Snug as a Bug

The plan to turn our small shut-the-door-and-hide-the-mess room into the charming English snug of my dreams.

Design by Uns Hobbs / Photo by Boz Gagovski

When we toured our house, we instantly knew it was the one. The pristine original millwork coupled with a beautifully remodeled kitchen was an undeniable one-two punch. Plus, there was this room. This little room just off the kitchen with a tiny little footprint and a big brick fireplace. It oozed charm and coziness and has been waiting for the last two years to deliver on that promise.

I think I’ve waited so long to start tackling this room for a few reasons. First, I know it has so much potential to be really special, so I feel a bit of pressure to deliver. Sometimes that can cause me to feel totally frozen when it comes to decision making. Two, since it didn’t really have a clear sense of purpose within our first floor, it became a dumping ground for excess baby gear, haphazard vintage hauls and even a Frame TV that we bought two Black Fridays ago and still haven’t hung up. Until recently, it wasn’t a priority to clean it all out and start fresh. Three, due to the small size of the room, where one wall is filled with windows, one is dominated by a fireplace and one opens to the hallway, I was really stumped on how to arrange the furniture. I’m not sure I’ve fully solved for this.

Design by Paolo Moschino and Philip Vergeylen

But now is the time! This cozy little room has finally found its purpose as a snug: a Brit-born term for a small den designed for curling up and relaxing, often by a fire. And while these cozy little rooms have been commonplace across the pond for hundreds of years, they’re just now starting to take hold in the states. This label seems to fit perfectly both with the constraints of my space (small, cozy, has a fireplace) and with what I want to use it for (a play space for Wallis during the day, somewhere we can read and cuddle up quietly without the distraction of a TV at night).

As my vision for this room started to come into focus, I was able to shift from answering the question, “How do I want to use this room?” to “How do I want this room to feel?” This was an easier one: warm, enveloping, collected, charming. Very much (again) looking to the English countryside for my inspiration. Armed with my inspiration words, I started pulling together some images to get my creative juices flowing. And at first, when I closed my eyes and pictured this room in its final form, I saw red. Given that it’s small and rather dark, I knew I wanted to go bold with the walls to really make it feel cocoon-like and enveloped in color. Something along these lines:

But when I pictured this much red in my little room, it didn’t feel right. I was afraid the color would cross the line from enveloping to overwhelming and a little too…womb-like. Once I came to the realization that a chic red library/snug was something I was destined to admire from afar rather than recreate in my house, I headed back to my favorite design books for inspiration.

Which is where I stumbled across this tableau:

Top: Design by Max Hurd / Bottom: Design by Heidi Callier

She’s cozy, she’s collected, she’s undeniably green*. Things were finally falling into place. With my color palate firmly in hand (leafy, mossy green set off by rich blues and faded rose), the mood board came together pretty quickly.

I think I’ve finally solved the floor plan problem by nestling a plush little loveseat against the wall opposite the fireplace. I plan to hang a pair of painted wood bookshelves above the couch, a nod to the built-in feel I love without sacrificing any valuable space for seating. We’ll see if this works the way I think it will in real life!

When it comes to soft furnishings, I’m using this navy-grounded floral by Borästapeter to cover the couch (more on this later) and plan to pull in a mix of classic patterns on pillows. I will most definitely be shopping my house to style out the room, so my collection of antique flow-blue plates, my favorite rush rug and a handful of gilt mirrors I’ve been collecting may soon have a new home in the snug.

The curtains are a bit of a sore subject. I was bidding on the perfect pair of Jean Monro chinz curtains at auction a few weeks ago and lost, so it’s back to the drawing board. You know that trend that’s like, “If I won the lottery, I wouldn’t tell anyone but there would be signs.”? My sign would be custom 2.5x width pinch pleat curtains in designer fabric with beautiful trim and custom hardware in every room as soon as humanly possible. But until that day comes, it’s scouring eBay, auctions and Facebook Marketplace for me.

So there we have it. A full account of the planning stage for the snug. I’ll be diving into the process of picking the perfect shade of green in my next post—it’s a topic I know many of you are equally passionate about.

*After pouring over design books and watching hundreds of hours of decorating content, I’ve come to realize that my approach of picking a wall color first is not often shared by the pros. Until recently, it never really even occurred to me to start from a fabric, a rug, a piece of art. I’ve always considered the paint/wallcovering as a starting point. I think it’s because the walls represent the largest swath of surface your eyes take in, so my thought process starts with: what color do I want to see there? I’d love to try a different approach in the future—I wonder if it might take the pressure off finding the perfect shade of paint every time.