About
About Sherine Abdelaal and HomeCottageCore
A cottagecore interior design practice in Fair Oaks, California, with a design journal attached to it. Both are run by one person.
The Practice
HomeCottageCore is the cottagecore interior design practice of Sherine Abdelaal, based in Fair Oaks, California. The work covers four rooms: living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms.
Her professional background is in interior design and interior design and merchandising, including an association with American River College.
Projects in and around Fair Oaks are handled in person. Everywhere else is designed remotely from photographs, measurements and a floor plan. In both cases the practice offers design guidance rather than construction: layout, colour, materials, lighting and furnishing decisions are specified in detail, and building, plumbing, electrical and joinery work stay with your own trades.
Why Specialise in Cottagecore
Cottagecore is one of the few decorating styles that genuinely benefits from a designer, and one of the few most designers treat as a costume rather than a discipline.
The reason is that the style works by accumulation. Florals, gingham, quilts, painted furniture, dried botanicals, ceramics and collected objects are what give a cottagecore room its warmth, and every one of them adds visual weight.
A minimal scheme fails quietly when it is slightly wrong. A cottagecore scheme fails loudly, because there is nowhere for the eye to rest.
That is the whole problem worth solving: keeping the character while deciding what the room can actually carry. Nearly all of it comes down to restraint in the right places, and to sorting out layout, storage and lighting before a single floral is chosen.
How a Room Gets Read
What the room has to do comes first
Before colour or furniture, the question is what the space is actually being asked to hold: how many people, which activities, what has to be stored, and how everyone moves through it.
Work with what is already there
Most homes contain pieces worth keeping, and most rooms have a feature worth building around. Cottagecore is meant to look collected rather than ordered, so a scheme assembled partly from what already exists tends to look far more convincing.
Let the house set the register
A room should belong to the building it sits in. English country layering suits a house with architectural character and fights a new build; modern cottagecore does the opposite. The architecture is usually a better guide than whatever is current.
Character is edited, not accumulated
Pattern, age and texture are what give a room warmth. Restraint is what keeps it from reading as clutter. Deciding early how much the room can hold is usually the difference between collected and crowded.
What I Help With
Four room services, each covering one space from layout through to the final decorative layer.
Cottagecore Living Room Design
Seating layout, fireplace or focal point, slipcovers, rugs, curtains and layered lighting.
Cottagecore Kitchen Design
Painted cabinetry, counters and backsplash, open shelving, hardware and lighting as one scheme.
Cottagecore Bedroom Design & Decor
Bed placement, quilts and bedding layers, storage, bedside lighting and window treatments.
Cottagecore Bathroom Design
Vanity or washstand, mirror, tile and panelling, storage and mirror lighting.
Why There Is a Design Journal
Alongside the practice, HomeCottageCore publishes long-form guidance on cottagecore interiors: rooms, decor, colour, furniture, bedding, pattern and the sub-styles the aesthetic has grown into. It is not written as marketing for the services.
It exists because most cottagecore content stops at inspiration. It will show you a beautiful room and tell you to buy a floral, but not where the floral goes, what it has to sit beside, or why that particular room worked. If you are furnishing a space yourself, the journal is meant to be genuinely useful on its own.
Common Questions
Do you only design cottagecore rooms?
Cottagecore is the specialism, but it covers a wide range. Modern cottagecore borrows the materials and warmth without the pattern, and plenty of projects are one cottagecore room in an otherwise contemporary house.
Is this design only, or construction as well?
Design only. Layout, storage, colour, materials, lighting and furnishing decisions are specified. Building work, plumbing, electrical and cabinet manufacture are carried out by your own trades.
Do you work outside Fair Oaks?
Yes. In-person work covers Fair Oaks and the surrounding area. Everywhere else is designed remotely from photographs, measurements and a floor plan, which suits decorating decisions well.
Who writes the design journal?
Sherine writes it. The same person who takes on the design projects, which is why the articles tend to go past inspiration and into the decisions that actually determine whether a room works.
Tell Me About the Room
Send a few photographs and what is not working. We can start from there, in person or online.