuses on things like baking from scratch, tending the garden, sewing, preserving food and enjoying slow routines even if you have to live a busy modern life at work.
At heart, cottagecore is about finding joy in everyday tasks and creating a cozy, peaceful environment. Whether you live in the countryside or an apartment, you can bring a little of that feeling into your home through the kitchen.
Cottagecore isn’t just for cozy winter days either. It also fits well with spring and summer. Warmer months bring fresh air through open doors, lingering light-filled evenings and fresh seasonal meals with friends. Slowing down doesn’t have to mean hibernating; it can mean soaking up the sun while you pick clover or dandelions for the teapot or flower vases.
Getting started
If you’re ready to slow it down and embrace an imperfect life, here are some ways to get the cottagecore feeling in the kitchen. Prepare to be deinfluenced because this movement is about using what you have, not buying new things. Isn’t that a refreshing change?
In the kitchen
You don’t need anything new; your old mixing bowls, wooden spoons and chipped enamelware all have the character and charm you want. Likewise, keep ingredients simple — think flour, sugar, eggs, butter and seasonal produce.
Recycle store-bought jam jars, pickle jars or pasta sauce jars by using them in the kitchen. These work great for storing dry goods in the pantry again and again. They’re also perfect for serving drinks, storing soups in the fridge or even putting fresh flowers or herbs in.
Decorate the kitchen with useful items instead of fluff. Store dry vegetables in baskets out of the way. Utensils in crocks or jars keep them in reach and all together, ready to use immediately.
A small pot of herbs in the window, tucked into a corner or on a shelf, brings the outside in. Have fun and try something old fashioned like a sweet potato or an avocado pit to bring the outside in for free.
On the table
Don’t wait for someday; today is the day. Use the nice dishes, cloth napkins and the silver if you have. Heirlooms are nice, but again, use what you have.
If you have fresh flowers from the garden, add them to a jar. Don’t have fresh flowers? Snip a few small branches from a tree, collect tall wild grasses or recycle silk flowers to look and feel special.
Serve meals from bowls or platters. Family style is a lovely way to enjoy dinner, even if you ordered out. Add candles and the mood elevates to a memorable status.
On the menu
Seasonality is the key to a simpler cottagecore menu. Start with what’s in season and what’s on hand and incorporate it into meal times. Spring is the perfect time for strawberries, asparagus and freshly caught Alaskan salmon.
You don’t have to grow a garden or live in the countryside to incorporate the flavors of the season into your kitchen. Enjoy the produce and foods currently bountiful and, therefore, on sale by adding them to your meal plans.
Learn what grows wild in your area. And how to use it. Wild weeds can be food, too. Dandelion flowers or greens make sweet seasonal tea. Spruce tips from your own trees can also be eaten. Look to your Cooperative Extension office for brochures or classes on edible wild foods.
The Cooperative Extension office is also the best place to find classes on canning and preserving. And what better way to enjoy summer than saving a little bit of it for the depths of winter?
A return to simple joys
At its heart, this revival isn’t about rules or aesthetics, it’s about choosing to slow down while the world around you rushes by. It’s opening windows, letting in light, canning and preserving, using the good dishes, and baking something from scratch just because it’s fulfilling. There’s meaning in small, quiet moments of life, and you can find them when you look.
The cottagecore movement doesn’t demand perfection. It offers a way to approach everyday life with a little care in how things are done. As we move through spring and into summer, it’s a good time to remember that simple can still be special — and that meals, no matter how humble, can be something to slow down for.
Laura Sampson is the writer behind Little Frugal Homestead. She and her husband, Jack, are two Gen-Xers living in a 90-year-old farmhouse in Alaska. They keep chickens and honey bees and grow a garden and small orchard; their dream is to live well within their means on their little piece of land.