Check out This Old House magazine’s first built-from-the-ground-up Idea House.
Called “The Cottage at Cloudland Station,” they describe it as a “storybook cottage with Craftsman-style charm that puts a fresh spin on classic American house style.”
The house has a steeply pitched roof and a generous wraparound porch. The siding color is Olympic Paint’s “Chinese Porcelain,” and the front door is “Asparagus.”
TOH says, “An open floor plan, a flexible layout, and a wraparound porch maximize space indoors and out. The porch, a generous 10 feet deep on two sides, accommodates multiple seating areas to extend living space. Interior Designer Yvonne McFadden chose furniture, including a pair of all-weather wicker sofas, to suit family life as well as entertaining.”
The Idea House at Cloudland Station is part of a
Southern Living-inspired community in Chickamauga, Georgia.
For all the photos and information about Cottage at Cloud Station, visit This Old House.
Photo credit: Deborah Whitlaw Llewellyn.
Could I love this house any more?!?! It’s sweet and charming and rustic and oh so full of character. I could move in tomorrow!
I am enamored with this place! Cozy yet spacious. Do you know how many square feet? I checked the link but couldn’t find the info.
I couldn’t find it either, Angie! If anyone knows, fill us in!
I have the magazine 🙂
It is 1,998 square feet and it gains added living space from a 10 foot deep porch that accesses family and dining rooms on the open plan first floor.
I love this house and the exterior colors.
I knew someone would find the info for us — thanks, Fiamma! 🙂
So many of the idea houses are over the top and too big. This is a great family house, very warm and livable. I would love to see a scaled down version for us empty nesters.
This is a scaled down version. It is a small house. I have been to a few of these showhouses and they usually disappoint, especially as to size. It is pretty on the outside, but the inside is so impersonal. Not for me!
I love the colors and the open spaces. That porch is just perfect!
Shelley
What a great happy house! Has everything one needs!’
I think this is cute and cozy. Not too big, but lots of room for outdoor living with that wonderfully deep wrap-around porch. It would suit me just fine, though it might be a little tight for a family (and where’s the TV?). I can see why they call it a Craftsman with Storybook charm. It has the stylistic elements of a Craftsman, but the high pitched roofs are definitely Storybook. On the exterior, I love the brackets and charming windows, the rock foundation, and the combination of the dark blue siding with the apple green door. Inside, I love the blue kitchen cabinets (haven’t we seen a lot of blue cabinets lately?), the rock fireplace, the mudroom and laundry room, and the general layout. My grandkids would love the little loft perch. Love all the hydrangeas in the landscape, too. I’d take this in a heartbeat.
I’m really pretty disappointed in this home. It has good bones, is situated well on the lot & I like the stonework. But the exterior of this house should be painted something like olive, sage or hunter green. Or maybe a slate color. This is the first indication that this isn’t really a craftsman style house. The front door has good lines but should be a wood tone & not painted this color. Yuck! Inside the house morphs into a country cottage mostly or maybe a farmhouse. Sheets on the bed in the master as bed linens? Couldn’t you find a better treatment for an idea house? Can’t stand the chandelier over the table. The home has too much painted white when the overall effect should be woodsier. The only room that’s really appropriate looking is the laundry
Craftsman homes are generally defined by architecture not color. Many craftsman homes adopted regionally appropriate colors that didn’t always fall into the paint manufactures definition of “craftsman.” Trim in craftsman houses could also have been painted or left with a more natural finish. Much depended on the quality of the wood being used for trim and it’s grain pattern. Also, I think the bed linens on the master bedroom are topped by a duvet or something similar. Not sheets. Hope that clears up your confusion.
I absolutely love this house and everything about it. Someone said it is impersonal. My books, prints, and family pictures would take care of that. Just two negative comments: A wraparound porch actually wraps completely around the house. This one does only partially so can’t really be called a wraparound porch. Second negative comment: IT IS NOT MINE!!! 🙂
Definition of wraparound porch in English:
noun
A shallow veranda enclosing two or more sides of a house:
so one comment down, how to get you this house is next 🙂
rick
I so love this house…and of course love This Old House….do you remember when it was one of the few home and garden shows on TV?….I can see lots of beautiful inspiration in this home!
This house is perfect! And I rarely say that. I love how they problem solved the very steep stair case by giving it landing midway in order to provide the ‘climber’ a much need pause in scaling the heights to the upper level. Simply brilliant. The shades of turquoise throughout are simply lovely. Bravo!
Love this place; exterior and interior. All it needs, in my opinion, is some old, character-filled pieces. The porch is wonderful, and I love the exterior colors.
Hi Julia, this is such a lovely home, love everything about it, the colours are just beautiful. I would be happy just to have that porch, lots of Tea, Coffe and hot Chocolate and conversations to be had on that porch. I can imagine what it would look like at Christmas time….dreamy. Thank you for sharing beauty. Till next time, have a lovely weekend, regards Esther from stormy Sydney.
Oh yes, I could live in this house.. It is beautiful!
Happy Friday, enjoy your weekend!
I love the porch, but the floor plan leaves me cold. All I can think is I wouldn’t want to be the person trying to sleep in that bedroom that opens straight into the great room by the front door- no privacy at all, and, at least at our house with teenagers, that great room would be pretty noisy until the wee hours. 😉
Was disappointed once I saw the interior. Too open. Too white. Just blah. The roof is way too steeply pitched for a Craftsman. This is just a wannabe. O.k. if you want a cottage, I guess. But it’s not what I was expecting. At all.
My only negative is the use of the sliding barn door on the hall bath. While it might achieve the desired decorative effect, it seems to ignore the need for privacy (and security) that a bathroom door should provide. They mention that it eliminated the space hogging swing of a regular door, but the plan doesn’t indicate that a swing would have had any real effect on the bathrooms functionability. Those are the kinds of things that frustrate me, but are easily remedied by the next owner.
There is quite a lot that I like about this house – the wonderful porch and landscaping, the interesting small details throughout, and the nice not too big or too small size of the house. Sort of a “if a Crafstman and a Cottage had a baby”, which is a blend of my two favorite styles. I love the extra deep hearthstone on the fireplace – what a wonderful space for extra seating or huge pitchers of hydrangeas in the summer, and a cozy fireside perch in the winter. But I find the white lapboard walls a strange mix of both overwhelming and underwhelming. Too much of a good thing, maybe? Maybe a softer color would help. Or maybe the softer edges would come from the personal effects that we all bring with us into our homes!
For those wanting to know where this house is located,it’s on the Tennessee-Georgia line. Google Chattanooga tenn for driving directions.
I went to this Idea House during the open house weekend. The entry to the neighborhood has a very old beautiful Amish barn moved here and a meeting house the front porch of which was used as a stage during our tour. The stone bridges along the roadways have glass and metal “lanterns” on stone ledges that are actually electrified, and brick roadways where finished. A “school house” where they will have games available for residents, a multilevel treehouse, a mill house where they will have a candy shop. There are more amenities in this neighborhood than I’ve ever seen in another. (I don’t mean to sound like an ad – just setting the scene.)
One thing that isn’t immediately understandable without visiting the idea house is the use of every inch of space. The closet at the foot of the stairs has a dog bed space in the bottom. The refrigerator is built into a wall of cabinets to the right of the island and appeared to be pantry doors at first. The square the staircase circles has shelving and cabinets all around. The loft space is right at the underside of the roof of the house. There were cabinet doors along the wall in the bedroom of the loft. I’m pretty tall and could stand comfortably directly in line with the center of the roofline. The “stairs” to get from the second floor to the loft are extremely unnerving as they are more like a ladder without the secure feeling. The road to the idea house was gravel, I couldn’t tell if it would stay that way or if it was temporary, but it seemed poorly done and it circled the entire house.
Hope I wasn’t too long winded. I just wanted to give the perspective of it all in person on things not covered here.
Incredible! This is a real beauty! I liked the Mud Room, Laundry and the front door as well! Thanks a lot for sharing this link. 🙂
Julia, what can I say more than this is simply a wonderful house. I like the mix of colors with the texture and materials used, I like that it is spacious and more than all this, it seems that it perfectly fits to the surroundings. It’s like part of the nature.
What I would maybe add is a small rug to the porch, to make it feel more intimate and cozy. Can you imagine one of our Nepalese rugs on the porch?