Living Room Transformation & our Amish Country Adventure!

Parker and I went to Amish Country this last weekend with some friends and I left feeling all sorts of inspired so this week I decided that it was finally time to decorate our apartment. We've lived in our current apartment for just over a year now and I hadn't hung anything on the walls except for one little picture. If you've been a reader of my blog for a while now, you may remember my plea for help to find some pillows to go on our patterned couches and something to put on the wall above the couch back in September of 2016. Well, I finally bought some pillows and put some stuff on the walls and I'm quite pleased with the result. Is it magazine worthy? No. But it's homey and I think it reflects our my personal style pretty dang well if I do say so myself. Also, I know nothing about photographing home decor (or anything for that matter) so please forgive my lack of professional photography lol.

Let's talk more about Amish Country, shall we? Parker and his cousin Cody were kayaking together so Cody's wife, Kaitlyn, and I decided to go check out the shops in Amish Country. As we were driving along, we drove past a store that had a large banner with Joanna Gaines' face on it and said Magnolia Homes. I about jumped out of the moving car and I think I scared Kaitlyn a little bit with my enthusiasm. She didn't know who Joanna Gaines' was (don't worry, I told her she had to watch Fixer Upper ASAP) so I excitedly explained that she was only the best interior designer to ever walk the planet and that her style was my dream! Kaitlyn flipped the car around as soon as she safely could and I couldn't get into the store fast enough. It was called "The Peddler" and if I could live there, I would. It was the cutest home decor store I have ever seen and I really did want to move in right then and there. I fell in love with everything and I'm just itching to go back! Kaitlyn and I both bought some stuff there and it was so fun to just wander throughout the store!

We also went to the Christmas store (I didn't catch whether or not it had a name other than that...) where they sell Christmas stuff all year round. It's MASSIVE and was super fun to check out. I'll hopefully be going back closer to the holidays. Or maybe I shouldn't..... it might be dangerous to our bank account lol.

We met the men at the cheese factory, Heini's Cheese Chalet, which was hands down Parker's favorite place in Amish country. Maybe in all of Ohio, actually. You get to sample all sorts of different kinds of cheese including different flavors of cream cheese and cream cheese fudge. My favorites were the smoked gouda cheese, the peach cream cheese, and the mint chocolate cream cheese fudge. We also had the best root beer we've ever had there. We'll be back, cheese factory! We'll be back!

Parker and I wandered around the town of Berlin a little bit longer while Cody and Kaitlyn headed back home. We were totally enthralled with this cute little place, the shops, the horses and buggies, the food, and we really hope to go back soon! If you ever come visit us, we've got an itinerary planned out and you bet your bottom dollar Amish country is high up on the list!

xoxo, Chelan