Long Weekend Basics

Hi there and happy September — did you enjoy the extended weekend here in the states? We didn't head out of town but did get a chance to gather with family and friends, knock out projects around the house and just generally enjoy having an extra day to slow down.

The highlight of the weekend was gathering together with our friends for a dinner party to celebrate the end of summer and a birthday. We've got tomatoes coming in like nobody's business around here, so have been packing up the extra bounty in to-go style packages to take and share on visits like these.

Michele and Brandon (you might know them from the Richmond Food Co-op) hosted a beautiful dinner outdoors in their Church Hill garden. They prepared a 5 course meal and asked each couple to bring along a pairing — be it  a home brew, bubbly, red or white wine, rose and even a few bottles of whiskey.

As you can imagine, it was an enchanting evening, filled with conversation and lasting until we made a true midnight birthday countdown before singing happy birthday and saying our goodnights.

At home, we continue to battle projects stemming from water damage (womp womp...) — one I was able to completely take care and the other we are just discovering...

First the good news? Well, I was able to completely dismantle, replace and paint the wood soffit at the back of our garage where there was water-rot damage from a few leaky patches in our garage roof:

I'll have to give the full update with details on this project here on the blog soon, but how about the bad news?

After sawing a hole into our closet wall to get a look at our master shower pipes (and then a visit from our plumber), it looks like we've got a damaged shower pan that's drips from the ceiling into our family room. We think we caught it right away and are not sure what damage lies beneath, but it looks to be one of those hefty repairs that has to be done and we'll have no amazing "After" to show for it, ha.

This must be what everyone refers to as the charm of older homes:

Since we're still in the quoting stages of this upcoming "project," we'll be sure to keep you posted as we go. Very preliminarily, we've been toying with the idea of adding a washer/dryer hookup upstairs and figure if we've got to rip up the shower and walls, it's probably as good a time as any, right?

Outside of parties and home projects, we did make time to drop by a local estate sale filled with mid-century gems and I'm excited that the start to college football has made its return. But — it would not be Labor Day Weekend without some grilled food, so to end the weekend in the right way, I put together a spread of Rueben hot dogs, roasted okra and french fries with a duo of cumin and siracha aioli dipping sauces:

Oh yeah, that's what we call some weekend eats! How was your weekend?