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All Things Home

All Things Home

painted checkerboard studio floor reveal

Well, it involved a lot of patience, crawling around on the floor, tape (3 rolls), and dry time, but the painted checkerboard floors in the studio are finally finished! And I absolutely love them! I would say I wished I had done them initially when we first moved in, but I’m glad I had some time to live with the white-painted floors first.  The room has been a slow evolution, so I could learn how I worked best and what I needed.  I’ve put a lot of thought into the placement of each piece and, while I’m sure I’ll continue to tweak and maybe even do a full overhaul down the road, it’s pretty perfect for right now.  I needed to do a lot of scooting to figure that out, though, and the floors took the brunt of that. The checkerboard pattern on the floor adds just enough interest without

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All Things Home

painting the other side of the studio floor…

Last week, I was determined to get the studio floor finished.  That’s one of the difficult things about doing projects in stages.  It’s shiny and new at the outset, but when you only have about four feet to finish, it’s hard to get motivated.  It’s not exciting any longer and it’s somewhat anticlimactic.  But, it was pretty obvious that the floor was only partially done and I was really ready to have the studio put back together again and looking pretty. So, Monday morning, I moved all of the furniture over to the left side of the room.  Well, all of the furniture except the massive cabinet!  That piece is so heavy and so full (and it’s screwed into the wall) that it needs to stay where it is.  I’m rarely in favor of painting around a piece of furniture, but in the case of pieces that are huge and

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a slice of life

easy creamy potato & ham soup jars

We are just in one of those seasons of life when things are really busy.  I’m sure so many of you can relate.  You get a few months in a row when evenings and weekends are generally quiet and then you hit a stretch when there is something happening every single day.  Jeff has a meeting at church, the boys have climb team practice, I have a women’s event or a planning committee meeting, Jeff has a men’s thing, we have small group, Marshall has a 7th-grade boy’s hangout, the kids have tubing with the youth group…  It’s all good stuff and fun stuff, but it’s meant that we’re either eating early or late.   So, meal prep on the weekends has been key and a big part of that is making soup jars.  I cook one or two big pots of soup (usually a double recipe) and portion it out

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All Things Home

Furniture Dilemmas | Marylisa’s French Chairs

When Marylisa sent me a picture of her chairs, I knew I had just the posts, tutorials, and examples to share with her!  If you’ve followed me for a few years, you probably know how much I enjoy buying and reupholstering French-style chairs.  Well, I don’t really enjoy upholstery, but I enjoy the results and this style of chair is much easier to upholster because of the wood frame.  If you’re considering diving into the world of upholstery, this kind of chair is a good place to start. So, here is what Marylisa’s chairs look like now… The last photo shows an antique linen sheet draped over one of the chairs.  She purchased a few at an antique store to use on these chairs.  I won’t ever argue with antique linen! These chairs are almost identical in style to the buffalo checked chairs in my kitchen eating area… But I

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All Things Home

the (almost finished) studio floors & the evolution of a space

Well, it’s not a full reveal of the checkerboard floor, but I think you’ll get the idea! As I started working on this post, I realized I already said everything I needed to say about these floors in Part 1 and Part 2 of painting the checkerboard floors.  I shared the why and the how, the sources, and colors.  And I showed the whole process in a tidy 3-minute timelapse video.   All I could think of to say in this post was, “Here they are!” So, I tried typing out more descriptions of the floors and more details about the process, but it felt redundant and like filler.  It was also at the end of the day when my writing starts to dramatically fall off a cliff. I decided to leave it until morning when I could approach the post with a fresh perspective and I had time to marinate

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All Things Home

painting checkerboard floors | part 2

When you last saw the floors, they were all taped off and ready to paint.  You can find that post HERE if you missed it. The taping was definitely the most time-consuming part.  After that, it’s pretty much smooth sailing for this project. I initially purchased the same color I used on my kitchen walls – Stonington Gray mixed at 50%.  I wanted the squares to be a very pale blue/gray, so the checkers would be subtle and not too high contrast with the bright white.  I painted the first row of squares, removed the tape and knew, even before it dried, that it wasn’t what I wanted.  The color looks very blue/gray in my kitchen, but in the studio, it looked like a pale beige.  I pondered it for a few minutes and decided I spent waaaaaay too much time and energy taping off those squares to settle.  So,

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All Things Home

Painting Checkboard Floors | Part 1

I’ve had the painting-checkerboard-floors itch for a long time!  Back in 2012 I was contemplating finishing my dining room and living room in a two-toned stained checkerboard pattern (you can find that post HERE), but Jeff didn’t love the idea and talked me out of it.  I was slightly relieved because the prospect of doing all of that geometry made me nervous.  I just wasn’t sure I had the patience or attention to detail to pull it off well. When we moved into this house, I knew the studio would be the perfect candidate to finally try a checkerboard floor, but there was just so much to be done that it seemed to be silly to crawl around on the floor taping off squares for an entire day.  I just needed to get paint on the floors and then deal with more elaborate ideas later. Can you believe this is

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All Things Home

reworking the office shelves

Buying used books on Amazon and regular visits to means that the bookshelves in my office and studio are always in flux.  I’m constantly having to arrange and rearrange to accommodate new acquisitions.  So, a couple of weeks ago, I took some time to get the shelves in both my office and studio tidied up. Yes, I organize my books by color and size.  It just looks neater on the shelf to me and I can still find what I’m looking for, because books that are similar in topic are stored on different shelves in different rooms.  All of my art and design books are in my studio and my home and business books are in my office.  This method isn’t going to work for everyone, but it works for me! I also decided to hang my guitar next to the bookshelf.  I find that I’m more likely to pick

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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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