Loudon’s 1825 Encyclopedia of Agriculture set out why and how ‘comfortable’ family cottages should be built for the farm labouring workforce. Over the next quarter-century, published ‘prize essays’ on cottage-design appeared alongside articles advocating ‘high farming’. Low labourer wages and insecure farm tenancies handicapped investment in both, though a parliamentary inquiry showed improvement projects could enhance labourer employment. The 1834 ‘new’ Poor Law – an ‘administrative’ law – restricted ‘poor relief’, but left many ‘settlement’ issues to continue as perceived obstacles to building cottages (the occupants might become a burden on the poor rates). This paper illustrates ideal contemporary cottage designs – relative to contrasting exposures of poor people’s home lives. Landowners, patchily, promoted some cottage-building, but labouring families mostly remained poorly housed. Along with recent scholarship on families’ work, income, possessions (often very few) and survival strategies, this work augments ideas of real housing conditions in rural areas.