Text by Katie Wood | Photography by William Dickey
Patience isn’t always an easy lesson to learn, but it’s one the Palmer family has championed time and again.
Seven years before Kevin and Layla Palmer moved into their cozy lakeside cottage in the county, Kevin drove through the neighborhood and instantly fell in love with the style and architecture. When he returned home, he said to Layla, “You’ve got to see this place.” With the neighborhood’s idyllic movie set charms and a setting nestled between cotton fields and a gorgeous lakefront, the Palmers knew they had found their dream home. Unfortunately, at that time their dream was out of their reach.
Nearly a decade passed, but they never stopped dreaming. When the economy crashed and the housing market dipped, they found their dream home in foreclosure. It was a sign. In fact, the home sat vacant the whole seven years—as if it were waiting just for Kevin and Layla. “For us it seemed like it was too good to be true,” Layla says. “The house we had driven by hundreds of times in the last seven years was suddenly affordable.”
According to Layla, author of home interiors and inspiration blog, The Lettered Cottage, home décor should take cues from Father Time and Mother Nature. “I love things that are old, but I love the freshness of the colors in nature,” she says. “My style is kind of a blend of those two things.”
Over the years, the Palmers have worked to transform their traditional builders-grade purchase into a home that reflects their personal style. “I think it was perfectly fine, and many people probably would have moved in and loved it just the way it was, but for us, we have a lot of fun injecting our personality into our places,” Layla explains. “If we were going to be writing a mortgage check every month we wanted to at least love our surroundings!” Layla shares details of each of her creative transformations and cottage style ideas on her blog as she continues to renovate and upgrade.
One of the Palmer’s biggest projects was adding a wall to separate the living room from the kitchen and dining space. “Most people are tearing down walls, but we put up a wall,” Layla admits with a laugh. “We wanted that cottage style and to me cottage-style rooms are cozier; they aren’t so much the open floor plan, so we wanted a cozy little living room.” With the help of their carpenter friend, they also added a country-cottage flair to several walls by installing wide wooden planks.
The combined kitchen and dining room is sunny and bright, maintaining the signature blue color palette, and is anchored by a cheerful marble tile backsplash. The dining room table belonged to Layla’s great-great grandfather, who originally purchased it as a wedding gift in 1900. The table boasts 10 leaves, perfect for when the Palmer’s entertain—though some resourceful flea market scouting was needed to add a few extra chairs to the set’s original six.
Upstairs, one of the rooms that has been a labor of love, is their 4-year-old son Steevenson’s bedroom. The cozy 9 x 10 foot room is another reminder of the grace and patience needed as they continue to create their home. For more than three years the Palmer’s have been in the process of adopting and are just months away from bringing their son home from Haiti. And like their house that sat waiting for them for seven years, this thoughtfully curated room meant for their precious and eagerly-awaited Steevenson, is ready and waiting.
To see more of Layla’s creative transformations and style ideas, visit theletteredcottage.net.
Explore more homes like this one in our Country Cottage Special Issue!
