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All Things Home
a slice of life

favorite home projects of 2018

As I’ve been looking back over the past year and the projects we completed, I realized we have done a lot!  2017 was about getting settled, listening to our house, getting to know its style, and learning the way it functioned best.  It was also about tackling the immediate issues, like an aging water heater, broken garage doors, and turning the sunroom into a finished studio. This year has been about making the homes ours…or at least parts of it!  Even working at a pretty good pace, we’re not going to get the entire house done in a year.  We focused primarily on the main floor since that’s where we spend most of our time. Here are my favorite projects we completed in 2018… Installing Hardwood Floors I knew I wanted to do this before we even bought the house.  There was 13-year-old, beige wall-to-wall carpet in the dining room

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January 14, 2019 34 Comments
All Things Home

two cents on tidying up

I’m going to say right off the bat that I have never read Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  I read some reviews on it and a summary of it a few years ago and felt like I got the gist.  The concept of keeping only what you love (or what “sparks joy”) isn’t a new one, so I didn’t purchase the book. I have, though, started watching the new series on Netflix, Tidying Up and decided to throw in my two cents on it. First of all, Marie is so endearing.  She is kind and never shows a judgemental face when she’s nose-to-nose with mountains of stuff.  She is gracious to her clients and that’s heart-warming to watch, especially in an age where nasty judges and show hosts have a high entertainment value. I also like how the guests on the show are very realistic and

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January 11, 2019 73 Comments
All Things Home

evolving workspaces

I find that my workspaces are the trickiest when it comes to arranging and decorating, simply because they have to evolve as my work evolves.  I’ve been using my studio and home office for a year and a half now and I’m learning what works and what doesn’t.  I’ve made a few changes and additions that have really helped, but there are still some needs that haven’t been addressed. In my office, I need more storage, a larger work surface, and proper file drawers.  In my studio, I need more storage, a flat work surface, and a place to store wet paintings while they are drying. In both rooms, I have some nice storage pieces, but neither space has a closet, so bulkier items that should be in those rooms are stored elsewhere in the house.  As someone who likes to keep things in the room where they belong, I find

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January 9, 2019 50 Comments
All Things Home

customizing floor grates

Well, I’m starting off my first full work week of the new year sick in bed!  I am itching to organize and get to work on some of the plans I drew up over the holidays, but those will all have to wait…hopefully for just a day or two.  Until I’m back on my feet and working on projects again, I am sharing a project I worked on before Christmas. When the slate floors were installed and finished, the white floor vents stood out much more than they did on the beige tile… I originally looked into replacing them with ones that were more decorative, but I had difficulty finding the size I needed and the ones I liked were pretty expensive.  I decided to go the thriftier option and used spray paint to transform the existing vents. I was hoping to find a spray paint that was the same

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January 8, 2019 27 Comments
All Things Home

top 10 posts of 2018

Happy New Year! I absolutely love the time of year between Christmas and New Years when I hibernate, take time off, and generally loaf around without any deadlines, commitments or expectations beyond wearing pajama-like clothes all day, every day.  We’ve been doing puzzles and science experiments, watching movies, playing board games, letting the boys have playdates and sleepovers.  I had planned on getting a few projects done, but neither Jeff nor I felt like cutting, measuring, or installing anything, which would all have been required.  The house is a bit messy, the snacks have been thoroughly raided, and the Christmas decorations are still up. In the midst of all of the planned downtime, though, I had some rich and productive creative time.  I spent the time I had to myself in my studio writing, painting, studying, drawing plans, taking notes and I can already see and feel the benefits of

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January 3, 2019 27 Comments
All Things Home

HGTV Dream Home Tour

Disclosure:  This post is sponsored by the   As always all opinions are honest and my own (and I would’ve written this post with or without the sponsorship!) From a young age, I would dream about houses.  I would style my dollhouse and rearrange the furniture more than I played with the dolls.  I would draw houses in church and floorplans on graph paper at the desk in my bedroom.  And as a teenager, I loved going with my parents and grandparents to look at model homes and show houses.  I can’t even remember why we did that other than to occupy a Saturday, but I soaked in all of the clever decorating ideas, thoughtful choices in the floorplans, and the combinations of furnishings and fabrics. Having the opportunity to tour the 2019 HGTV Dream Home this year in Whitefish, Montana, brought me right back to that place.  I was invited by

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December 21, 2018 38 Comments
a slice of life

nuts & bolts

I was putting together my list for Christmas brunch (flank steak, cheese for the cheese grits, fruit and gelatin for Rosa’s Fruit Salad, etc.) and I realized that I hadn’t even thought about making nuts and bolts this year!  It’s one of my favorite Christmas-time snacks and the season almost passed without me making a batch! Nuts and bolts started in our family with my Oma (also named Marian).  I have memories of her sitting in front of the stove, stirring the snack mix in a large roasting pan.  The smell of butter, season-all, and Worcestershire sauce would waft out of the oven and creep through the house before the door was closed again.  I could hardly wait for it to be finished and cool enough to eat.  I often wouldn’t wait and would snag a few pieces from the roasting pan while the mix was being stirred. She would

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December 20, 2018 33 Comments
All Things Home

the Carlisle & the Hanover

Remember the Dash & Albert rug design competition that happened back in the summer of 2017?  Well, samples of the rugs were made, approved, and now they are finally for sale on the Dash & Albert website! If you remember, both of these designs were based on elements of an antique coverlet I bought a few years ago. The Hanover rug is the all-over coverlet pattern in a repeat, simplified to work for a rug… …and the Carlisle is an enlarged section of the border. They are named after two towns in Pennsylvania –  Hanover and Carlisle.  I found the coverlet in an antique shop in Carlisle and I often frequented antique stores in Hanover, so those names seemed fitting. Here is the Hanover in my office… That was just the sample and I now have a smaller version of it in our guest bathroom downstairs. And here is the

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December 18, 2018 23 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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