Love Where You Live: At Home in the Country
Design expert Joan Osofsky of Hammertown Barn, a popular lifestyle store, shares her in-depth knowledge on stylish modern country living with a collection of creative ideas and real-life tips for making your home warm and welcoming. Joan Osofsky’s liberating philosophy about cozy and comfortable living in rural settings and ideas about how to achieve a modern country look are exemplified in the charming and inviting houses from across the Hudson Valley and New England that are profiled in Love Where You Live. Full of practical decorating tips and easy and casual hosting ideas, this book features a range of traditional and contemporary house styles that are truly inspiring for today’s informal country lifestyle—airy, minimalist living rooms look out onto the lush countryside; a rustic tiled floor shines through a sleek glass-topped table of a dining room; a welcoming, roaring log fire warms a great room with rough-hewn beams. Each embodies a shared aesthetic that is all about good design, a relaxed lifestyle, and an authentic sense of place and personality. This beautiful book shows us how to make our homes reflect the passion, the unique vision, and the soul of the people who reside there.
Author
For nearly thirty years, Joan Osofsky’s work as a retailer and style expert has been defined by her mantra, "Love where you live". It is what animates her work with customers of Hammertown Barn, the three Hudson Valley– and Berkshire-based independent lifestyle stores she owns and operates. Hammertown Barn has been featured in Country Living, Travel & Leisure, and the Daily Beast, among many other print and online publications. Abby Adams is the author of several books, including The Gardener’s Gripe Book. Mary Randolph Carter is an author, photographer, designer, and longtime creative director for Ralph Lauren. Photographer John Gruen specializes in interiors. His work has appeared in many books and magazines.
Review
The simple, unique and interestingly appointed cottage is a place for escape, ?lled with art, books, color, scents, sounds, textures and memories.
It is a repository for keepsakes and dreams that help bridge past with future. While today technology forces us to think only in terms of productivity, leanness and speed, many of us have begun to pull in the reins, re-explore our goals, challenge our assumptions and seek a lifestyle that captures a strong sense of coherence and tradition. Central to that new approach is a renewed sense of "home."
See how cottage owners are breaking with tradition and lending a new look to their humble spaces. Differing in style, color, regional taste and liveliness, the cottages showcased are tied together by a delicate thread that honors tradition while looking forward to a lifestyle that is uncluttered, unhurried and re?ective of rugged, unapologetic individuality. As you develop your own special place-your own "vintage cottage," may you capture a new idea from those who have graciously opened their doors to these unique homes.
As both a store owner and stylist, Molly Hyde English, owner of Camps and Cottages, has worked with designers and home owners for more than ten years in their pursuit of furniture, artwork and period decorative pieces, both old and newly crafted, reminiscent of cottage and lodge living made popular between 1920 and 1940. She is the author of Camps and Cottages, and her work has been featured in Country Home, House Beautiful, the San Francisco Chronicle, the book division of Sunset Books and she has appeared on episodes of HGTV featuring her homes in Berkeley and Laguna Beach in California.
As a documentary landscape, architectural and ethnographic photographer, Tom Lamb's focus is with concerns for the environment and the need to create a balance between conservation, preservation, tourism, and development. Tom holds a Master in Fine Arts degree in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has lectured and taught at numerous schools across the country as well as traveling photographic and design workshops and lectures in West Africa, Mexico, South America, China and Tibet. His photographic work is widely published and collected.