I Heart the South

For Memorial Day weekend Brett and I flew down to my in-laws' new house near Hilton Head, SC. They recently purchased the home and it was our first time visiting. While there I was constantly reminded why we were so sad when we left Chapel Hill. This is just something about the South! Between the gorgeous live oaks, the warm ocean water friendly people and good old grits, we were in Heaven. Between the two of us we golfed, went on long walks, hit the beach, ate lots of great food, and scooted around the community during cocktail hour to check out the locations of the biggest gators. It was just great and we loved our time there (and loved seeing his parents!). The above picture is of the Avenue of the Oaks in their golf community, which is an old plantation. (picture courtesy of hiltonheadrealestatesearch.com)

Of course, as I was reminded when our alarm went off at 3:30 this morning, all good things must come to an end. We headed back to NYC and were back in our apartment by 10. Not willing to miss out on the wonderful weather we are having, we decided to continue our southern cuisine experience and walked up to Dinosaur BBQ in Harlem via Riverside Park (such a pretty walk!). It was our first time there and we were not disappointed. We shared a drunken shrimp boil platter and the sampler extreme. My favs were the ribs and brisket, whereas Brett enjoyed the ribs and chicken. We both agreed that the mac & cheese was the best side. They have a pretty large (and reasonably priced) selection of draft beers to wash it all down. The restaurant gets pretty crowded, so make sure you make a reservation or sit at one of their first-come first-serve community tables. I promise you'll leave with the same full tummy and longing for the South that we did. TS

Constant Change

Over the past year, Brett and I have been living a life of constant change. We've moved from North Carolina to New Jersey to New York. We've graduated from business school, quit jobs, started new jobs and changed careers. We've wondered what our future holds and pondered over our past. One of the constants in my life has been focusing on what is now our home...our little one-bedroom. I've spent countless nights drawing layouts of possible rooms, pouring over catalogues, blogs and websites. Obsessing over design shows on HGTV, Bravo and TLC. Whenver I felt uneasy about where we were going to end up, I always knew that eventually we would land on our feet and that we could start to create our home together. Now it's happening, and I'm so happy. There is still lots of change in my life...we're recovering our sofa, replacing the club chair and ottoman with two new chairs, getting a cool dining table and are in a constant search for "the right" pieces of art to go on the walls, but they are fun changes, changes that I've been daydreaming about for a long time. Below are some pictures of our little home in the Big City. I hope it inspires my fellow city-dwellers to start daydreaming, too. TS

Anyone there?

The kitchen may be itt-bitty, but we've managed to crank out some pretty serious meals out of it so far. Think roast chicken, homemade mustard, shrimp and even a coconut birthday cake (thank you, Barefoot Contessa)!

The farm signs on the wall are our favorite "art" purchase to date. We got them at a local antique's shop yard sale in New Jersey. They were found in PA, NJ and VT.

Sweet dreams!

The Importance of Paint

As pretty much any who has ever rented in NYC knows, all apartment walls come with good old fashioned cheap white paint on them. Regardless of how big your place might be, you just feel like it's a rental (since it is). When we moved back into the City this time I was obnoxiously insistent on painting the walls in our little home. We're talking nuts...before we even had found our apartment, I was dragging my mom into Farrow and Ball to pour over paint colors, obsessively reading other bloggers thoughts on what the best tints were. Yes, I even went so far as to paint samples on cardboard and placed them all around our room to "test" the colors out. Nutso. In the end, though, I am SO HAPPY that I gave as much thought to the color on the walls of our apartment as I did. We ended up using Benjamin Moore paint in our bedroom and TV/dining room (ok fine, so we didn't paint our mouse hole kitchen or bathroom). We did the bedroom in Quiet Moments (1st 2 pics) and the other room in Grey Cashmere. Enjoy the pics! TS