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All Things Home
Decorating

our master bedroom makeover reveal

A few of you have asked to see the full reveal of how our master/primary bedroom makeover turned out, so I am sharing all of the details in today’s post.  Since we’ve been living with this finished bedroom since the summer of 2020, I don’t really think about sharing it, but I’ve only shown little peeks and previews of the room and not the completed space.  I wanted to save that for my book, Feels Like Home.  There are tons of tips about decorating a bedroom as well as different photos of the room in the book, but I wanted to show some before & after pictures as well as resources & links to tutorials together all in one place. So, here is the final result of the bedroom makeover!  Well, for now.  You know how room makeovers go.  They are done until they are ready to be redone or

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February 22, 2022 13 Comments
Decorating

timeless decorating & design inspiration

While I’m always inspired by magazines, I tend to hold onto them for a while and then drop them off in recycling or pass them along to someone else after a time.  Fresh inspiration comes in and there is only so much room for magazines that I’m not likely to revisit as a resource.  But, there is one magazine in particular that has managed to stay in my stash for almost 20 years.  Every time I sort through my magazines and books, I make sure this one is clearly set aside and saved.  I actually thought I misplaced it last year and I started hunting for a replacement., but I found my original copy.  Whew!  The issue that has offered timeless inspiration to me was the September 2002 issue of .  And, even more specifically, the article on the Swedish-style home of the Carlsons. This article was like a pebble

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February 15, 2022 28 Comments
Antiques

antique travel dip pens & pencils

I have loved writing supplies for as long as I can remember.  Shopping for school supplies was almost better than Christmas.  Almost.  (I even still do back-to-school supplies for mom.)  I loved picking out just the right pens and pencils and zipper pouches to put them in.  One year, we did some of our back-to-school shopping at Breuningers, a German department store, and I remember picking out this sketching kit with pencils, an eraser, a ruler, and a few other drawing tools.  I loved the set so much that I wanted to just open it up and look at it.  Using it seemed like a luxury I wasn’t going to indulge in until I had admired it enough. All of this to say that writing supplies are my jam and I have enjoyed diving deeper into the world of pens and pencils over the past couple of years.  Recently, I’ve

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February 10, 2022 14 Comments
All Things Home

ensuite bathroom makeover

Do you remember back in the summer of 2020 when we were working on our ensuite bathroom?  Well, I shared the plan and some of the process (you can see the process post HERE), but I wanted to share the final reveal in my book, .  It was important to me that some spaces and the majority of the photos felt fresh to even the most regular readers.  So, I never shared the final photos of our bathroom makeover.  But, now that the book has been out for a few months and the ensuite bathroom is only represented on a couple of pages, I wanted to share the full reveal here on the blog. The ensuite bathroom makeover was a hybrid of DIY and work that was hired out to pros.  And, I did the project management in order to save costs, but I had a great tiler (Matt Grant

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February 8, 2022 27 Comments
Antiques

books, antiques, and yarn | stillwater outing

I was hoping to take a few day trips during my break to check out some new antique shops, used book stores, and local craft boutiques, but I just didn’t have the kid-free days to do it.  Jeff could tell that a day out would really be good for me, so he took on school/kid duties and I took a day trip to Stillwater, MN.  We went there in the fall (you can read about that trip HERE) and I loved that town!  There are several antique malls, an amazing used book store, and a yarn shop that I didn’t go to during our previous visit. It was 2º and windy, so it wasn’t exactly a delightful day to be walking around outside, but it was still refreshing to get out of the house and soak up some inspiration that comes from being in a different environment. I tried to

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February 1, 2022 26 Comments
All Things Home

the new living room jute rug & winter mantel

Just a few days before Christmas, I received a for the living room.  I had the white jute rug for about a year and a half and it was showing wear much faster than other jute rugs I’ve owned.  I wrote an initial review about it HERE where I mentioned that the weave was a little loose.  Furniture legs ended up getting caught in the loose weave of that particular rug and the white color started to get a little dingy.  With teenage boys, a dog, and two cats, that wasn’t too surprising. l | So, I decided to go with a natural jute rug and one that had a tighter weave.  Jeff doesn’t generally make comments about decor, but when we rolled this new jute rug out, the , he immediately commented how much better he liked it.  (This is not a sponsored post, but the rug was given to

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January 27, 2022 14 Comments
a slice of life

Bavarian Pretzels (Bretzels) Recipe

For Christmas, I got a cookbook called .  It’s an excellent book if you’re interested in learning about or improving your bread baking.  As I read through it, I was surprised to see a recipe for German/Bavarian soft pretzels (bretzels.)   These delicious soft pretzels spilled over the German border into France and were adopted by the region of Alsace.  For those who don’t know, I’m a military brat who spent most of my childhood in Germany and soft pretzels were my very favorite thing.  I was excited at the idea of being able to make an authentic-tasting recipe at home, so I made my first batch on New Year’s Day. Over my winter break, perfecting Bavarian pretzels became one of my missions.  I think I ended up making five batches over three weeks and I tested, tweaked, and tasted.  Lots of tasting!  I don’t want to say they are perfect

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January 25, 2022 22 Comments
Antiques

the Christmas victrola

A few of you noticed my early Christmas present in the Holiday Home Tour I shared a couple of weeks ago.  If you were with me when I lived back in PA, you may remember that I owned a Victrola.  I bought it in a lot of furniture.  It was thrown in as a freebie, but it was the piece I was most excited about.  The cabinet was in poor condition, but the Victrola worked and I enjoyed it so much.  I would play records on it now and then, although it’s a bit impractical to play one song at a time when compared to an infinite playlist on an iPhone.  When we moved to MN, I decided to let it go.  I just didn’t see a 100+-year-old Victrola really working aesthetically in a typical suburban home. Over the 4+ years we’ve lived here though, I have found myself browsing

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December 24, 2021 21 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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