Shabby Chic
Log inUpload the bedroom, the cottage living room, or the garden room
Paint that is allowed to chip
Or choose an example
Even paint and matched chairs belong on traditional. Collected florals without the chip belong on cottage core.
Look
Shabby chic
Room
Paint
Cover
Linen
The few romantic pieces
Shabby chic reading
Where the collecting stops
What the photograph must keep
Keep the shell
Walls stay pale
Keep the openings
Windows stay
Keep the camera
The same view of the painted piece
Shabby chic
Bedroom and cottage living
Pale romance, with the paint left chipped
Shabby chic is distressed paint, loose covers, rose linen, cane, and an aged mirror. The room stays light and a little romantic. It belongs in bedrooms and in cottage living rooms. Cottage-core is the other country room: floral and collected. This one is the chipped white paint, not a shelf of found objects.
A slipcover, a cane seat, a mirror that has already aged.
Paint
White or cream paint is allowed to wear at edges, on a table, a headboard, or a door. The wear should look handled, not smashed. A fresh glossy white with no history is a different room, and so is a deliberately filthy one.
Cloth
Chairs and sofas wear covers that can come off, a little long at the hem. Linen in a faded rose is the color, on a bed or a curtain. A tight tailored sofa in a dark print has left the style. So has a room papered in large flowers.
Cane and mirror
Cane is a chair or a cabinet front, not a jungle of rattan. An aged mirror, spotted and soft, hangs where a person actually looks. Those two objects do the romance. You do not also need a collection of jugs, dried bunches, and floral plates.
Pale paint chips at the edge. The wear is specified, not an accident you plan to repaint next week.
Slipcovers drape. Tailored upholstery with a tight skirt is the wrong silhouette.
The cloth is linen in a faded rose. It is a tint, not a botanical print.
A cane seat or a cane panel. One or two pieces, light enough to see through.
Glass that has spotted with age. A new beveled mirror in bright silver is too crisp.
Cottage-core is floral and collected. Shabby chic is chipped white paint and a pale romantic room, not a gathered set of finds.
A bedroom or a cottage living room, in daylight, so the paint color stays pale in the picture.
Name the chipped paint, the loose cover, the rose linen, the cane, and the aged mirror.
If the room starts to look collected and floral, you have crossed into cottage-core. Take objects out.
Try it where people sleep or sit in a small house. Cottage-core and French country are the styles most often mixed up with it.
Shabby chic
Shabby chic is chipped paint, rose linen, cane, and aged mirror, in a pale palette. Covers are loose. It suits bedrooms, cottage living rooms, and garden rooms. The distress has to look like use, not like a filter applied evenly to every edge.
Cottage core is more floral and more collected. This preset is paler and more painted-wood. Leave one surface smooth so the chips mean something. The mirror is old. It does not cover the window.
The bed wall, the door, and the garden door stay. Romance is the cloth. It is not a new plan.
Paint wears where hands go: a chair, a table edge. Not on the ceiling in a pattern.
Loose linen, pale. Tailored wool is traditional, not this.
Aged, and small enough to live on a wall that is not a window.
Rose, cream, and a little cane. A saturated floral is cottage core.
The links below are the neighboring jobs. Each one keeps a promise this page does not make.
Cottage core is more floral and less about the chipped paint.
French country brings limestone and copper, and a harder kitchen.
Bedroom keeps the bed on the wall this pale cloth is dressing.
Wear, rose linen, and the difference from a floral cottage collection.
Chipped at edges and corners, on pale paint. The wear should look used by hands. Large flakes, dark underlayers everywhere, or a brand-new glossy white are both wrong.
A slipcover that drapes over a sofa or chair and can come off. A tight, tailored upholstery job belongs to a more formal room.
No. It is linen in a faded rose color. Flowers printed across the cloth push the room toward cottage-core.
A cane seat or cabinet front, and one aged mirror. Cane on every piece, or a gallery of new mirrors, stops being shabby chic.
Bedrooms and cottage living rooms. A formal dining room or a dark library will make the pale paint look like a costume.
Cottage-core is floral and collected. Shabby chic is distressed pale paint, loose covers, rose linen, cane, and an aged mirror, without a shelf of gathered objects.
Yes. The chair, the mirror, or the table edge needs to be in the frame. This pass chips the paint on purpose and then stops adding objects.
Specify the chip, the cover, and the mirror, then stop adding objects.