diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 6dc9b26..5e32707 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -1,8 +1,9 @@
 A keyboard-centric VTE-based terminal, aimed at use within a window manager
 with tiling and/or tabbing support.
 
-Termite looks for ``termite.cfg`` in ``$XDG_CONFIG_HOME`` (``~/.config`` if
-unset) and then falls back to ``$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS`` (``/etc/xdg`` if unset).
+Termite looks for the configuration file in the following order:
+``$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/termite/config``, ``~/.config/termite/config``,
+``$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/termite/config``, ``/etc/xdg/termite.cfg``.
 
 Termite's exit status is 1 on a failure, including a termination of the child
 process from an uncaught signal. Otherwise the exit status is that of the child
diff --git a/termite.cfg b/config
similarity index 100%
rename from termite.cfg
rename to config
diff --git a/termite.cc b/termite.cc
index da4b92a..3b61088 100644
--- a/termite.cc
+++ b/termite.cc
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 #include <memory>
 #include <vector>
 #include <set>
+#include <string>
 
 #include <gdk/gdkx.h>
 #include <gtk/gtk.h>
@@ -1031,15 +1032,21 @@ static void load_theme(VteTerminal *vte, GKeyFile *config, hint_info &hints) {
 
 static void load_config(GtkWindow *window, VteTerminal *vte, config_info *info,
                         char **geometry) {
-
-    const char *const filename = "termite.cfg";
-    char *path = g_build_filename(g_get_user_config_dir(), filename, nullptr);
+    const std::string path = "/termite/config";
     GKeyFile *config = g_key_file_new();
 
-    if ((g_key_file_load_from_file(config, path, G_KEY_FILE_NONE, NULL) ||
-         g_key_file_load_from_dirs(config, filename,
-                                   const_cast<const char **>(g_get_system_config_dirs()),
-                                   NULL, G_KEY_FILE_NONE, NULL))) {
+    gboolean loaded;
+    loaded = g_key_file_load_from_file(config,
+                                       (g_get_user_config_dir() + path).c_str(),
+                                       G_KEY_FILE_NONE, nullptr);
+
+    for (const char *const *dir = g_get_system_config_dirs();
+         !loaded && *dir; dir++) {
+        loaded = g_key_file_load_from_file(config, (*dir + path).c_str(),
+                                           G_KEY_FILE_NONE, nullptr);
+    }
+
+    if (loaded) {
         if (geometry) {
             if (auto s = get_config_string(config, "options", "geometry")) {
                 *geometry = *s;
@@ -1150,7 +1157,6 @@ static void load_config(GtkWindow *window, VteTerminal *vte, config_info *info,
 
         load_theme(vte, config, info->hints);
     }
-    g_free(path);
     g_key_file_free(config);
 }/*}}}*/