Creating my Earthy Minimalist Cottagecore Dreams

Right now, my fiancé Jon and I are living in a very small house that we rent outside of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia (or New Scotland as our Scottish heritage would have us say, and Kjipuktuk as my Metis heritage would have me say for Halifax). We're saving up for our first and hopefully only home somewhere in a rural area of the province, close enough for the both of us to commute to work. He's a manager in a really cool warehouse, and I'm a premium rated freelance cleaner specializing in eco-friendly residential cleaning.  

What a mouthful. 

Only, my dream is to not work at all... well... sort of. I do want to work, and I do want to make money and run a business, just not the one I've been running for the last eight years, I need something new, or depending on how you look at it: old. 

Now here is where I need to get something out of the way, and if this is where I lose you: good. I am a proud feminist, and always will be. I don't believe a woman's place is in the kitchen or the home, I just happen to really like being in my own and I love that I get to make that choice for myself. I understand the government got a new tax-payer when we all left home, and I also understand women fought fiercely for our right to earn our own money and set ourselves free from dangerous domestic situations many of us were caught in. I cherish the hell out of my fiancé, he's an incredible man and I tell him so every day, I'm also an incredible woman and he's just as lucky to have me. The family did weaken when women left to go to work, but there's also more than one type of family: not just the nuclear, and there are many ways to strengthen a home than for women to return to domestication... I just fucking love being domesticated. If I was in a lavender marriage or with a woman or trans person or in a communal living situation or intentional community or polycule: I'd be doing much of the same activities.

I LOVE taking care of the home. Back in 2014 I spent about eighteen thousand dollars (after interest) on an Interior Decorating diploma, I've cleaned houses professionally for eight years, painted houses for a few months, read home magazines and blogs and watched decorating shows since I was a little girl. I worked in restaurants for a decade, and watched cooking shows and collected cook books since I moved out on my own at eighteen. I've been obsessed with homesteading blogs, tiny house/earth ship and alternative living communities since I was in my very early twenties. took a year long eco-tourism/restaurant program in college... pretty much every job I've ever had has had something to do with food or the house (or music, but that we'll talk about later).

This is my calling.  

Without getting into any detail yet, I had a really rough upbringing and a really unfortunate home when I was a child, so I deeply understand the importance of a loving home and I'm extremely passionate about creating one. 

More than that, I want to live off of the land. 

That being said, I've found it a little difficult to find my place in this movement of folks returning to a simple life: I fit in in some ways and in others I don't, and because of that I feel like I offer a bit of a unique perspective. Not to get too political, but I'm a lot more left leaning than your average homesteader (socialist if you're into politics and curious, but I'm not that political of a person so I wouldn't get overly attached to political speak around here), and unlike most aesthetic country homestead accounts on the internet, I'm a Spiritual Pagan and not even remotely religious. We're also working our way towards a homestead rather than teaching you how to run one from our already established property, making the best of a small rented space with an even smaller garden, and doing our best to decorate on a budget in a rental that's dated and grey/blue rather than perfected and inspirational already.

Another element that feels deeply personal and not traditionally rooted in homestead content is that I'm a bit of a slut for fantasy core... give me a castle and some dragons and I'm happier than a pig in a whimsygoth outfit. Not everything I like is rooted in medieval fantasy, but for example if I had to list my favourite television series and video games in order it would go as follows:

            Television

1. Game of Thrones
2. The Walking Dead
3. The Handmaids Tale
4. Bridgerton
5. House of The Dragon
6. Witcher 
7. Outlander 
8. Black Sails 
   
   Video Games

1. Skyrim
2. Baldur's Gate 3
3. Witcher (Wild Hunt)
4. Dragon Age Inquisition 

(this is subject to change over time and I don't have the lists memorized so don't ask me to recite it in public m'kay?)

When it comes to decorating I'm really drawn to earthy minimalism, soft country cottage layers, neutrals, mid-tone colours in very small doses, stone hearth fireplaces and wood stoves, plaster walls, cottage style wallpapers, medium toned neutral hardwood floors, candelabras, decorative glass, clear quartz crystals, white salt rock lamps, furs/sheepskin (mine is polyester... a controversial debate I know), vintage glass door handles, black doors, vintage dome lights and modest simple chandeliers, candelabras and vintage candlestick holders, pewter and metal, linen, natural fibers and neutral pottery, white linen or lace curtains.

For a visual representation of what I would do with my home with unlimited money, you can check out my Pinterest board: it's linked to my Instagram account @natashamariemacisaac 

As for that "old" new job I was referring to earlier: I want to decorate a small cottage home in the most Earthy Minimalist Cottagecore way I can (details described above re: what I'd do with money), grow our produce and preserve it, raise chickens and bees and dairy sheep (if we can digest the milk, which we'll be pasteurizing), grow an orchard, potentially raise little earthlings (children), and continue to do music and maybe decorate in some capacity whether it's curating thrifted goods or making hand made home decor (or both), all while bringing you along with me for the ride. Most especially, I want to spend the majority of my precious time at home, and earning an abundant enough living from right there inside of it, this is after all where I like to be (I like to leave my home too, just preferably for leisure or little errands every now and again rather than full days most of the time). I understand this dream of mine is a privilege, and one I'll be dedicating my entire life to achieving.  

If I still have you here and I didn't lose you at the apparently blood-boiling word "feminist" or perhaps "pagan" or "socialist", it's a pleasure to have you with me while I bring this homestead vision of mine to life.

Natasha MacIsaac