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Decorating
All Things Home

faux boxwood topiaries

I have been a fan of topiaries for years and am always drawn to buy them, even when history tells me I won’t be able to keep them alive for more than a few months.  In our new house, my studio is a sunroom, so it is a sanctuary for plants during the winter and I’m having more success with plants than I ever had before.  The light in the studio couldn’t save these topiaries I bought last summer when we first moved in, though.  I didn’t bring them in before the first frost and they were toast.  Even if I had brought them in before the frost, I couldn’t handle the smell!  They stunk up the studio and I was almost glad the frost got them, so I had a good excuse to pitch them. Over the winter, I put a pair potted of evergreens next to the door

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May 8, 2018 50 Comments
All Things Home

dining room | new arrangement & plans

This squared-shaped dining room has been a little tricky to figure out, but I think I’m getting a little closer. The primitive blue hutch has felt wrong from the beginning, but it’s what I had and I needed time to live in the space and think about it before I bought anything new or made any big decisions.  After thinking about it for a while, I decided to try something free…swapping around the furniture.  I had an oak sideboard that I moved up to the master bedroom, really as a place-holder more than anything else.  I decided to move it back downstairs and try it out in the dining room… Obviously, everything is low and the space is a little naked, but I really like this option better than the hutch.  It seems to open up the room a bit more and the pieces of furniture, while found secondhand on

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May 4, 2018 78 Comments
All Things Home

painting the stairway wall

A couple of weeks ago, I finally started painting the wall and trim in the back stairway.  It had been bugging me for a while, but the idea of painting those spindles and taping off the carpet seemed like an annoying, tedious project and I kept putting it off.  I knew that once I pinned myself down to start working on it, it wouldn’t be as bad as I had built it up to be in my head and that was exactly the case.  Why was I so whiney about taping off carpet when it took about 3 minutes?! I find myself doing that often…talking myself out of starting on a project, because I’m fairly certain it might be torture (or require a small amount of patience.)  There have only been a couple of times in my full DIY career that have turned out to actually be miserable, so I

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May 1, 2018 32 Comments
All Things Home

training rosemary topiaries & other garden things

We almost broke into the 60’s in Minnesota last weekend, so I had gardening on the brain.  We’re still waiting for all of the snow to melt and the ground to thaw, but the warmth and sunshine gave me the itch to get my hands dirty.  It’s going to be a while before I can start on the yard, so I decided to repot some of my houseplants that needed more elbow (root) room and give everything a haircut. First up were the rosemary plants that have been flanking my kitchen sink for a few months.  I’ve never had much luck keeping rosemary alive for very long, but plants love all of the rooms on the back side of our house, which faces south.  We get beautiful light all day long, so they can grow and stay healthy. They were both looking like they needed more soil and I have

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April 24, 2018 26 Comments
All Things Home

small changes

I knew that attending Junk Bonanza would be fun, but I didn’t realize what a creative pick-me-up it would be!  (Well, after I slept for 12 hours and lounged around for half a day.)  Once I was rested, that creative spark got me going.  I was ready to rip up carpet and jack out some tile!  But, those are all pretty big projects that involve some amount of planning, a budget, and permission from my husband!  So, I figured I should take that energy and work on changes that were small and free and wouldn’t get me into any trouble. The first change I made was something I’ve been thinking about for a while… I swapped out Eulalie’s frame! She’s been in a gold leaf frame from the very beginning and that worked great in my last house, but it felt a little off in this room.  I think it

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April 23, 2018 86 Comments
All Things Home

counter selection | compromising nothing & gaining everything

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by HanStone Quartz.  All words and opinions expressed in this post are, as always, honest and my own. As I’ve shared before, replacing the countertops was on our to-do list for this house before we even bought it.  These are nice granite counters and they really don’t look bad at all, but they aren’t my taste.  We would also like to install a tile backsplash, which would look a little odd coming off of the little backsplash that is currently a part of the counters.  We plan on being in this house a long time, so we decided it would be worth changing them out. So, I had my heart set on marble.  I love the look of it and the “soul” of marble.  It’s such a beautiful material.  I know the issues, though, and I’ve spent months reading reviews and asking friends who have

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April 14, 2018 73 Comments
All Things Home

painted studio floor update

I’ve been asked quite a bit for an update on how the painted floors in my studio are holding up, so I thought I would share! Here is a reminder of what the room looked like when we first moved in.  It was perfect for a sunroom, but I wanted a studio more than a sunroom and all of that orangish wood wasn’t going to work. It’s so hard for me to remember the space like that!  It was so dark. The flooring is just deck boards.  We had insulation installed under the floor, but decided to paint the deck boards instead of installing a “proper floor” on top.  We may do that down the road, but since this is a studio for painting, I wasn’t too concerned with upgrading the floor.  It is certainly going to get splattered over the years. The floor has gotten chipped and gouged in

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April 11, 2018 18 Comments
All Things Home

studio form & function & $200 arhaus giveaway

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Arhaus.  I have worked with this brand before as an influencer and a paying customer and I am an Arhaus fan.  As always, all opinions and words are honest and my own.  And, there is a giveaway, so you might want to stick around! As I’ve been using my sunroom-turned-studio space over the past few months, I have learned what’s working and what’s not and I’ve slowly been adjusting things here and there. One of the glaring pieces that needed to be addressed was the drafting table.  It worked okay, but it had been stripped for parts, so it was missing some key pieces for adjusting it and locking it into place.  I couldn’t adjust the height of the table and I had to rest the top on my legs while I was working.  The move from PA only made it worse.  I found that

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April 3, 2018 507 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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