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All Things Home

All Things Home

oak buffet reveal & new matte Tough Coat

Unless you follow me on Instagram, you last saw this piece with the top stripped and one coat of paint.  It’s in the “ugly stage” – the stage when you want to drop it on the curb and let someone else look at it.  But, that would be a mistake. It may not look like it at this point, but this buffet is almost there. The graining on the top was so beautiful and I didn’t want to hide it with paint or stain, so I just stripped it down (see the in-the-works post for details on that) and applied two coats of Hemp Oil to bring out the natural beauty.   As it was drying, I could tell the piece was crazing and cracking, but I didn’t know the extent until I ran a sanding sponge over the surface and the paint just flaked off!  My mom, who does not

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All Things Home

oak buffet in-the-works

Last week, a reader left a comment asking for me to show more behind-the-scenes pictures.  It was a simple, polite request and it made me realize I don’t do that as much as I used to.  I think I always feel like the pictures have to be pretty, “Pin-worthy” images that will be liked and shared.  Pinterest, Instagram and the infamous Facebook algorithm really changed what bloggers (on the whole) share and how they share it and I am not an exception. But, that comment got me thinking.  As a DIYer myself, I love looking at the before and afters and inspirational pictures, but I also want to know the HOW behind it.  While I’ve written hundreds of how-oriented, tutorial posts, it doesn’t mean I can’t share the latest “hows” behind what I’m working on. For those who are new, it might be new information and, for those who have been

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All Things Home

family room furniture shuffle

This seems to happen every year.  I’m acquiring furniture and antiques to sell at the Lucketts Spring Market and the desire to change things up in my own home starts to brew.  Since I moved my business from my house to the studio, the furniture rearranging has really slowed down.  A lot.  It used to be a weekly occurrence, but it’s now a few times a year.  It’s not as easy to “try things on” as it used to be and I find that I get the “furniture shuffling bug” out of my system at the studio. Jeff and my oldest son, Marshall, were sick this weekend, so my parents took Calvin, our youngest, to an Easter egg hunt and out to lunch to get him out of the house.  I was stuck inside, though, holding puke pots, administering medicine, taking temperatures and sanitizing everything the sick boys looked at.

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All Things Home

the chair that didn’t need a makeover…

…but ended up getting one anyway. It took me months to get the nerve to rip the beautiful Pierre Deux fabric off of this chair… I loved the colors, the pattern and the upholstery was done very well.  There were a couple problems with it – it didn’t work with my Farmhouse White theme for the Lucketts Spring Market and the fabric was faded at the back and a little dingy.  You don’t really notice it in the pictures, but it looked tired. It was still hard for me to rip it off, so I had Kriste start on it while I worked on something else. When I started putting the chair back together again, with pieces cut from an antique hemp sheet and ticking, I was at peace with the decision. The chair is still its pretty, Frenchy self, but it feels fresher; less fussy. I finished it off

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All Things Home

ironstone brush boxes & grandma Shoemaker’s pitcher

It’s no secret that I love ironstone.  It’s my favorite thing to collect and I am totally honed in on it when I’m out shopping for antiques. I get excited at just about any piece of ironstone, but uncommon pieces especially get my heart pumping just a little faster.  Such is the case with brush boxes.  I own a couple and have sold a few, but they aren’t very easy to find and usually they are a bit pricey ($50-150). They are long, narrow boxes with lids that would have originally come in a “wash set” that contained a wash basin, pitcher, chamberpot, slop bucket, etc.  The brush box would hold toothbrushes and perhaps razors. I found the most amazing brush box when Kriste and I were out shopping earlier this week and the price was definitely right!  I think it was $18 or something crazy like that.  I spotted it and impulsively reached

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All Things Home

a curvy chair gets a makeover…

It’s really hard to turn down free stuff, especially when it’s a curvy chair that just needs a little cosmetic work to make it special.  So, when my friend Traer brought this to my studio, asking if I’d take it off her hands, I couldn’t say no. In the flurry of activity, I didn’t get a proper picture before we stripped off the upholstery that it was wearing.   It was black tapestry with some purples, creams and green in it.  Not my thing. So, we stripped off the old upholstery (Katie and I took turns working on it) and then I sanded the glossy frame and painted it in two coats of Farmhouse White. The paint adhered really well, even without the bonding agent, so I didn’t get a lot of chipping, which I was glad for.  There is such a large contrast between the dark wood and the

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All Things Home

milk paint 101 | topcoats

I realized I totally dropped the ball on our Milk Paint 101 series!  I left you at the first coat and promptly forgot about you. So, you’ve applied the number of coats needed in order to get the finish as opaque as desired.  In most cases, two coats do it.  Sometimes more are required if there is a high contrast between the color you chose and the surface you’re painting. Once everything is dry, this is when I like to distress.  Some people like to apply wax or oil finishes first, then distress, then apply the finish again, while others like to dive right into the distressing.  I fall in the latter camp.  It’s one less step and it uses less product.  The advantage to waxing or oiling first is that it cuts down dramatically on the amount of dust that is produced. If you’re interested in my distressing tips and

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All Things Home

making a “vintage” chalkboard with milk paint

As I shared yesterday, the past couple of weeks in the studio have been devoted to getting things finished that have been hanging around for way too long.  I’ve ignored some of them, because I knew they would be a pain-in-the-rear to work on, like the French chair with nailhead trim (yet to be revealed), and I ignored others because I just didn’t know what to do with them.  I knew they had potential and I wasn’t quite ready to give up on them, so they languished in “the stash”.  This oversized Eastlake mirror frame, minus the mirror, was one of those pieces, but it was a perfect piece to repurpose.  Here’s how I went about making it into a vintage chalkboard with milk paint. Before we get into the tutorial on making a vintage-style chalkboard with milk paint, a bit of history…  I picked it up at a yard

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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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