Today's Cottage Style

Ann Porter (left) and her business partner, Ann Dietrich, own a popular L.A. cottage-decor store.

The soft floral fabrics, white bead board, and easy-going wicker furniture speak of family getaways, eras gone by, and relaxed days measured by lemonade refills. It's a nostalgic look that somehow also seems to reflect current style movements. Perhaps that's why it endures, changing with the times while remaining rooted in the past. What is cottage style today? Let's tour Ann Porter's Los Angeles cottage for an update. She co-owns the popular store, The Gate House, which furnishes homes coast-to-coast with cottagey charm.

Cut flowers and floral fabrics bring the outdoors in.

Honesty, combined with romance, is the key to Ann's decorating style. Fresh as her garden, Ann's rooms bloom with vintage floral fabrics fashioned into the simplest of treatments. (What could be less fussy than curtain panels hung from metal rods and paired with bamboo blinds?) Ann sweetens spaces with the real thing -- big, fluffy hydrangeas straight from the garden. The look is charmingly nostalgic, but never at the expense of function.

The living room's eclectic, English-country feel comes from pairing rather formal chairs with a more humble reproduction coffee table. The sideboard under the window was once a dark wood dining-room fixture. Bright in a coat of white paint, the sideboard has shorter legs to lower it and let the garden view shine.