Decorating Archives | Page 11 of 136

Decorating

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

July 29, 2024 18 Comments

All Things Home

summer obsessions with Walmart

This post is sponsored by Walmart. As always, all words and opinions expressed in this post are honest and my own. With the pool completely finished and opened, landscaping underway, a new fence, and a furnished patio, we have thoroughly been enjoying our backyard this summer. It truly is an oasis and we’ve loved using it ourselves as well as having friends and family over to enjoy the pool and relaxing environment. As I’ve shared before, many of the items used in our outdoor space are from Walmart and we’ve added a few new things that have become summer essentials. I love that Walmart carries reliable summer staples like patio umbrellas and comfy swivel chairs and trendy items like water-resistant Bluetooth speakers and tabletop “bonfire” stoves. So, in this post, I want to highlight a few of my favorite summer essentials from Walmart. The first one is my favorite new

July 25, 2024 3 Comments

crafts

preserving cuttings in my gardening notebook

Do you remember the gardening notebook I put together in the spring? You can read about it HERE if you missed it. I thought it would be fun to keep a record of what I planted and how I cared for it so I could track what worked and what didn’t. It would also give me a place to store receipts for bushes that can be refunded if they don’t make it through the winter as well as a place to make notes to myself for future reference. I’ve put all of my plant tags in it and have recorded what I have fertilized and when. I also took cuttings from a few plants to press them for the book. Is it necessary? No. Is it a beautiful way to record what was growing in our yard each year? Yes. I pressed them in a heavy book between two sheets

July 24, 2024 11 Comments

All Things Home

the story of the sailboat pillow

If you’re in a hurry, here is the short version of the story. I met Wendy when she became a Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint line retailer in her shop in Canada. She became our Canadian trainer and my friend and we traveled all around Europe together. She sold her shop and I sold the milk paint line. I started painting. Her husband, John, takes pictures and I asked to paint one of those pictures. That picture, taken from their front porch, was licensed and made into a pillow. That pillow made from one of my paintings made from one of her husband’s photos ended up in the shop Wendy sold. Wendy bought the pillow. My mom bought the pillow. And here we are. If you want the longer story behind the pillow, here it is. Wendy and I met years ago when she signed up to carry the newly

July 22, 2024 16 Comments

All Things Home

classy rain gauge

Well, it happened and, perhaps, was inevitable. I bought a rain gauge. I was already gardening, birdwatching, seeing a cardiologist, and telling stories of the good old days, so I might as well surrender to middle age and start measuring the rainfall on my own to confirm the weather app on my iPhone is correct. I mean, how am I to truly be an informed, well-rounded person if I don’t know that sort of thing? Of course, inexpensive plastic rain gauges can be found in abundance, but I wanted a classy rain gauge. I did quite a bit of searching and settled on this metal rain gauge stand topped off with a quail. It holds a glass test-tube-style rain gauge that rests in a metal ring. When I pointed out the new garden accessory acquisition to my mom, she mentioned I should take the glass tube in for the winter

July 19, 2024 12 Comments

All Things Home

hiding termite bait stations in your yard

We’ve now owned two homes older than 50 years and two homes younger than 20 years. Older homes are much more my style. They are typically built with higher-quality materials and they offer story, character, and charm. You also tend to get a lot more for your money simply because the house is old and perhaps needs some work. There are things, however, that aren’t fun about owning homes that have more than half a century behind them. Termites is one of those things. Both of our 50+-year-old homes had termite issues before we purchased them. The 1940s Cape Cod in PA just had some dormant mud tubes in the basement. Our current 1970 house in Maryland had an infestation around one of the bedroom windows and the infestation and house were treated so everything was under control before we purchased it. We looked into a few different termite treatment

July 16, 2024 4 Comments

All Things Home

a plush, pet-friendly wool rug

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Rugs USA. As always, all words and opinions expressed are honest and my own. Almost ten years ago, I wrote a blog post sharing my decorating nemesis – rugs. I just always found them so difficult to get right! There are size considerations, materials, durability, comfort, not to mention how they work with the decor style and color palette of the room. After trying many, many rugs in several rooms, I decided I would stick primarily with neutral rugs and those made from natural materials. Braided jute rugs are a favorite because they are inexpensive, forgiving, work well with my antique pieces and decorating style, and feel nice underfoot. Our bedroom is a long rectangle and really needed a large rug to properly fill it. When I couldn’t find just the right jute rug to fit the space, I tried pairing together two 6

June 21, 2024 14 Comments

a slice of life

bird bath happenings

I don’t have a lot of garden memories since I spent the majority of my childhood in military housing apartments overseas, but as I’ve shared before, the garden memories I do have are from my Oma and Opa’s garden. We lived with them when I was very little and my dad was on a hardship tour in Korea for the Army and during some summers when I was older. My Opa loved gardening and birdwatching. He loved animals in general and we often referred to him as Dr. Doolittle. I don’t know if I’ve shared this before, but my mom had a menagerie of unusual pets growing up like a pony (they paid $25 for it and drove it around in the back of the station wagon), squirrels, a goose, a raccoon, turtles, birds, a goat, snakes, a white rat named Pedro, and dogs and cats, of course. My mom

June 18, 2024 32 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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Decorating

dining room inspiration & plans

summer obsessions with Walmart

preserving cuttings in my gardening notebook

the story of the sailboat pillow

classy rain gauge

hiding termite bait stations in your yard

a plush, pet-friendly wool rug

bird bath happenings

next art sale

May 20th, 2026 at 1pm EST

Now Available for Preorder

Move Slow & Make Things

From the Studio

Artful pieces for your home and everyday life.

From the Studio and Home

Shop the Feed

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power washing the patio

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