Slade Drive - House Tour - Dining Room

We mostly did paint work to the dining room.  My grandpa helped us repair and smooth over some cracks in the lower half of the wall, and later, we painted the upper half of the wall, with the help of my parents, before Sean came home for R&R in 2007 (Ralph Lauren Barn Owl White).

While Sean and I were up in Michigan on R&R, my wonderful friends moved our prized piece of furniture into the house (it only cleared the doorway by about 1/8"!) and arranged all my serving pieces beautifully inside of it.  It was a big surprise for Sean when we arrived home.  We were both speechless when we saw it.  It far exceeded any expectations that we had.  Randy brought the doors from my grandma's cottage back to life and built the beautiful piece around them that I had dreamed of.

I wanted the lighter walls so that they would set off our beautiful new piece.  We miss this piece so much.  As I mentioned before, it is in storage right now, and we can't wait to get it back at USMA.  If it doesn't fit in our house, it will go to the Crow Mansion, if they still need/want furniture :)

Before -

Getting ready to paint!

After -

Sweet Savannah

It is amazing how many times Sean and I say, "we miss Columbus" or "we miss Georgia" or "we miss the south".  Right now, I am thinking about Savannah.  Sean and I took a 4 day trip there in April of 2006, and I loved it so much, I still feel like it was just yesterday.  I can't wait to get back there!

 

 

I adore the layout of the city and the stunning architecture...I can't believe I don't have a gazillion pictures of the houses and parks.  Hmmm...guess I will need to go back :)  (*this was also pre-digital SLR, and I sucked at taking pics with my point and shoot)

We splurged and stayed at the Mansion on Forsyth for a couple of the nights.  It was worth it.  It is an 1888 Victorian mansion turned funeral home that was rehabbed into a modern boutique hotel.  Hotels can be so incredibly inspiring, don't you think?

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

We also spent two days in the cooking school affiliated with the Mansion on Forsyth, 700 Kitchen.  We had planned to go for one day, but we had such a great time during our first session with Chef Darin, we decided mid-class that we MUST go back for another day!  We still constantly make the recipes that we learned from our Searing/ Sautéing and Low Country classes...black eyed pea salad, creamy grits, and pork tenderloin medallions with dijon mustard sauce are just a few of our favorites.  I would HIGHLY recommend going.

There are amazing shops.  I tried to sneak some pics...these are from The Paris Market...

This is when I became obsessed with apothecary jars...

We also went to one of my favorite spas that I have been to...the Savannah Day Spa.  I am SUPER picky when it comes to spas...SUPER picky.  I loved the ambiance here, (in a beautifully restored historic home) and I dream about going back.

And the food, of course, the wonderful food.  A friend of ours, Donna, is like our personal concierge anytime we go to a new city, domestic or abroad, we could count on her for amazing dining suggestions.  Elizabeth on 37th is one of the best restaurants that we have ever been to.  The food is delectable, service - incredible, AND it is in a beautiful old house which I am a total sucker for.  I wish I had a better pic.  I will never forget the huge rosemary bushes out front.  That began my obsession with and purchasing of rosemary bushes.  What a heavenly scent when you brush against them.  mmmmm.....

I feel like we fit so much into four days...I have such fond memories of everything we saw, experienced, ate and did here.  Oh Savannah, I can't wait to bond with you again (and get better pics!).

Down Home Cookin'

Ahhhh, entertaining. Sean and I have really been missing entertaining. There is just something about our current house that makes it seem difficult. Part of it is probably missing our favorite piece of furniture that housed all our serving pieces which is collecting dust in storage. Part of it is that we have our landlady and the three legged cat downstairs. I will refrain from commenting further on that. Part of it is being up on a second floor. Part of it is our horrible kitchen. Bottom line, it is just NOT our house. There are lots of random reasons...or, maybe they are excuses. We also needed to add a newborn to the complication column.

We first invited the Sean's classmates from the Irish Studies program over. We had a very fun night, albeit, it was a lot easier and more fun to get ready for it considering I am 'retired' for the time being and Sean had completed everything due for the semester. We had a lovely evening, despite feeling quite old when one of the girls said "this is the classiest party I have been to without my parents!". It was cute.

Okay...onto entertaining round 2.
Time for some good ol' Southern cookin'.

We had been craving Southern cooking since visiting a highly recommended upscale Southern restaurant in Cambridge - Hungry Mother. We had six friends over for a southern feast. The night was guaranteed to be fun just because of the wonderful company of the Haubens.

We had thought about doing some fried chicken, but decided that might be hard b/c of so much time in the kitchen close to show time. We went ahead and tested fried chicken out ahead of time, and Sean knocked it out of the park, in my opinion....



Southern night made us miss Columbus and all our dear friends so much. We wish we could have ordered all of our favorites from Minnies, Girlfriends, Country's, etc. but we had to make due with our best attempt.

Prep pics...I have been bad about getting pics of the final products...need to work on that.



The menu was as follows:

Appetizers:
--Homemade cheese straws
--Pimento cheese dip

Dinner:
--BBQ Pulled Pork with mustard based BBQ sauce
--Collards
--Cheese Grits
--Tomato Pie
--Squash Casserole

Dessert:
--Phila's Pecan Pie
--Phila's Chocolate Chess Pie
--Fresh Whipped Cream

If I was all over it, I would have links to all the recipes that we used. Considering I started this post weeks ago, I am clearly not...

Is it wrong to miss a piece of furniture terribly?

We are lucky to have a dear friend, Randy, who is an incredibly talented furniture maker. We were fortunate enough to have Randy make us several pieces during our time in Columbus. Each piece is incredibly crafted, made of such beautiful materials, and means so much to us.

As most of you know, I have grown up spending time at my grandmother’s cottage each summer in Northern Michigan…it is my favorite place in the world. Some recent renovations were done to the cottage, and being the sentimental sap that I am, Sean and I rented a U-Haul and brought home a cast iron claw foot tub as well as some exquisite doors. We had to the doors for a while before we figured out how we wanted them to be used. I met with Randy to go over ideas, and he ended up building us our most favorite and LARGE piece of furniture ever. It is so meaningful to us because of the history of the doors, and we miss the piece so much. At the time we designed it, I wasn’t thinking of how we would get the furniture into the multiple houses we will live in over the next several years. Needless to say, there was no way it was going to fit up the stairs in our current home.

So, I think about this piece often, more often than is probably normal ☺. I miss the storage for sure, but most of all, I miss the meaningful piece that was crafted by Randy.

I wish I had a picture of the full piece without the table in front of it!

One more piece from Randy...

Ahhh, the South...

I have been off the blogging scene due to a lot of recent travel. This past weekend, we were able to attend Sean's cousin's graduation from the Naval Academy as well as make it to Charleston, SC for a friends wedding. The whole trip was worth every minute in the car!

It was funny how as we moved further and further south, it felt more and more like home - Columbus, GA home. Sean and I were able to get a little date night in when we got to Charleston, and I knew we were in the South when I saw people at the bar that had brought their own Koozies. Can anyone relate? I love it, so practical.

Charleston was chocked with charm...I wanted to steal one of these bikes...