A Day in Amish Country

Ev surprised me Thursday night with the news that he had Friday off. This was very special indeed because we haven't had the same day off in a while, so the only times we were seeing each other were during a brief goodbye in the early morning before he heads off to work, or late at night when I get home from work and he's exhausted from a 12-hour day.

Needless to say, we decided to get out of the house on a rather lovely fall day and Ev had just the place in mind.

Amish Country.

Thanks to Ev's truck route, he's already driven through the hills and valleys of central Ohio and knew it would be a nice place to spend an afternoon peeping the autumn colors, enjoying a hearty meal and getting in some quality shopping time.

We pulled in to a town called Charm and enjoyed a couple pumpkin spice lattes and some pie at the Chalet in the Valley. It was a neat little place, complete with waitresses dressed like Swiss milk maids and a shop across the street selling handmade cheeses. 

Then we continued on into the town of Berlin and were greeted by a bustling downtown and all this country goodness:

All this nautical decor was making me yearn for the seashore, and also gave me some ideas for the relaxing cottage chic vibe I'd like to create someday when we have our own home. I'm grateful to be renting the house we're currently in, but we're still limited as to what we can do. The landlord isn't too crazy about us going beyond just painting the walls.

Next we wound our way through the Berlin Antique Mall, which was two floors of pure nostalgia and some pretty awesome furniture that I only wish we had the appropriate vehicle to take it home in. Like this lovely red hutch:

I don't think I'd change a thing, aside from spiffing up the shelves with some paint or decorative wallpaper. I think the speckled paint gives it a really neat look that would be difficult to recreate.

We saw so many of these old beverage crates, each one between $12-20. In hindsight I think these could be used in the dresser/entertainment center piece that I'm still working on, or as organizers in our hall closet. But I passed them up, not wanting to bring home items that I didn't yet have a use for. I suppose we can always go back once we have a better idea of how we want to organize.

Of course I made Ev take a picture of me practicing my scales on this Baby Grand. I totally would have bought this if I had a small child who happened to be musically inclined. Maybe someday...

Not to worry, we didn't leave empty handed. I've been dreaming up a wall collage for some time now, and wanted to find something funky to mix in with what will predominantly be picture frames. After looking through tons of old Ohio license plates, we stumbled upon this guy:

The only Massachusetts license plate in the whole place. We I was excited because I'm a dork and I thought it was special to find a cool old vintage thing that reminded me of where I came from. 

Amish Country reminded me of New England... rolling hills, narrow streets, beautiful foliage. On the way back home we stopped in a town called Hudson and I felt like I had teleported back to a street in Newburyport. 

We stopped inside this small, local tavern for a quick beer before winding down closer to home at the Cornerstone Brewery in Berea. By then it was dark and rainy so we shacked up inside, ate some dinner and tossed back a few more brews before calling it a night.