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Room Makeovers
Decorating

the sewing room makeover reveal

The sewing room makeover was another project I worked on specifically to share in my book – .  For that reason, I haven’t shared the full reveal on the blog yet, even though this room makeover was finished in 2020.  A few photos of the room are shared in the book, but it’s nice to share more detail about the makeover here on the blog so that I can share links to tutorials, projects, and sources.  It just tells more of the story for those who are interested! So, let’s start this room makeover by looking at what the room looked like when we moved in almost five years ago. It’s a pretty basic room with cream walls and trim and beige carpet.  We added the chandelier, swapping it out for a typical builder-grade fixture. I knew I wanted to make this room feminine and like a little jewel box,

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March 14, 2022 43 Comments
Bathrooms

the unimpressive, free, one-hour bathroom makeover

Blogging has been (and I’m sure will continue to be) a weird, wonderful job for me.  It has allowed me to roll the things I enjoy into my business and has helped me unearth and develop skills I didn’t even know I had.  Work for me can be anything from going to an antique store to making a slipcover to organizing a closet to drawing a pattern.  It is a strange job, but I really love it.  As with all jobs, though, there are perks and pluses and then there are drawbacks.  Some of those drawbacks are just embedded in the nature of the job, but some are definitely of my (our) own making.  One of those drawbacks is, over the years, I have built up this idea in my head that unless I’m really going to give a room a makeover, I mean, give it an overhaul worthy of

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March 7, 2022 35 Comments
All Things Home

painting a metal gas fireplace surround

So, remember the family room makeover?  It’s still there, but it has dragged on for quite a while!  It’s a project that moves in fits and starts.  I’ll make huge progress and then I’ll get distracted by other things for a while.  That’s not a bad way to work on a project, though, especially one that’s strictly cosmetic and not causing any real interruption to the household.  I can take a break and come back to it with fresh energy and perspective.  It’s allowed me to make decisions one step at a time and I certainly haven’t felt rushed!  This past weekend, though, it was warm-ish (for February in Minnesota), sunny, and I was itching to tackle a list of undone projects including finishing the details of a project I worked on back in October – painting the metal fireplace surround. I painted the mantel and tile, but the reveal

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February 28, 2022 2 Comments
Decorating

our master bedroom makeover reveal

A few of you have asked to see the full reveal of how our master/primary bedroom makeover turned out, so I am sharing all of the details in today’s post.  Since we’ve been living with this finished bedroom since the summer of 2020, I don’t really think about sharing it, but I’ve only shown little peeks and previews of the room and not the completed space.  I wanted to save that for my book, Feels Like Home.  There are tons of tips about decorating a bedroom as well as different photos of the room in the book, but I wanted to show some before & after pictures as well as resources & links to tutorials together all in one place. So, here is the final result of the bedroom makeover!  Well, for now.  You know how room makeovers go.  They are done until they are ready to be redone or

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February 22, 2022 13 Comments
All Things Home

ensuite bathroom makeover

Do you remember back in the summer of 2020 when we were working on our ensuite bathroom?  Well, I shared the plan and some of the process (you can see the process post HERE), but I wanted to share the final reveal in my book, .  It was important to me that some spaces and the majority of the photos felt fresh to even the most regular readers.  So, I never shared the final photos of our bathroom makeover.  But, now that the book has been out for a few months and the ensuite bathroom is only represented on a couple of pages, I wanted to share the full reveal here on the blog. The ensuite bathroom makeover was a hybrid of DIY and work that was hired out to pros.  And, I did the project management in order to save costs, but I had a great tiler (Matt Grant

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February 8, 2022 27 Comments
Decorating

family room makeover | painted fireplace surround

I finally made some more progress on the basement family room makeover in the latter part of last week.  Jeff helped me hang the deer head and I finished painting the fireplace surround and mantel.  It didn’t look bad before, but it just didn’t look like “me.”  The shiny black granite tile specifically felt a little too modern for my aesthetic.  So, I used the same technique I used when painting the granite tile around the fireplace upstairs.  (You can find that tutorial HERE.) And, it works so much better for the decorating direction I’m heading. Here is how it looked before… The walls are painted in Oval Room Blue, Modern Emulsion finish by Farrow & Ball from Dreamy Whites.  I used a tinted to Oval Room Blue to prime the fireplace surround and the tile.  Once that fully dried over three weeks or so (I’m being facetious because I

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September 27, 2021 56 Comments
All Things Home

painting light switches

For those who have asked about painting the light switches, outlets, and trim in the same color as the wall in the basement family room, this post is for you!  Before I ever put a roller on the wall, I envisioned the walls and trim painted the same color.  The rest of my house has white trim as a frame to blue/gray walls or wallpaper/starched fabric, but I want this room to have a Gentleman’s Library sort of vibe.  I’m sure that many gentleman’s libraries have white trim, but I imagined this room with moody blue walls and trim.  There are a lot of different finishes and colors happening in the space right now and painting it all one color (but different sheens) will remove those visual distractions. As an aside, if I thought we were going to live in this house “forever”, I would want to clad the walls

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September 9, 2021 42 Comments
All Things Home

basement family room makeover | antique cabinet

In case you missed it, I wanted to let you know that the Feels Like Home book launch team is still open if you’re interested in joining!  You can find all of the details HERE, but in a nutshell, it’s free, it’ll be lots of fun, and you have a chance to win lots of goodies!  You can sign up HERE if you’d like to join and help me promote .  (Just a note to answer a question in the comments.  You do not need to have a public social media account in order to join.  We’d love to have you in the group to get your feedback on the book and there are other ways to support Feels Like Home, like leaving a review.  Please join if you are interested.  You are welcome!) Late last week, I made some more progress on the basement family room.  The work has

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August 31, 2021 35 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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