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All Things Home
Antiques

Lucketts fall market wish list 2024

Here we are at another Lucketts Market!  I miss the weather (believe it or not) and friends in Minnesota, but I am so glad to be back on the East Coast again and an hour away from Lucketts.  As I’ve shared many times over the years, it’s a special place to me not only because it’s an awesome and inspiring place to shop, but because the people at Lucketts are dear to me.  So many of them are a part of my story.  They encouraged me, showed me the ropes, took me under their wing, championed my successes, graciously wished me well when it was time to move on, and welcomed me back as one would expect from old friends.  I find the collective group of designers, vendors, and creative minds endlessly inspiring.  It’s a vibe I want to soak in any time I can. I’ve gone to the last

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October 9, 2024 9 Comments
a slice of life

field trip | emporium antiques in Frederick, MD

Yesterday, I drove down to Frederick to meet Jodie of The Past Restored to drop off my oil paintings for the Lucketts Fall Market with her.  You can read about that spur-of-the-moment partnership HERE.  I had to pick Marshall up in a couple of hours, so instead of going home, I decided to poke around an antique store for a bit.  I shopped at Emporium Antiques years ago when I was an antique dealer, but I hadn’t been since moving back to the mid-Atlantic region.  I decided to spend my free time checking it out.  It was very much as I remember it, which was nice to see.  It always makes me sad when once wonderful antique stores fall into the decline of booths filled with NASCAR memorabilia, novelty candy, collectible shot glasses, and creepy dolls wearing a half-inch of dust.  Sometimes those stores can be awesome because you can

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October 8, 2024 15 Comments
1970 home renovation

picture frame molding | dining room makeover

I feel like I keep returning to the same decorating bag of tricks with picture frame molding, but it is such an inexpensive and easy way to add architectural detail to a space that it’s hard to resist.  A room can look stately, classic, and more interesting with just a couple hundred dollars invested in trim and a few hours of installation and caulking.  I love it and am sure I will keep going back to it since I can’t imagine trim details like chair rail and picture frame molding will ever go out of style.  If you’re interested in installing picture frame molding in your home, HERE is a tutorial showing how. Instead of trying to get all of the trim done in the dining room in one long day, I decided to work on it in bite-sized pieces.  I took measurements and drew out a plan and cut

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October 7, 2024 20 Comments
All Things Home

antique empire buffet

When I painted the dining room ceiling a few weeks ago, eagle-eyed readers might’ve noticed the new buffet in the corner under the plastic dropcloth.  I haven’t shown that corner of the dining room often, so it may have been overlooked entirely.  I recently acquired the beautiful antique Empire buffet from a local consignment shop after hunting for just the right piece for that corner for over a year. And here it is!  Isn’t it a beauty?  I spotted this handsome antique Empire buffet when I stopped in a local secondhand store on a whim just to see what they had.  It’s a well-kept shop with a nice rotation of inventory, but the prices can be all over the place.  Some really nice pieces are a bargain and others are more expensive than I would expect, but I’ve learned from buying and selling that pricing is always subjective when selling

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October 1, 2024 25 Comments
All Things Home

simple, natural fall mantel | autumn decorating

In the very early years of my blogging career, I connected with Layla of the Lettered Cottage.  I was smitten with her design aesthetic and eye for styling.  We both wrote tutorials for HGTV.com (you can find mine HERE) and wrote and contributed photography for several of the same editors and magazines.  We met at a few blog conferences over the years and even partnered on the very first Chapel Market hosted by her community in Alabama.  As another fun piece of history, one of the colors in the MMS Milk Paint line, Layla’s Mint, is named after her.  It was a color I custom-mixed for a secretary desk for her kitchen and we added it to the line soon after.  (That color is still available HERE.)  So, when Layla asked if I would like to team up to share fall decorating inspiration or a project with our readers, I

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September 26, 2024 11 Comments
Decorating

adding doors back on a hutch | dining room makeover

The dining room makeover has been at a standstill since I painted the ceiling last weekend because I have been in bed sick for several days.  I am up and about now but still moving slowly and not feeling the greatest.  It’s just normal virus stuff – congestion, sore throat, cough, and aches.  I’ve missed my daily walks and making progress on projects, but I’ve been enjoying some period dramas, interesting documentaries, reading books, and spending hours snuggling with the cats until I feel up to returning to my normal routines. Last week when I finished painting the dining room ceiling, though, I decided to make an additional small change. When we first looked at this house, I imagined the dining room as a library/dining room with built-in shelves lining most of the walls.  Once we started settling in and using the house a bit more, I wasn’t sure that

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September 16, 2024 8 Comments
1970 home renovation

painting the dining room ceiling

Well, I finally did it.  I’ve been dragging my feet for over a year, but I painted the dining room ceiling.  I have been hung up on working on this room just because I knew the ceiling had to be done first and I just really didn’t want to do it.  It wasn’t the painting I was dreading, but all of the prep work of moving things out and making sure the furniture and floors were protected.  I’m usually pretty casual when it comes to using dropcloths, but when painting a ceiling, I have to be more careful.  Saturday morning was dreary and cold, so I almost talked myself into a low-key day, but I was ready to have this job behind me.  I knew it would be a relief, so I pulled out the dropcloths, removed all of the small stuff from the room, got out the paint and

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September 9, 2024 26 Comments
Art

tonal floral still life sketch | oil painting tutorial

It’s been a little while since I’ve done a painting video tutorial, so even though this was just a sketch to get into the groove of oil painting again, I decided to set up the camera and turn it into a tutorial.  Really, it’s more of a paint-a-long than a tutorial since I wouldn’t consider myself an expert when it comes to painting flowers!  It is definitely not my sweet spot when it comes to oil painting, but they are a popular subject so I’ve decided to keep working on them despite feeling like it’s not my forté. This painting was done in about 40 minutes, so it’s what I would consider a sketch more than a finished painting.  My goal wasn’t to have something that looked refined and detailed, but instead a painting that was impressionistic, simplified, and loose.  I focused on blocking in the larger shapes and only

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September 5, 2024 9 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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