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Gardening
Gardening

cedar vintage-style garden trellis reveal

Last week, my mom came out for the day to help me with some work in the garden along with priming and painting the vintage-style trellises.  You can find the complete (and free) plan for the trellis we built HERE.  When I first brought the lumber home to build the trellis, I wondered about priming and painting the pieces before assembly, but I wasn’t convinced that would be much easier and I would need a lot of space to spread out all of those one-by-twos.  In the end, I decided to assemble the trellises and deal with painting all of the little nooks and crannies. So, my mom and I leaned them up against two sawhorses on the driveway and started priming.  She used the roller and I cut into the corners with a brush. We used Sherwin Williams PrepRite ProBlock Indoor/Outdoor primer tinted to Card Room Green.  For our

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May 21, 2024 16 Comments
All Things Home

DIY cedar garden obelisk

I was on a high from building the vintage-style trellises for the front of the house, so I decided to do more math and make a DIY cedar garden obelisk.  I bought enough wood to make three trellises (two large and one small), but I decided to do something different on the wall where the small trellis was going to hang.  So, I had extra cedar that we cut down to 1 x 2s as well as some scraps from the trellis project and I wanted to use every bit I could.  You can find the plans for the vintage-style trellis HERE if you missed it and are interested in building one. I didn’t take pictures as I built the obelisk for two reasons.  One, it was sprinkling on and off so I was fitting in work on the project as weather would allow.  Two, I was completely winging it

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May 16, 2024 13 Comments
1970 home renovation

gardening plan with a local nursery

Over the winter, I was already thinking about working on the front garden.  It was going to be a massive project landscaping this wide, rambling, unsymmetrical house, but we were at a place in our 1970 home renovation where we could get started once Spring arrived.  We had painted the siding and trim, removed the overgrown trees and landscaping, replaced missing shutters, installed new windows along the front of the house, and a new roof.  All of the bush-trampling jobs were behind us and we could start reestablishing the beds and planting.  But, I felt very overwhelmed at the idea of planning it all out myself. I reached out to a few landscape designers about quotes and the process for getting a virtual plan.  For a virtual consultation, I would have to have the property professionally surveyed and most of the quotes were in the $1,000 neighborhood.  While I felt

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May 14, 2024 21 Comments
All Things Home

large vintage-style garden trellis tutorial & free plans

As I shared last week (in THIS POST), I decided I was overcomplicating the trellis idea for the garage wall.  I thought building one large trellis would be the way to go, but I realized two would balance out the windows on the other “wing” of the house and two trellises would be much easier to build than one.  They’d still be substantial (about 4 x 8′), but they would be smaller and lighter than the original idea and would be easy to install and remove for cleaning and painting over the years.  It would require less lumber and wouldn’t need footings.  I took measurements, sketched some ideas, and built two trellises last week.  I am over the moon about these trellises and, of course, I wanted to share detailed plans and a tutorial so you can build your own vintage-style trellis if you have a similar blank wall to

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May 13, 2024 13 Comments
1970 home renovation

garden updates | bishop’s weed, trellis design, & progress

In case you haven’t noticed by the subject of my recent posts, gardening has been my main focus over the past few weeks.  I feel like I have to take advantage of the weather before it starts getting really hot and also get the backyard cleaned up before we open the pool.  I keep feeling a pull to the easel to get some paintings done and I’m excited about finally painting the dining room, but I have to follow the seasons and plant when it’s prime planting time.  And, I need to get ahead of the weeds before they get out of control even more than they are.  In addition to the sense of seasonal urgency, I’m really enjoying it.  I put my headphones in and listen to an audiobook or music and completely lose track of time.  I’ve been gardening some evenings until it’s so dark I can hardly

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May 8, 2024 24 Comments
Gardening

why Annabelle hydrangeas are my favorite

It was our first summer in our house in Minnesota and I noticed some potted white hydrangeas at the grocery store (of all places.)  We had a lot of work to do on the garden beds before we were ready for planting (weeding, digging up unwanted plants, moving rock), so I wasn’t planning on buying bushes, but they were so pretty and they were on clearance for some crazy price like $15/each.  I felt like I couldn’t resist.  I come home from a quick grocery run with a trunk full of bushes!  Thankfully, Jeff is used to my antics and, as long as it’s not a rickety chair that will collapse if he tries to sit on it, he’s pretty relaxed about me bringing surprises home.  What I had purchased impulsively were Annabelle hydrangeas and they were a serendipitous find. This was the summer I planted them and they just

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May 7, 2024 11 Comments
Favorite Things

beautiful tools | copper watering can & mister

As I have shared many times over the years, I believe in having the tools you use every day be beautiful from dish brushes and bars of soap to brooms and scissors to pencils and grocery bags.  Functional items can, in most cases, also be lovely, aesthetically pleasing, and a delight to use.  They don’t have to be made of brightly-colored plastic that you want to hide in your cabinets.  Even the humblest of sponges or a pair of gardening clogs can be something you enjoy having in plain view.  For years, I have been using a plastic water bottle or whatever else I could find on hand to water my houseplants.  I finally decided to treat myself to a beautiful watering can that I wouldn’t mind sitting out on the counter or the shelf by the kitchen door.  After looking around at my options and thinking about it, I

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May 2, 2024 25 Comments
All Things Home

my gardening notebook

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped by a local nursery/garden center that is just a stone’s throw from my house.  I’ve driven by it often and wanted to stop in, but I knew I wasn’t ready for planting until after the roof was replaced and the exterior painting was done.  We finished priming and painting the front and “garage side” last fall, so I was ready to do some planting as soon as spring started to emerge. I knew I wouldn’t be able to tackle the landscape in the front of the house all at once, but I wanted to get a good start on the foundation bushes on the front of each “wing” of the house and get the beds in front of the porch prepped and tarped.  I’ll explain the area in front of the porch more as I share about the work I’m doing, but that

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April 30, 2024 14 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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