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Decorating

All Things Home

farmhouse holiday series | fall family room

In this second installment of the farmhouse holiday series, we’re all sharing our fall family rooms… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but I don’t do much in the way of fall decorating. I’ll put out a couple of pumpkins, a bowl of apples, etc. and just leave it at that. In the case of my family room, I just put a mum in a bucket and added a couple of faux pumpkins in a wicker basket tray on the coffee table. It’s just enough to bring an essence of fall to the room without having to bring up bins of decor from the basement. I also put out a bowl of mixed nuts and a nutcracker I picked up on Etsy a couple of years ago.  My Oma always had mixed nuts on her coffee table and I like bringing them out for fall and winter

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All Things Home

progress in Calvin’s room…

We made some real progress in Calvin’s room the past couple of weeks.  As a reminder, we’re transitioning our guest room into a room for our youngest son, Calvin.  He’s ready to have everything done right now, but I’ve been trying to teach him that good rooms aren’t rushed together.  It’s about collecting just the right items and that can take time. With the addition of a desk, bean bag chair, more masculine bed frame, some navy bedding, and a rug, it’s looking a lot more like a boy’s room, and a pretty cool one at that. One of my favorite pieces, though, is his new nightstand.  This room is really small and we needed a small nightstand to fit in the tight space.  I was using a stool when it was a guest room, but Calvin needed something a little more substantial. I happened to have a piece in

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All Things Home

Plantation Shutters for Mom’s Guestroom

If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, you know that my mom does quite a lot for me.  She’s a huge part of how my business even got off the ground (not to mention all of the mom stuff she’s done through the years like diapering, feeding, and sending me to school.)  So, when I have a chance to do something nice for her, I like to do it. And this just happened to fall in my lap. I was asked to review blinds or plantation shutters from Blindster and it works out that I knew someone who really wanted plantation shutters for her guest room – my mom. So, we started the process of ordering the shutters. I have to insert that, even as a seasoned DIYer, I was a little intimidated at the thought of measuring and installing plantation shutters.  We found that Blindster has extensive

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a slice of life

farmhouse holiday series | red wine risotto

This year, I was invited to be a part of a farmhouse holiday decor series with an amazing line-up of bloggers, so how could I say no to that?!  Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sprinkling in some seasonal farmhouse-style blog posts to (hopefully) inspire our readers.  This week’s theme is “farmhouse kitchen and fall recipe”, so I’m sharing a red wine risotto recipe. I’ve shared this before and I’ll share it again that other than Christmas, I don’t do much in the way of seasonal decorating.  I might set out a few small pumpkins and some seasonal fruit, but that’s about it.   I haven’t gotten to any fall decorating, yet, this year, so these pictures are from last year, just showing how I like to mix in a few fall elements without going overboard. The recipe I’m sharing is very similar to one I first made as

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All Things Home

apple orchard picnic shoot

Today was a whirlwind, but packed with activities that were good for my creative soul. Photo shoots are one of my favorite aspects of my job.  If you read my very, very early posts, I share how much I love “playing magazine”.  I loved that I had an excuse to take pictures of pretty things and share them.  And I have never grown weary of it! Today’s shoot was for an “apple orchard picnic” table for HGTV.com.  It was hot and humid outside, which detracted a bit from the fall feeling we were trying to evoke, but we had apples on the trees and a partly cloudy sky, so it was pretty close to perfect.  Thankfully, you can’t experience temperature through a photo!  Just imagine the air is crisp. We’re a few weeks away from full-blown apple season, but our local farm stand did have a few varieties of apples and

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All Things Home

The trials of decorating for an 8-year-old boy

Decorating for kids is hard.  I’m learning that as I’m working with my eight-year-old on transforming the guest room into his room.  We have conversations about it that go something like this… “So, let’s talk about your room, bud, and how you would like it to look.” “Okay.” “What colors would you like?” “Ummm… Red, green, black, gray, orange, blue.  And some yellow.” “Hmm.  Okay.  How about a theme?” “Oh!  Broncos and Star Wars and Ninja Turtles.” “Um.  Okay.  Which is your favorite?” “I want to paint the walls and have you paint a big Mikey over there and a light saber over there…” And it just deteriorated from there. Now, I’m all for letting him have a say in his room.  I want him to love it.  But, I also know that most eight year old boys lack a design sense or the concept that when they are twelve,

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All Things Home

how tidy are your drawers?

Some of you have noticed and commented on the fact that I paint pieces while the drawers are still inside their recesses/cubbies.  (Drawer holes?)  And yes, I do leave the drawers in when I paint and I wanted to share the method to my madness. The habit of leaving the drawers in started due to a lack of space.  When I worked out of my house, every square foot needed to be used strategically and I just didn’t have the luxury of being able to spread my drawers all over the floor.  (This post is getting a little personal, isn’t it?  Can’t help myself.) So, I learned I could paint with them in and the world didn’t implode and, actually, things end up looking nice and tidy when it’s all said and done. I paint the piece, as we’ve established, with the drawers in.  When I’m painting around the edges

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All Things Home

studio flooring options

In my post yesterday, I shared that we’ll be installing some new flooring in the studio.  Well, not in the entire studio, but a corner of it, so I can use that area for photo shoots.  The corner we’ll be installing it in is this one… You can see that the flooring is a bit of a mish-mash; some of the old pine and some plywood, so I haven’t used that corner for photo shoots despite the nice light and big, blank wall. So, I’ve been planning to float some flooring in that corner, so I can create “rooms”.  Rooms that I can design, put together, photograph, and ultimately, sell everything in them. Doesn’t that sound like fun?! So, I was looking for a few specific things.  First of all, I wanted a floor that would be neutral and wouldn’t cast any sort of hue, specifically red, orange or yellow.  (The floors

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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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