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All Things Home

All Things Home

styling the girl’s vintage bedroom

When I was a little kid, my favorite toy was my dollhouse.  I enjoyed living out the imaginary lives of the little people who resided there, but my favorite part was arranging and rearranging the furniture.  Even building “additions” with metal lebkuchen tins to make room for more furniture. I carried that into my teen years when I rearranged and restyled my room regularly.  You know.  Just for fun.  Like most typical teenagers. My furniture-scooting habits haven’t waned and have been well documented here on this blog. Now that I have a studio space, it’s like one big, open, life-sized dollhouse.  I can create vignettes, scenes, and even entire rooms (which I hope to do a lot more!) For the first time ever, we have a fully outfitted bed in the studio and I just couldn’t resist building an entire room around it. Here is a video showing how I

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All Things Home

the antique display case makeover

A large part of finding “good stuff” at antique stores and junk shops, is taking the time to really look through each booth and, in some cases, to dig around.  I know when I hit antique stores that I will usually end up needing a good hand-washing and a change of clothes when I’m done with the place! This cool, really old wood and glass display case was literally buried.  It had another cabinet stacked on top and stuff on both sides and leaning against the front.  I had to move things to even get a partial look at it, but the sneak peek I got of the old wood piqued my curiosity. It was really dirty, but I could look past that and see it was a gem and a great price.  Unfortunately, the glass on the front door cracked as the employees of the shop freed it from everything

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All Things Home

the whole house makeover & painted ironstone

When I was out shopping a couple of weeks ago, I came across this sweet little birdhouse… I almost passed it up, because the colors were a little drab, but I decided to give it a chance.  I decided to paint it in MMS Milk Paint Grain Sack with Boxwood on the “grass”.  Kriste loves little projects like this, so I asked her to paint it while I was working on something else. For some contrast on the roof, I picked Trophy and decided to add little stick windows on the dormers to match the stick details around the door and lower windows.  We just collected some from outside and hot-glued them on. As a finishing touch, we beefed up the moss “bushes” with some reindeer moss hot-glued into place. It’s now such a sweet storybook cottage birdhouse. The little stick porch is my favorite part.   See?  A whole

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a slice of life

tiny topiaries & “just our stuff”

Last year was a big year for me.  I finally decided to give gardening and indoor plants a real effort.  I was actually going to water, tend, prune, weed, and fertilize.  Guess what happened?  I didn’t kill everything! I only killed some things, but I learned a lot along the way. I was not excited about warmer temperatures, because the A/C is broken in my van, but I was looking forward to the greenhouses being full again!  When my mom and I were antique shopping on Friday, we popped into a couple of local nurseries.  I was looking specifically for topiaries, but only found a half-blackened rosemary topiary.  I did find some little plants that could be trimmed up and made into topiaries, so I thought I would give that a try. I trimmed them up and tied them with cotton string to some little sticks I found in the

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All Things Home

antique haul for the Lucketts Spring Market

One thing that I love about what I do and being “the boss” is that I can (most of the time) chose to do the kind of work that suits my mood on any particular day.  Last Friday, I was in a get-out-of-the-studio mood, so I decided to do some more shopping for the upcoming Lucketts Spring Market (May 20-22, 2016.) My mom and I set out for a newly opened store about 25 minutes away and hit another local shop on the way.  We ended up with a pretty nice haul! I have been wanting to do more videos lately, but keep putting it off.  It’s hard for me to take pictures of everything after these big shopping trips, so a video is an easy way to share it with you and I can also talk through my thought process for why I buy what I buy… My hair is in pretty

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All Things Home

decorating dilemma | joy’s family room

I got a text a few nights ago. “Hey there! OK, decorating question…we have a big two-story family room with plenty of natural light. Everything is brown now and I want to lighten it up with some greige paint. But I have oak trim that my husband won’t let me paint. Do you have a favorite greige color that would go with oak? Trying to think who in my life knows paint… Oh, right….I know a professional paint enthusiast!!!” This led to a lengthy virtual makeover through texts, pins and links.  I mean, how can I just pick a wall color and leave it at that?! This ended up being a perfect space for me to share as a decorating dilemma post. Here is the color palette and some ideas I put together for Joy’s space… Here is the family room as it is now… I love that there are

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All Things Home

updated tips for shopping craigslist

If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, you’ve probably caught on that craigslist is one of my favorite places to shop for furniture.  I’m often asked about it, so I thought I would share some updated tips along with my craigslist strategy and how I sort through the trash and treasures. First of all, I know I’m in a “good area” for finding furniture and antiques.  I live in south central PA and it’s not a very transient area.  Families live here for generations.  They don’t move, they add on.  We’ve lived in our town for almost ten years and I still feel like we’re relatively new. This is also a rural area and an old one, which means lots of old houses and barns.  All of those things combined means that there are attics, basements, spare rooms, and outbuildings filled with old things that eventually end up in

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All Things Home

cleaning cart turned garden cart

Remember the cleaning cart turned kitchen cart?  I found a pair of industrial cleaning carts on craigslist for a great price, so I decided to purchase both and turn one into a kitchen cart and give the other one a makeover to use as a garden cart. In case you missed the details of the kitchen cart transformation, you can find them HERE. Well, this is just another take on how these multi-functional furniture pieces can be used.   (I have two of them.)  Many of you gave great suggestions…a craft cart, laundry cart, toy storage, etc.  There are lots of possibilities. In this post, I’m showing it as a garden cart… I’m imagining it on a covered porch or in a potting shed. On one side of the garden cart, I put a pair of rain boots, broom & dustpan, and a wire basket.  It would also be a

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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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