Create Your Own Cozy

November 6, 2023
Galvan (Cozy White Cottage Seasons), co-owner of the Found Cottage home décor boutique in Michigan, presents tips on housekeeping in this scattered guide. Despite an ostensible focus on cozy interior design, there’s little practical guidance. Instead, Galvan emphasizes introspection, encouraging readers to make their homes more welcoming by contemplating “when you were growing up, whose home made you feel safe...?” She provides a “home maintenance checklist” for each month, but recommendations to test smoke detectors and clean out the pantry have little to do with coziness. Other suggestions appear to lose track of the theme entirely, as when she entreats readers to write a bucket list, a “letter to your past self” about what “you want her to forgive herself for,” and to reflect on how “you feel about God.” Of the 100 ideas promised by the subtitle, many are redundant; for instance, no. 16 explains what a mood board is (collages of magazine cutouts and other materials intended to represent “how I want the room to look and feel”) while no. 17 urges readers to create their own mood board. There are a few helpful if unsurprising tips (wet vacuums are ideal for removing rug stains), but Galvan digresses from the topic of coziness more than she sticks to it. This has trouble staying on task.

June 10, 2024

This third book in Galvan's "Cozy White Cottage" series (after Cozy White Cottage Seasons) guides readers in finding their own sense of coziness in the home they already have. It features numerous pictures and illustrations, tips, checklists for cleaning and maintenance projects, and more. Some libraries may be concerned about the reusability of the workbook questions at the end of each chapter, but they are short and could perhaps be used as part of a special home economics program for patrons. Galvan mentions her Christian faith as an example of how she achieves her personal idea of coziness, but she urges readers to find their own or their family's version of comfy and cozy. VERDICT Great for public libraries. May be a good title for patrons to read in a crafts/home-design book group.--Elizabeth Chandler

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