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All Things Home

Antiques

latest antique & vintage finds

Over the weekend, I felt the urge to get out of the house and explore a bit.  My mom and I have hit a few local stores now and then, but with renovations happening and lots of work to do, I’ve been home a lot lately.  I needed to go to the grocery store to get some fresh produce anyway, so I decided to drop in a few thrift stores first.  On the way, I remembered an antique store Jeff and I visited when we first moved here that is just a few minutes from our house, so I stopped in there first. It’s a store that is a bit hit or miss with some booths that feel more thrift-store-ish and some booths that have nice antiques.  I ended up finding a few great things for my kitchen, though, which is what I was looking for.  I was specifically looking

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Antiques

Antique European Mould Rack

When our kitchen renovation plans were in the very early stages, I had in mind that I wanted to find an antique plate rack.  I have always been drawn to them, especially since I have an extensive collection of ironstone and dishes.  There’s always a chance I’ll find one at an antique store or market, but I was combing Maria’s shopping and van-loading pictures as she took shopping trips to Europe to fill a container to ship back to the US to sell online and in her California-based shop, Dreamy Whites.  I spotted this pretty pine rack on her Instagram stories one day, circled it, and texted her the picture. Several weeks ago, before the kitchen renovation even started, a huge box arrived unexpectedly at my doorstep.  Maria is incredibly generous, so it’s not unusual for packages to arrive when I haven’t ordered anything from her.  I opened the box,

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Antiques

furniture follies

A couple of weeks ago, on the high of shopping at the Lucketts Spring Market and finding some great pieces for our kitchen, I spotted a charming pair of chairs on Facebook Marketplace.  Right away, I got those butterflies when I find something special.  They are unique, and adorable, and would be so perfect for our kitchen.  I double-checked the measurements and thought they would be perfect.  So, I arranged to pick them up the next evening. As soon as I saw the chairs in person, though, I knew something was off with the measurements.  What I thought were nicely-sized kitchen chairs were very small in scale with straight backs and shallow seats, and they were so light I could easily pick two up at a time.  If I could figure out the logistics, I could probably carry all six at a time. I knew looking at them and sitting

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1970 home renovation

1970 kitchen renovation | this & that

It seems like the kitchen should be done already, but all of the little finishing details take time and that’s what’s been happening in the kitchen for the past few days.  It’s a little bit of this and that.  Installing trim, caulking, painting, patching, finishing, and starting to get things more organized.  So, I thought I would share some of the this and that, because it’s all a part of the kitchen renovation. Last week, the trim went in around the dining room and basement door frames and it’s amazing how much that added!  It’s just simple trim, but it did the trick at making these mismatched doors make more sense together.  (The dining room doors are open in the photo below.)  We worked on filling, caulking, and painting them yesterday. The “appliance garages” are actually regular cabinets with hinges that will hold the door up when opened.  We looked

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1970 home renovation

1970 kitchen renovation | installing cabinet hardware

Last weekend, Jeff and I took some time to put the hardware on the cabinets  We have put a lot of hardware on furniture and cabinets over the years, so we knew this was a task we could manage ourselves.  We were also working with two different styles and a few different hardware sizes, so I wanted to ensure I could take my time to determine the correct placement on each cabinet and drawer.  It would be somewhat tedious due to my own uncertainty on a few things, so it would be better for us to install it ourselves instead of dragging someone else into the lets-try-it-in-the-center-again process. As a reminder, THESE are the crystal and brass knobs I selected for the cabinets and a few of the drawers and THESE are the unlacquered brass pulls I ordered for the drawers, appliances, and select cabinets.  I did a lot of

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Furniture Makeovers

stripping an antique pine baker’s table

Who is ready for a furniture makeover tutorial?  I haven’t had one of those in a while, but you can find a bunch of old ones HERE!  If you’re new here, working on furniture used to be my specialty.  I do refinishing, painting, upholstery, repair, slipcovers, and all types of rehab.  When I moved to Minnesota, though, I shut down that part of my business and I only work on pieces here and there for my own home.  I do still enjoy it to a point, but it’s not what I want to do all day every day anymore.  After working on this table, my back and arms confirmed that!  So, I bought this beautiful antique baker’s table at Lucketts to use as our new kitchen island.  I knew that I didn’t want the black-painted base, but I also knew that was something I could address pretty easily.  While I

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All Things Home

Lucketts Spring Market 2023 recap

On Thursday afternoon, my mom and I set off for Northern Virginia to visit old friends and spend a day at the Lucketts Spring Market.  Throughout the weekend I thought, this is why we moved back…  So I could go to Luckettts again.  Just kidding!  It’s so we would be close to family so we can do things together and be there to support one another. We were invited by Chris Tigges to stay at her bed & breakfast and wedding event, Zion Springs, on Thursday evening so we would have a quick 30-minute drive to the Lucketts Spring Market in the morning.  The Clarke County Fairgrounds is almost exactly an hour from Hagerstown, so we could’ve made that drive pretty easily, but this makes the event more of a treat for us.  And, staying at Zion Springs is a treat. We stayed there during our last Lucketts Spring Market

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Antiques

Lucketts Spring Market 2023

I feel like I’m going home in a way!  The Lucketts Spring Market was a big event in my business for almost a decade and it’s so fun to be back.  I’m just going as a shopper on VIP day, which is a lot less work than being a vendor!  In case you have never heard of Lucketts or you need a refresh (or just some interesting backstory about gritty entrepreneurs), let’s rewind. The Old Lucketts Store is an antique/home decor/everything store that probably never should’ve been a success.  It is an 1800s general store/boarding house in a one-stoplight town on a pokey two-lane road in the farms and vineyards of Loudon County, Virginia that will never, ever get foot traffic.  At the time the old building became an antique store in 1996, Loudoun County was still mostly cornfields.  It wasn’t the bustling DC suburb that is one of the

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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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