Creating a cozy cottage with a gift for thrift

Akron Beacon Journal (MCT) - Patty Kerr doesn't need a lot of money to decorate her house.

All she needs is imagination and effort _ and a whole lot of white paint.

Kerr's Firestone Park, Ohio, home is the embodiment of frugal fashion. She has given the house a romantic style with the help of hand-me downs, flea market purchases, trash finds and other thrifty sources.

It's a cottage look, complete with lots of old-fashioned fabrics in muted colors, floral-pattern china and furniture that's been painted white or a soft color and distressed. "Just old and comfortable" is the way Kerr described it.

Kerr said she fell for the compact shingled bungalow the first time she stepped inside for a Halloween party 13 years ago. "I felt so good in this house," she remembered.

A month later, it went up for sale. By Jan. 1 she had moved in.

And with that move, Kerr discovered a passion for beautifying her surroundings.

She had been a homeowner before, when she was married, but she said she had no interest in decorating back then. After her divorce she dabbled in gardening and antique collecting as an apartment dweller, but it wasn't until she bought the little house that she found herself delving into those interests.

"I never really knew what my style was till I just started doing it," she said.

As a single mother with a son who's now a young adult, Kerr has had to stretch her money to feather her nest. But she hasn't let that get in the way of creating a home she loves.

She takes pride in pointing out her thrifty finds. The side table next to the sofa was rescued from a curb. The corner hutch in the breakfast room came from some neighbors. The table and chairs were purchased for $35 from a friend, and a small cupboard in one of her two bedrooms was a surprise. She'd considered buying it at a neighbor's garage sale, and after the sale, he brought it to her.

Kerr can tick off the origins of many of her lamps, furnishings and garden accents. "It's fun, because you remember everything," she said.

Ugly upholstery or worn finishes don't deter her. She'll toss a bedspread or other covering over a sofa or spruce up wood furniture with her favorite decorating tool, paint. She'll cover a chair cushion in fabric from a thrift-store blouse.

She even joked that she could disguise the appliance box that holds a stove she's storing temporarily for a friend. "I can just throw a doily over it and put a candle on it," she said.

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Kerr's living room walls have changed color at least four times, and she's considering yet another transformation from white to barely-there taupe on the walls and a sky blue on the ceiling.

"Everybody says, 'Don't sit still. Patty'll paint you,'" she said with a laugh.

Paradoxically, one of the rooms Kerr liked least when she bought the house, the kitchen, turned out to be one of her favorites.

Originally it was dated and darkened by wood cabinets, open display shelves and knotty pine paneling in the eating area. But when she painted it all her signature white and got a new vinyl floor, the room took on a cheery, retro feel.

Suddenly the shelves were ideal for her extensive collection of old china and glass, and even the old linoleum countertops with the metal edging looked hip. A friend covered the ceiling in embossed wallpaper to give it the look of tin, and she had a window replaced with French doors for access to a screened porch and the garden beyond.

Even what she calls her "mirror obsession" found its way into the kitchen, in the form of an oval mirror hanging over the refrigerator. She loves old frames and glass, so mirrors and old family photos _ some her relatives, some strangers _ are hung on walls and propped on shelves all through the house.

She's even leaned a round mirror inside her fireplace opening to reflect the light from the candles in front of it.

Kerr's creativity extends outdoors, too. Her fenced backyard is edged with beds of such old-time favorites as hydrangea, snowball viburnum and black-eyed Susan, accented by unusual items like an arched wood screen, a candelabra and, of course, a mirror.

She removed the enclosure from the front porch, so it's now a welcoming space decorated with old wicker and metal furniture and beautified by a curved flower bed and pressed-concrete walkway that mimics stone.

It's not a big house, but it fits Kerr just fine.

"It's just my haven," she said. "I feel so blessed."

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© 2008, Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio).