Happy Labor Day weekend! Hope y’all are having some fun this weekend. We are enjoying some family time with Lauren and her crew, home for the weekend. Lauren’s birthday is today and we are having a family dinner to celebrate. I’ll share some of our festivities with you later and of course, some update pics of that Parker baby.
A couple weeks ago, I met up with some blogger friends in Nashville, TN, one of my favorite weekend destinations. Nashville is a beautiful city with lots going on, from country music to antiquing. The surrounding areas of Brentwood and Franklin have some of the most amazing scenery in the South. It’s just a beautiful place and I can see why so many celebrities settle in the Nashville area. I could totally live there myself.
My friend, Heidi Rew (who was the traffic girl at The Fish radio station here in Atlanta for many years, for those of you who have been here awhile), drove up with me.
It was such a fun weekend, getting away with girlfriends and enjoying some great food, scenery, antiquing and overall FUN. I love weekends like this. I’m breaking this into 2 posts, since as usual I took a zillion pics to share. I’ll be sharing some antique/décor shops today, including PD’s (furniture store), The Barn Door (antiques and collectibles), and Scarlett Scales Antiques, all great places to shop in Franklin. I was excited to see these new places, since last time I was in Franklin, we didn’t have time to hit them all. Franklin is a wonderful place to hang out and shop for a couple of days, if you’ve never been.
We were all invited to come spend the weekend in Nashville by Dana and Nancy, the powerhouse duo PR/media team from Forest Home Media, who specializes in the home/lifestyle industry and they have put together media events for Southern Living and HGTV, which I’ve been a part of in the past. They are super fun ladies who are now friends and we all stayed at their houses.
This is a LONG post with LOTS of pics. Brevity in blog posts is not my strong suit.
Our first stop was the NBC TV affiliate WSMV, Channel 4 in Nashville, where I got a segment with Kacy Hagerty. I did a short interview about blogging as a business and tips on how to get started, 3 1/2 minutes in all, but totally fun to do. This was my first time on a TV set like this and it was so interesting. If I can figure out how to share the DVD later, I’ll share it with y’all.
Nancy knows everyone in town it seems and she got us on the set of Talk of the Town, with host Meryll Rose (WTVF CBS), who we also met on our trip to Birmingham. She is a complete professional and has been in the industry for many years and it definitely shows. We were also treated to a wonderful dinner the first night at her beautiful home.
After the TV stops, we started the day off with lunch at Pinewood Social, one of the favorite lunch stops we for locals, we heard. It’s a really cool place with some mighty tasty food. And they have a bowling alley inside, something I have never seen before. Fun place to grab some lunch!
Sitting right by the river, Pinewood Social is a really cool eatery.
The river right outside the door of Pinewood.
(l to r: Meryll Rose, TV hostess in Nashville, Dana, Nancy, Angela, a newspaper journalist in TN, me, Heidi and Beth.
Our crew that arrived early all enjoyed a delicious lunch at Pinewood Social. And just to be clear, this was a friends trip and we all paid for our own food.
I had a turkey club which was yummy.
Heidi got this fantastic fried broccoli, which was SO tasty, with that dipping sauce. Wish I knew how they made it.
The bowling alley with lines of cans on the wall, made for a fun presentation.
Pinewood Social bowling, anyone?
Our next stop was PD’s, which I had heard about from my last trip to Franklin when I missed it. It’s right by the railroad tracks so you have to know where you are going to find it and there is no sign that I saw outside to identify the building.
But, wow, at all the beautiful things inside.
Next door to PD’s is Barn Door, which is full of antiques and vintage collectibles. Fun place to browse as well. I’d highly recommend all of these places for fun shopping in Franklin, TN.
This sign is not completely true. I don’t know a lot of Southerners who really say All Y’all. It’s just “y’all” for most of us when there are 2 or more people involved.
Last stop of the day was Scarlett Scales Antiques, another beautiful shop full of treasures.
The only thing I bought that day was these shell earrings. I love shell jewelry and have a few pieces so these will fit right in.
At the end of the day, we went back to the HGTV Smart home that we visited earlier this year to view the HGTV giveaway show, which told who the winner of the house is and her reaction to winning this gorgeous house. Can you even imagine being the winner of something like that?
We all sat and watched and enjoyed the reactions. (Angela, Heather, and Heidi)
The winner ended up being a 24 year old from Chicago.
Denise & Lesley from Chaotically Creative on the left, Dana Tucker from Forest Home Media, and some folks from the builders, Carbine were there.
TV viewing and tweeting was going on.
(Nancy, on the steps, Beth, and Carmen).
We were all enraptured with the TV show. And then at the end we found out from Nancy, that the 24 year old winner took the buyout (cash prize!) and so now the home is going up for sale by the builders. Someone will get to buy this beauty!
I hope you enjoyed the first part of the Nashville weekend. It’s always fun to visit Nashville and see new sights that I haven’t seen before. Thanks for stopping by!
What a great trip and opportunity for you!
It was fun visiting the shops there with you, Rhoda – thanks! I love that hanging pendant light fixture with the filament bulbs at Barn Door, and that tablescape with brown transferware and aqua at Scarlett Scales had me oohing and ahhing! I also spied a couple unusual footed ironstone compotes on that wall – nice displays!
You appear to be a natural on the screen, Rhoda, I hope you can get a video of the appearances – I would enjoy watching those. Congrats on what looks like a fun trip (I also saw a few photos on FB). 🙂
Rita
What was your take on the prices at PDs and the other stores? I’m local. I love their stuff but I’m not sure about the prices. Another store for good eye candy is JJ Ashley, which is right near PDs. They are pricey though.
Hi, Amy, I didn’t check a lot of prices there, but from what the other girls said, they thought the prices are good at PD’s.
Thanks for sharing your shopping experience. I really enjoyed all the pictures and one day hope to get up to Nashville to do some shopping . As for saying “All Y’all”. I’m born and raised in Alabama and we say it sometimes. Example” when we’re in a large group and everyone is thinking about doing something we’ll say “Do all y’all want to go?” Funny, but true!!
Thanks for taking us along and thanks for showing us your cazillion pictures! The more pictures the better!!
I saw so many things I would have loved to buy on your antiquing trip!! My eyes were bugging out of my head. I’ve been searching for a console table for our entry and I saw it — it had my name on it!! Looks like you did have a great time.
I love Nashville and always enjoy my visits. I had the pleasure of living there many a long year ago. My oldest daughter was born there (1964)!
It’s been about 4 years since we visited. That trip we stayed in Brentwood. Loved staying out there. Of course we enjoyed gorgeous Franklin also.
Just a beautiful place, TN. Many happy memories from there.
Thanks so much for joining us for the weekend. Loved spending time with you!! Loved reliving our shopping trip in this post 🙂
Love the re-cap part one since I missed the first half of the day. Now I know some shops I need to hit up! I’ve lived here for 3 years and haven’t heard of those. I see some white dishes calling my name!
Lesley
Oh maaaan Rhoda—it’s going to take me even LONGER to drive to Atlanta now!!!
With all the fun shopping in Atlanta and on the way there and back, I gave up flying long ago—but I’m gonna need a bigger car for these trips! ; D
Catherine
It looks like all y’all had a marvelous time! I love shopping in Franklin and gazing at the eye-popping mansions in Nashville! I’d never seen such huge houses! One of our best friends was the head football coach at Vanderbilt for several years. His wife used to take the gals shopping and I’ve been to PD’s. I must say that you’re the perfect spokeperson for turning a blog into a business and I hope you can put up the video!
Thanks for sharing the shops look wonderful to visit !! I believe it is in Franklin Tn. during Christmas holidays the town has a weekend for a Dickens Village, doesn’t that sound lovely!
Looking forward to part 2 🙂
Paula
IN
I would love to see a download of your time on the TV program Rhoda, you look great in the photo, as usual, and I’m sure you were a delight to watch on the show. You’re certainly an appropriate spokesperson for future bloggers!
I will ‘have to’, at the very least, check out PD’s on our next trip north….. I saw almost nothing in your photos I didn’t like very much, beautiful neutrals simply crying out to live in a cottage by the sea, mine for instance, hahaha. I also wondered about the prices but items which are that attractive and appear to be high quality aren’t inexpensive anywhere that I know of. If you know of such a place please share!
Thanks so much for the great post, it appears all of you had a wonderful time, how fun. I’m looking forward to your post of the rest of the weekend.
I’m not sure how many, but I’ve saved most of the posts you’ve shared on your shopping trips for future reference. For instance when we went to Savannah recently; one of the first places I wanted to go was the Paris Market, such a fun place to shop.
I brought several bags of goodies out with me when I was finally through looking at their interesting, eclectic selection – loved it, thanks again Rhoda for your informative, interesting and fun travelogues! VBg
So wonderful to spend a weekend with great friends….Congrats on the TV segment!!!