Rustic Elegance in Savannah
Every year, Kelsey Garrity-Riley and Erik Riley host a huge Easter brunch in their Savannah home for all their friends. Everyone brings a little something over to eat, and they relax and sip summery mixed drinks. After dinner, they walk – with drinks in hand (legal in the Savannah Historic District) – the few blocks from their house to Forsyth Park and enjoy the spring weather in the park. Their annual Easter party is a great reflection of how they live year-round – nothing in their home is too precious – everything is well-loved and worn-in, and they are all about nature. The couple met at Savannah’s College of Art and Design. (They had to put sketches from their first assignment up on the board and Erik saw Kelsey’s. Later that night called his mom and said he knew he was going to marry her. It took another month until they actually spoke, but now they’ve been married for four years.) When they’re not hosting fabulous potlucks, both Kelsey and Erik split their time between working at the amazing Savannah store The Paris Market (Erik writes and takes photographs for their blog every day) in downtown Savannah and doing freelance illustration work. They’re now gearing up for their next adventure: a move to New York City. We can’t wait to see what they do to a NYC apartment. -Amy
Image above: “The large rug I found while antiquing for the store – and since vintage rugs are one of the few things we don’t carry, thankfully it wasn’t a conflict of interest,” Kelsey says. “I found the top plank of my desk in an alley, I think it must have been a makeshift workman’s surface. I dragged it home, cleaned it off, sanded it a bit and added old hairpin legs a friend was kind enough to give me. It’s a great size, but I end up covering it in papers and working on the floor instead.”
Image above: “I like to change around the display on our studio fireplace. The helmets were gifted to me by a Frenchman in one of my favorite thrift stores back home. There was a whole ball of them tangled together. We were one short of having three neat rows, so we drew out one more to fill in the grid. The block lamps with Edison bulbs are created by my brother, Collin Garrity, and sold through The Paris Market.”
More posts from Caitlin Kelch
