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Decorating
1970 home renovation

painting the dining room ceiling

Well, I finally did it.  I’ve been dragging my feet for over a year, but I painted the dining room ceiling.  I have been hung up on working on this room just because I knew the ceiling had to be done first and I just really didn’t want to do it.  It wasn’t the painting I was dreading, but all of the prep work of moving things out and making sure the furniture and floors were protected.  I’m usually pretty casual when it comes to using dropcloths, but when painting a ceiling, I have to be more careful.  Saturday morning was dreary and cold, so I almost talked myself into a low-key day, but I was ready to have this job behind me.  I knew it would be a relief, so I pulled out the dropcloths, removed all of the small stuff from the room, got out the paint and

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September 9, 2024 26 Comments
All Things Home

a rug, the first dried hydrangeas, & a cloche

Do you remember the jute rug in the kitchen eating area with the scalloped edge?  I loved the detail around the border, but I have some sad news. After about a year in a heavy traffic path, the scallops around the corners started to come loose.  I learned this is the kind of run that is best used in a room where people and animals won’t be walking over the corners throughout the day.  I probably should’ve noticed the wear and rotated the run to extend its life, but it was becoming a bit of a tripping hazard.  The fortunate thing about jute rugs, though, is they are inexpensive, so I don’t have anxiety about them wearing out.  Most of my jute rugs have lasted for several years and the ones I had the longest (about 8 years) I sold with our last house and imagine they are still in

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August 27, 2024 22 Comments
All Things Home

avoiding decorating mistakes

A couple of unfortunate things have happened to my blog over the years moving servers, changing platforms, getting a new camera, and a few mysteries that have caused some glitches in thousands of old blog posts.  Certain links from posts have disappeared (along with the words that were linked), some internal links have a superfluous date in the URL that makes the links lead to nowhere, and some pictures in 2016 were replaced with photos from 2018 that happened to have the same name.  All of that to say, I’m working through a few old posts each day to fix this issue and, while the work is tedious, it’s been nostalgic looking through some of the posts from 8-10 years ago.  As I’m getting ready to do more painting projects in our current house and thinking through decorating decisions, this post particularly caught my eye.  It was a Dear Reader

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August 26, 2024 9 Comments
All Things Home

Giving an antique whirligig a makeover

 A few months ago, I decided to check out an antique store I hadn’t been to in a while – the Fayetteville Antique Mall in Fayetteville, PA.  I used to go there regularly when we lived in PA, but I noticed more vendors were leaving over and the quality of the merchandise was going downhill.  But, I’ve learned with antique malls that it’s always worth checking it out.  Even one or two new vendors that carry things I like can make a place worth visiting.  Well, they have really stepped up their game since I was last there.  There were more vendors with quality antique pieces.  The store was tidier and more pleasant to shop.  I bought a nice collection of things and liked many pieces that I just didn’t have the right spot for.  I’ll definitely make regular visits!  Anyway, one of the things I bought was this antique

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August 21, 2024 13 Comments
1970 home renovation

Landscape Mural Design & Colors

I’m getting things lined up to start “dining room mural take two.”  I painted the mural in my last dining room with very little planning.  I just had an idea in my head and used MMS Milk Paint and some acrylics that I had on hand.  I was just going to throw the paint on the wall to see how it worked.  It’s just paint after all and I could always paint over if it wasn’t working.  I kept it very loose, drippy, watery, and light, so I was able to finish it in just a couple of days. For this mural, I decided to use Farrow & Ball paints so there is cohesion with the paint colors (Light Blue and Card Room Green) used in adjoining rooms.  I also like the idea of having a palette of colors instead of mixing my own colors.  I’m sure some amount of

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August 6, 2024 15 Comments
All Things Home

dining room curtain options

Last week, I shared inspiration and some plans for our dining room.  You can find that post HERE.  In this post, I wanted to share the fabrics and colors I considered for the curtains and which one I selected. We have already had these windows replaced, but I’ve been waiting to nail down the curtains until I figured out what I wanted to do on the walls.  This room is a game of dominoes and I have been hesitant to commit to knocking the first one down.  It’s easier to paint before hanging curtains and I obviously want the paint and curtains to make sense together, but I need to paint the ceiling before I paint the walls… You can see how this goes. Full-length curtains will add so much to this space, though, so I can’t wait to get them done.  They’ll frame out the window and visually give

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August 5, 2024 14 Comments
All Things Home

Kim’s Coastal Bedroom Updated

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might remember I worked with my parents on a makeover of their bedroom.  You can find the reveal of that bedroom makeover HERE and there are more detailed links at the bottom of the post.    It was such a fun project and they loved the result.  They have loved it so much that they have hardly changed a thing since the day of the reveal.  Here is how it looked when I shared it… They swapped out the bedspread because it had been washed a lot over the years and they were looking into getting a new rug.  This one has held up well for a woven cotton rug, but it was a little hard to clean spills and stains.  It was the one thing in the room that was looking a little tired. When my parents came over

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July 30, 2024 2 Comments
1970 home renovation

dining room inspiration & plans

While the walls of our dining room are still only primed, I’ve been giving it a lot of thought lately and would like to start making some progress on it over the next few weeks.  It would be very nice to have it done before the holidays.  If it makes you feel any better about undone projects, these walls have been wearing primer for over a year and I have felt a little paralyzed about getting started on this room.  I don’t usually drag my feet so long when it comes to painting a room, but I have waffled about what I want to do with this space. With our last dining room, I sort of plowed forward, starting a hand-painted mural one morning in my pajamas.  It’s still one of my favorite rooms and was completed on gut instinct and whim.  Instead of continuing to overthink, I just need

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July 29, 2024 18 Comments

I’m Marian, a painter, writer, and lover of all things creative. From art and antiques to home projects and everyday life, I share my journey in hopes of inspiring you to embrace your own creativity and make beauty in the spaces you live.

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