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Decorating
a slice of life

10 minute ideas | cherry chocolate ice cream

It’s time for another 10 minute idea!  My previous 10 minute ideas were teacup topiaries and making an “antique” bread board. This month, the challenge was to share a 10 minute no-bake dessert. I immediately knew what I was going to share, because it’s my very favorite summer treat… …homemade cherry chocolate ice cream. I love cherries and look forward to them with great anticipation each May.  And I mourn their departure in September.  So, I squeeze cherries in every meal, snack and treat I can when they are in season. For this dessert, I cut the cherries off of the pit and then chop them into bite-sized pieces.  (My fingernail beds are pretty much permanently stained from cutting cherries during the summer, but some things are worth it!) I use Breyer’s Natural Vanilla ice cream as the “base.”  It’s the only vanilla I’ve been able to find in my grocery

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August 26, 2015 17 Comments
All Things Home

decorating dilemma | a wood stove

Once I wrote about working on Megan’s office, I started getting e-mails from readers who weren’t local, but really wanted some help with their spaces.  Sadly, I’ve had to tell them that’s not really my forte.  I once tried to do a virtual consultation and ended up throwing in the towel before I really got going. I feel like I need to stand in the space, see the homeowner’s style and what they have to work with in order to really be able to help them.  Of course, I can look at a picture and throw out some ideas, but what if it’s not functional for their family or it doesn’t work at all with their style?  Is that really valuable to them, then?  And, if it’s not valuable to them, is it even worth doing? But then, I was looking through the latest issue of Country Living magazine as I was hanging

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August 25, 2015 61 Comments
All Things Home

painting tips that could save you $1000

Catchy title for a post, isn’t it?  You’ll see why once you get to the bottom… I have done a lot of painting over the years…every wall, ceiling, piece of trim and cabinetry in my current house AND previous house.  Some rooms have been painted multiple times.  And I’ve helped a lot of friends and family paint their rooms. Not to mention all of the furniture… I know how to give a brush a workout. I’ve shared all kinds of painting tips on this blog, but I figured I’d share a few more. Megan and I were painting her office last week and, although she’s a proficient painter, she asked me to do the cutting in where the chalkboard wall met the Gray Owl (Benjamin Moore) wall. It’s definitely more pressure when there is a high contrast between two paint colors meeting at a corner, like in Megan’s office and

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August 25, 2015 24 Comments
All Things Home

Megan’s office makeover | part 4 | wall colors & design elements

I spent a good part of the day at Megan’s house, helping her paint her office.  If you’re just hopping in on this series, we’re in the middle of giving her small office a farmhouse-style makeover on a budget of $1000.  Here are the previous three posts, so you can get caught up! part 1 | the before part 2 | the “franken-chair” part 3| the plan In a nutshell, here’s the plan for the space… …but you can get the full details HERE. Today, Megan and I were able to put two coats of paint on the walls in a few hours as our four boys (two mine, two hers) played together and her husband acted as referee. We were both giddy as the paint was drying and the look of the room was taking shape. And we took a few minutes to talk about the wall colors as well

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August 22, 2015 19 Comments
All Things Home

vintage-style deck makeover

I’ve always been what you call an “indoor girl” when it comes to home decor.  When we put our house on the market (and ended up not selling it) last spring, our realtor put an “I’m Beautiful Inside” sign above the “For Sale” sign.  That’s realtor code for “It looks better once you walk through the front door.” It’s not that I didn’t care about the outside, but with two little boys, a business to run and a limited budget, we focused our attention on the inside and didn’t have much time, money or motivation to work on the outside. Now that the boys are getting older and we’re almost finished with the inside of the house, we’ve been working on the outside in bits and pieces.  We replaced the front door (you could actually see outside through some cracks in the old door), installed a new driveway (the old one was

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August 20, 2015 23 Comments
All Things Home

aging terra cotta pots

There are some people who like things shiny and new.  They want to be the first person to own something.  They like the smell of a car with 32 miles on it.  They want their furniture to be delivered, tags still attached. I am just not one of those people. Unless we’re talking about electronics, mattresses or toilets, I want things in my home that have the patina that only comes with time. Or a bit of trickery. I have a few antique terra cotta pots and, while I’d love to fill my whole potting bench with them, that would get too expensive.  So, I have some new ones mixed in. Can you tell which one is the new one? Yeah.  It’s pretty clear and the new ones were bugging me a bit. While I had the Ironstone (white) MMS Milk Paint out to paint the sides of the potting bench, I decided

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August 20, 2015 16 Comments
All Things Home

dear reader | to the one with the tiny room

You hear me talking about rearranging furniture and you look around your “cozy” room and laugh.  Everything is wedged perfectly in the space and any rearranging would be impractical at best and a fire hazard at worst. You want to change things around, to experience the joy of getting a new look without spending any money.  But you feel stuck. You’re not alone. Several people have walked into my house, after having seen it only on the blog, and most of them say, “Oh, it’s smaller than I thought it was!”  Aside from the kitchen and family room, which are generous in size, the rest of the rooms are average or on the small side.  Or at least small compared to newer homes. (That rug in the living room is 8 x 10, so the actual room is about 10′ x 12′.) And there are several rooms in my home

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August 19, 2015 26 Comments
All Things Home

the antique, hodgepodge potting bench

Don’t you love it when projects come together perfectly? Such is the case with this hodgepodge of a potting bench. We just finished it today and it looks even better than I imagined.  It’s especially exciting, because we already had the workbench in the basement (it was free with the house) and I bought the chicken nesting box without a solid plan on turning it into the top-part of the hutch. This morning, Jeff bought about $40 of pressure treated wood for this project, a couple of 2 x 12’s and 2 x 4’s.   While he was out, I took care of the red overspray marks on the front of the work bench.  It wasn’t a big deal, but they just bugged me. So, I brought out my big-boy sander, the belt sander, and I went to town. I really love how the paint looks distressed, with some of the

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August 18, 2015 33 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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