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All Things Home
All Things Home

painting the living room trim

Back in March, my mom and I installed a chair rail and picture frame molding in the living room (along with the basement guest room and 1/2 bath.)  You can find the tutorial HERE. Since then, painting below the chair rail has been hanging out on my to-do list…languishing there.  It’s one of those projects I had built up in my mind.  It’s going to be difficult.  It’s going to take forever.  I’m going to hate every second of it.  And, given that it didn’t look that bad as it was, I procrastinated.  Lest you think I am always the model of action and productivity…I am not. But, procrastination starts to wear on me after a while.  I get frustrated with myself and I know from experience that relief will come if I just buckle down and do the project.  So, I declared on my Instagram stories that I was

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June 25, 2019 28 Comments
a slice of life

all things lavender

When I shared my “secret” for making my house smell nice,  I received several requests here and on Instagram to share the exact lavender products I use.  Well, I aim to please, so here are the products I use in our home… Actually, before I show you the specific products, I’m going to make a request.  I have learned that, for some reason, discussions about cleaning products can get heated.  This is just one of those things that you learn after 10 years of blogging!  I think the reason is how we chose the products we use for cleaning, laundry, and bathing can be heavily informed by our convictions about the environment and health.  If someone is using a product we feel is wrong or bad for general health or the environment, we can get opinionated and verbal about it, because it doesn’t align with something that important to us.

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June 24, 2019 64 Comments
All Things Home

What’s missing from your room?

A few months ago, I was writing some content for a potential book project and I discovered that I was talking more to myself than to anyone else.  I was saying something to the effect of, “If you’re feeling stuck in a room, the likely culprit is the lack of a statement piece.”  As soon as I finished writing that segment, I ran up the steps and stood in the doorway of our master bedroom.  I took in the view of the large, light-filled space. It’s a beautiful room.  I’ve never had a prettier room in my life.  But it’s not quite there.  And it has nothing to do with the room itself.  I was given a perfect blank slate without any quirks to contemplate.  It has everything to do with the fact that there isn’t a statement piece – a compass to which all of the other design elements

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June 20, 2019 90 Comments
All Things Home

gardening around the electrical box

Last year, on the wave of getting the front garden done, I got a bee in my bonnet and decided to start working on the section of garden around the electrical boxes. This is how far I got… My grit and determination stopped at digging out a few monster perennials and hauling three wheelbarrow-loads full of rock to under our deck.  I decided this area could be ugly through the winter.  Snow would eventually cover it and I wouldn’t even think about it again until the passes cleared in May.  (I’m being facetious there if you didn’t pick up on that.) Anyway, we’ve had gorgeous spring evenings, so I decided to take advantage of one of those and pick up where I left off.  Within five minutes, I remembered why I had abandoned this project.  Rocking out tufts of grass with a weed pulling tool an inch at a time

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June 18, 2019 17 Comments
All Things Home

summer project list

Before I hop into today’s post, I wanted to let you know that it’s the last day to join Mustard Seed Mentoring.  So, if you’ve been pondering it, now is the day to decide! I can tell you that, so far, we have an amazing group of creative entrepreneurs already signed up.  There are members who are just starting a business and those who have been in business for decades.  We have shop owners, furniture flippers, bloggers, makers, artists, and more.  They have already started sharing their beautiful business stories and I am excited about working with this special group of people.  Their names are written on post-it notes, stuck up onto the glass window of my studio door.  Each time I walk past them, I am thankful for each one and I think about the information I can share with them that will make a real difference in their

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June 13, 2019 20 Comments
All Things Home

spring garden update 2019

Now that the kids are on summer vacation, spring is in full swing here in MN!  Seriously, that’s how long it takes!!  The garden is finally more than just a few sprouts.  It still has a ways to go, but I thought I would share how it’s coming along. The house finches vacated their nest on my Christmas wreath, so I was able to take it down and swap it out for a simple artificial boxwood wreath.  I know this wreath is boring, but I’ve used it for years and it gets me from spring to fall.  (I think I need to turn it or squish it or something to straighten it out…) I decided to try ferns in the concrete urns this year, instead of flowers.  They seem to be doing well so far. I filled the large concrete urn in the middle of the front garden with petunias

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June 12, 2019 49 Comments
All Things Home

sewing room fabrics

Before we dive into the fabrics for the guest room, thank you so much for all of your encouraging words about Mustard Seed Mentoring yesterday!  I am looking forward to working with those who signed up so far!  If you’re still thinking about it, I will be on Instagram Live and Facebook Live over the next couple of days to share more about it and I’ve also answered some FAQ’s at the bottom of this post. If you totally missed it, you can read all about it HERE. So, to the sewing room!  I shared my plans to drape the entire room in toile last week.  You can read about that HERE. Well, I received the fabric sample and it’s perfect!  It even works great with a woven stripe I already own, so I can use that as an accent. I like to get a visual (as best as I

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June 11, 2019 45 Comments
a slice of life

simple summer dinner

More and more, I don’t mind cooking dinner, but  I hate having to use creative energy to figure out what I’m going to make for dinner.  I do like meal services for that reason and we do those occasionally, but I’m on my own most of the time.  That means that I keep things pretty simple… naan pizzas, breakfast for dinner, soup, etc.  We also do the tried and true standby of chicken, veggies, and a starch. One of our favorites during the late spring and summer is asparagus and chicken.  It’s such a simple dinner, but it’s very tasty. Let’s start with the asparagus.  I prefer skinny asparagus since they are more tender, but I was only able to find the big boys when I was at the store this week.  In that case, I’ll cut them in half or quarters length-wise. I put them in a shallow pan

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June 5, 2019 6 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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