After the storm

We are still here! 

After 2 days of dense fog and one day of high winds and 14" inches of rain. Yes, 14" of rain, we have emerged!

To sunshine!

We were greeted with a sunny dry porch this morning when we opened the curtains,

thanks to the vinyl roll curtains that are so commonly used here. They snap shut and have heavy wood rods to weigh them down on the bottom. They kept everything dry during the driving winds and buckets of rain all day yesterday.

There are leaves and branches everywhere, lots of clean up to do this morning.

Husband gets to put his beloved blower to use. 

We are trying to bring back the damaged holly next to the house, it was hurt during the Polar Vortex of last winter, the coldest temperatures this area of the South has had in many years.

 I spotted a funky pair of mushrooms as I was inspecting the yard, I think they are Russula mushrooms with damaged edges.

Are you cleaning up from the storm in your neck of the woods? 

Thanks for visiting!

Cindy

our cottage kitchen dining area

Hi everyone!

I posted pics of the kitchen in the mountain cottage we recently moved into yesterday.  Here is the adjacent dining area. A dining bench and pillows finally arrived this week. 

The table is an antique from Dovetail Antiques in Cashiers, NC. I will visit one day and take photos to share on the blog, a great shop. A woodworker is going to raise the legs next week to accomodate the chairs and allow for more legroom.

The arrangement is a group of mountain galax leaves formed into rosettes, available at Vivienne Metzger Antiques, also in Cashiers. Another post worthy destination, I love her shop too.

The pillows are Kravet's Kashmira in Mineral.

The interiors of the cottage will be hard to photograph because of weird light. The skylight is over this area. The wall color is not yellow, but a creamy light beige. The photo below reveals the real color.

There is another dining area in the corner of the living room, our kitchen table from the old house, so we can accommodate a larger group when needed and also use it as a work area. The lamps on the buffet have matching bulbs and shades, why are they looking wonky in the photo?

The buffet is waiting for a mirror that I have yet to discover. Hope I can find something rustic and modern. Also need to style the tabletop, this area is the next project.

Thanks for visiting!

Cindy

the garden this morning and other stuff

Hi everyone! 

I am still absent in the blogging world. 

Moving into a house and making it a home are much more time consuming than I would have thought. Even if it is a cottage! I finally have finished unpacking all the boxes and making many trips to local consignment and thrift stores to purge unneeded items. 

It has been an effort considering I did the same thing before leaving Ohio but on a much larger scale. I am still amazed at how much we all accumulate over the years and I am not even a collector or habitual shopper. I thought I was a minimalist, uh, no, definitely not. I am enjoying the "less is more freedom" philosophy but it does take effort to get rid of things in a thoughtful way.

Spending time in the yard has been a nice break when needed.

Coreopsis in the front yard that we planted a few weeks ago are happy. The dead tree in the background is one of the many sad Hemlocks that died from the Hemlock Blight in the last few years. The trees are vulnerable to aphids once they weaken.  We have several that will need to be removed.

Summer mornings on the porch are lovely.

Hydrangea tree in bloom, planted tightly between the rocks.

We added a few perennials to the yard here and there and transplanted day lilies and irises that were in the shade in need of sunlight. Also a large arborvitae tree that we needed help with.

Also enjoying the local scenery, which there is a whole lot of! 

We hiked to Sunset Rock one evening. It is an easily accessed trail in downtown Highlands.

View from Sunset Rock.

Next to us as we waited for the sunset was an Andy look-a-like. 

Surreal and sad for us. We are suffering from empty nest syndrome for sure. No more adored children and dog in the house. We miss our Ohio gardens and ponds.We miss our kids and we miss Andy. We are trying to not get a puppy right now as we have more freedom to move around and explore but it is getting tough to resist! We have had goldens for years and are used to their mellow adoring personalities. We are worried about little dogs barking but a small dog would be best when we are ready.

Making our adjustment easier is the fact that we live in such a naturally beautiful area. These  sights are all within a few miles of our house...

Dry Falls a few days ago, a few miles from town.

 Lake Sequoyah

Cullasaja River along Rt. 64

Rt 64 Whiteside Mountain looking east

and we see this view  every time we run errands to Cashiers. So we are blessed to have found such a special place. Highlands and Cashiers are charming and easy. And there is much more to see. I have saved lots of places on my Pinterest boards.

Back to the garden, we arrived back into town last week after visiting friends at Lake Chautauqua in western NY with a nice show of wildflowers on our driveway bed to greet us. 

We do not know what they are, does anyone know? They are blooming everywhere right now, a lot on the roadsides.

* figured it out, it is Helianthus divaricatus or woodland sunflowers

The background is the neighborhood park across the street. Our neighborhood features rustic split rail fences. 

Rhododendren are plentiful, always easy for a quick bouquet. 

That's it for now, hope I can blog more often soon. 

We are waiting for several things to be done in the house. Wallpaper installation, carpenter, furniture delivery, carpet installed on our basement steps. The summer is so busy around here and requires patience for service people. Once all that is accomplished, I will share some photos of our cottage.

Thanks for visiting!

Cindy

around town

Hi everyone! 

Daisies at the Bank of America, Highlands

We are finally feeling somewhat settled in our mountain cottage. 

I  have unpacked most of the second load the movers brought last week. There are still plenty of boxes for me in the basement that I will go through this summer but we are now able to live normally. 

Ferns, lilies, rhododendron, coreopsis and spiderwort in our wooded backyard, no grass cutting!

Gooseneck loosestrife in our front yard.

I am finally getting out and exploring the beautiful towns of Highlands and Cashiers. 

It is fun to do errands on curvy scenic roads and visit all the boutiques and quant shops. No big box stores here! 

Flowers and ferns are everywhere. Crisp mountain air makes colors bright and foliage vibrant. 

Scaveola and ferns outside Vivace in Highlands

There are several garden stores and a few florists I will blog more about later but here are some random sighting from the last few days. I am kicking myself for not getting more shots of a favorite fern, the Australian Tree Fern. Many shops have at least one potted at their entrance. Some big, some small. 

This one

is placed outside of Rusticks, a wonderful shop I discovered a few days ago. I found a set of faux bamboo side tables for our guest room there. It sits on pretty Cashiers Lake in a great rustic lake house.

view from Rusticks porch

view of Rusticks in the distance across Cashiers Lake

Also in Cashiers is Fiddlehead Designs, a lovely florist and event planning co. I forgot to photograph the beautiful begonias and ferns on their front porch. I want to go back and purchase a few for our porch.

An orchid planter at Fiddlehead waiting to be delivered.

Summer Place Antiques has beautiful red hanging begonias  and late blooming hydrangea adorning their entrance...

They also have a pretty log railing with phlox next to the parking area. I will have to post about railings later because there are so many beautiful natural railings made by local craftsmen.

That's all for now. Oh one more thing, this is a view on the way home from Cashiers. 

We live almost halfway between Cashiers and Highlands, about 5 miles from each. This is the view from the road that most likely causes accidents every so often! It is fun to see it change with the weather. Our new favorite activity is mountain watching. Still have not seen a black bear but everyone else around here has!

Thanks for visiting !

Cindy

a postcard mountain view

View of Hampton Lake while having a drink on the lawn before dinner at High Hampton last night.

Thanks for visiting!

Cindy

Good morning from the mountains!

Sunrise this morning....

We are emerging from the unpacking exhaustion/no internet twilight zone! We had a whirlwind week of unpacking and then headed to Atlanta for a wedding and are now back in the mountains ready to make our cottage into a home.

Because we were able to purchase the porch furniture from the sellers, the porch has been our refuge.    It is the one almost finished room of the house. We rearranged the furniture, moving the sofa to the side and taking the console from the back wall into the seating area. It looked like this before.

Sunlight makes such a difference, this day was dark and dreary.

We added one of our jute rugs, a metal coffee table, a few extra pillows (we purchased the sellers orange and gold Sunbrella pillows) and some Indian throws. Still have some pottery in boxes in the basement to add to the mix. Maybe the small fiddle leaf fig that was purchased in SC.

We added a mirror we used in the upstairs hall of our last house to break up the back wall. It gives us a "window" that allows us to see the reflection of the view from our bedroom, adjacent to the porch.

I need something on the round side table between the wicker chairs, perhaps another outdoor lamp or the brown demijohn bottle we have, filled with some branches.

There is a little uncovered porch attached, with a kettle grill and metal table behind the pair of extra dining chairs.

It is the only part of the house that needs attention. The decking is mildewed and the railing needs a fresh coat of paint. We are kind of lazy and used to a gas grill so not sure if we will keep the Weber kettle.

That's all for now, going to tackle some more boxes in the basement today. We are also awaiting one more small truck of our belongings that did not fit in the moving van. It will hopefully arrive this week. So more boxes! 

We have ordered a new sofa, pillows and dining bench and will have to wait months for them to arrive. So the living areas are going to be sparse for some time. Our sofas and sectionals just did not suit this small cottage so we decided to start fresh.

We also have so much discovery awaiting us in the area, can't wait to get to that!

Thanks for visiting!

Cindy