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All Things Home

Decorating

Painting Trim, Sewing Pillows & More

 Between a sick boy and snow days, we’ve basically had a four day weekend, which is fun (aside from the sick kid), but it ‘s tough when I work from home and have things I need to do.  We snuggled, though, and went to see Frozen and built a snowman.  Today they were back in school and I was back to work.  My husband installed new trim in the family room yesterday, so I primed and painted it today… It’s just simple pine boards, but it ties into the 1940’s part of the house and looks a little beefier.  I like beefy molding.  Just putting that out there. We still need to add some shoe molding and 3/4 height wainscoting to finish things off.  This room is pretty big with a cathedral ceiling, so it would greatly benefit from some architectural detail.  I would love to add some wood beams

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Family Room

My upholstery machine & “the sofa”

With all of the slipcover and upholstery posts I’ve been sharing lately, I’ve received a lot of questions about the sewing machines I use.  I have two.  One is  $150 Kenmore machine that I’ve been using for about six years.  I have used and abused that poor little machine and it has done an amazing job and is still going.  I have never oiled it, never had it cleaned and have asked it to do way more than it was made to do.  One night, though, I was working on the channel back chair and the machine was choking on the layers of  thick, antique hemp fabric. I was working with grain sack and hemp more and more, so it was time to upgrade to an upholstery machine that was made for what I was doing. Enter machine number two – the Sailrite LS-1.  It’s on sale for $654 right now,

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Family Room

familyroomgallery

With all of the slipcover and upholstery posts I’ve been sharing lately, I’ve received a lot of questions about the sewing machines I use.  I have two.  One is  $150 Kenmore machine that I’ve been using for about six years.  I have used and abused that poor little machine and it has done an amazing job and is still going.  I have never oiled it, never had it cleaned and have asked it to do way more than it was made to do.  One night, though, I was working on the channel back chair and the machine was choking on the layers of  thick, antique hemp fabric. I was working with grain sack and hemp more and more, so it was time to upgrade to an upholstery machine that was made for what I was doing. Enter machine number two – the Sailrite LS-1.  It’s on sale for $654 right now,

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Decorating

Boxwood & My Christmas Tree

I just did a photo shoot today for the MMSMP color of the month, Boxwood, so I thought I would share.  I think this may be my favorite non-blue/gray color in the line.  It’s so rich and pretty.  I’ve sold all of the pieces I’ve painted in Boxwood, but I have a dresser in my son’s room that is just begging for it.  I was hoping to get to that this month, since it is the color of the month, but with slipcovers and upholstering and decorating for Christmas and the family room trim and all of that, I think it’ll have to wait.  Anyway, here are some pictures to give you a good sense of the color… Can you tell I enjoy these shoots?  I really do.  I think the photography/styling aspect of my job has become one of my favorite things to work on.  If you want to

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Dining Room

Dining Chair Slipcover Tutorial

I wrote a tutorial on making dining room chair slipcovers years (and several dining sets) ago when I was a contributor to Cottages & Bungalows magazine.    It’s so neat to see how far I’ve come in my sewing, photography, writing, styling.  I’ve really grown a lot.  Anyway, since I’ve improved in a few departments, I thought it was time to make a new tutorial as I worked on my last dining room chair slipcover.  The one I made for the tutorial looks like this… But you can also adapt this tutorial for a chair like this… The idea is the same.  Just create an extra slit for each arm and double the amount of ties.  You can also adjust the kind of skirt you have on the slipcover.  I like the ruffles, but you can do knife pleats, box pleats, no pleats…whatever floats your boat. I always use the

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Dining Room

missmustardseed-42 (640×352)

I wrote a tutorial on making dining room chair slipcovers years (and several dining sets) ago when I was a contributor to Cottages & Bungalows magazine.    It’s so neat to see how far I’ve come in my sewing, photography, writing, styling.  I’ve really grown a lot.  Anyway, since I’ve improved in a few departments, I thought it was time to make a new tutorial as I worked on my last dining room chair slipcover.  The one I made for the tutorial looks like this… But you can also adapt this tutorial for a chair like this… The idea is the same.  Just create an extra slit for each arm and double the amount of ties.  You can also adjust the kind of skirt you have on the slipcover.  I like the ruffles, but you can do knife pleats, box pleats, no pleats…whatever floats your boat. I always use the

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Decorating

Getting a Tree & Style Update

Today we went to pick out our Christmas tree at the local tree farm where we have bought our trees for the past few years.  It was a chilly day, so we strolled through the open barn looking over the lineup of 8 ft+ trees.  One caught my eye.  It was tall and looked perfect.  Confident in my ability to pick out an amazing tree, I went over to buy some garland while the tree I selected in about 10 seconds was wrapped and strapped to the top of our van.  When we got home, my husband trimmed the lower branches and we put it in the stand and put it in place. Hm.  It looked a bit thinner than I remembered and there were some big holes in the shape of it.  Plus, the branches point more up than out.  Did I really pick that tree?!   Yep.  I did.  Well,

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Tutorials

missmustardseed-19 (640×352)

I finished painting, staining and slip covering the four Craig’s List chairs for the dining room a fewweeks ago and have been on the hunt for chairs to use for the ends of the table.  As it happens, I’ve had two other French cane chairs that are almost identical to the Craig’s List ones in my basement stash.  I bought them at Lucketts for $50/each, but haven’t been excited to work on them.  The seats on both of them are broken and I wasn’t sure how to deal with that.  The caning isn’t in sheets, but hand done, so I wasn’t about to try repairing the cane!  So, they’ve been sitting in my basement for over two years.  The ones I bought off Craig’s List had pretty good seats, but at some point, an upholstered seat was made for them, so I used that as my inspiration for “fixing” these

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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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