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upholstery
All Things Home

parsons chair linen slipcover reveal

I know that my house usually looks clean and tidy in the pictures I share here and on social media.  And, I will admit, that I am a bit of a neat freak.  I generally like to clean and I love having a spotless, organized, and clutter-free home.  But, life happens here.  I have middle school boys, a dog, two cats, and a husband who has a higher mess tolerance than I do.  Trust me, there are parts of our house that are not pristine! One of the more visible non-pristine areas were the seats of the end chairs at our kitchen table.  These are well-loved and well-used chairs and they were looking pretty rough.  I was even a little embarrassed by them when we had people over because they looked so grungy.  That’s just my own silliness, though.  I doubt anyone ever really cared. The chairs are still in

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May 18, 2020 42 Comments
All Things Home

parsons chair slipcover tutorial | part 2

If you missed part one of this slipcover tutorial, you can find it HERE.  In part one, I show how to make the “body” of the slipcover.  This chair slipcover tutorial works for almost any armless chair, but is specifically for a parsons chair with small wings.  You can also find the link to the linen I used for this project in that post. So, in this post, I’m going to show how to make ties.  This tutorial can be used for pretty much any homemade ties.  They can be used on clothes, like aprons, accessories, slipcovers, etc.  I like ties for slipcovers because they add a “dressmaker detail.”  Since slipcovers are essentially dresses for furniture, it looks fitting to me.  If you want a more modern look and cleaner lines, you can always use buttons or even velcro. You can just cut the strips of fabric with scissors, but

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May 14, 2020 7 Comments
All Things Home

Parsons Chair Slipcover Tutorial | Part 1

The chairs that end at the end of our kitchen table are “the favorite chairs” for everyone.  They are comfy and therefore, often occupied.  Instead of sitting in rockers in the basement or snuggled on the sofa, I’ll often find my boys sitting at either end of the table, watching a movie, or playing a game.  This is where they are sitting for school work these days and, of course, for snacks, meals, and games.  These chairs have gotten a workout! And they look great in photos if you don’t zoom in or look too carefully… The seats are a total disaster.  Most of the mess is due to adhesive from my T1D son’s pod/pump changes.  We used an adhesive remover wipe to remove one pod before putting on another and that has left a sticky residue on the seats.  And that sticky residue then attracts any dirt or fuzz

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April 30, 2020 23 Comments
All Things Home

washing & mending

I have found the weekends during this time to be especially difficult.  I haven’t put my finger on exactly why.  Maybe it’s because there isn’t much distinction between weekdays and weekends?  We’re just all home all the time.  Safe at home.  Well and happy, but home nonetheless.  Maybe it’s because the week is too busy with work and school to have much time to dwell on anxious thoughts. Whatever the cause, I’m learning that I need to keep myself occupied.  There are a lot of things I can’t control, but I can do the next thing and then the next.  So, that’s what I did this weekend.  I wasn’t feeling motivated to start a large project, but I could knock out several smaller ones or do some prep work for larger projects.  I worked from one thing to the next and got a surprising amount accomplished. One thing that took

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April 14, 2020 35 Comments
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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March 3, 2020 20 Comments
All Things Home

fixing the bottom of an upholstered chair

This chair has had issues for a while, but I’ve been ignoring them.  It’s typically been in out-of-the-way places, so it wasn’t something I had to look at or be bothered by regularly.  Well, since I moved it into the studio, this saggy bottom has been annoying me. But still not quite enough to actually fix it. It went on my “annoying project list” to hang out there until I was in the mood to tackle it.  Well, then it started shedding all over my studio floor.  No, no, no.  Not in my creative sanctuary.  Even the boys pointed out the pile of “hair” under the chair, which is saying a lot because they are not generally observant about messes. So on Friday, before I took some time to paint, I took about 15 minutes to fix the chair.  Some of the webbing was coming undone and it obviously needed

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April 23, 2019 25 Comments
All Things Home

reupholstering the guest bed

The boys and I had a good time over spring break, but not having my usual work hours was a bit of a struggle for me.  I’m behind on pretty much everything…e-mail, errands, projects.  And I really hate being behind.  But, I tried to relax and embrace the time with them, knowing that the years will fly and work can (usually) wait.  I do feel the crunch that is coming, though, to get in as much work as I can before school is out for the summer. While they were home, they played a lot with friends and we even had some weather that was nice enough for backyard soccer and bike rides to the park.  We went to a rock climbing gym, which both boys loved and discovered an aptitude for climbing.  I took them to trial music lessons for drums and guitar from young, tattooed teachers who taught

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April 1, 2019 190 Comments
All Things Home

makeover of the paisley chairs

I know some of you really loved the red paisley chairs as they were and, I agree, they were pretty.  I’m sure they were beautiful for the first few decades they spent on this earth, but now they were only pretty if you didn’t look too closely at them.  They were stained, watermarked, smelled a little musty from years of accumulated dust.  It was time. And, well, the red just wasn’t working for me in this space.  I wanted to stick with my cool blue, white and green color palette, with warmth coming from the wood finishes.  Whenever I looked around this room, these chairs stood out as unfinished and not-quite-right.  I think that’s mostly because I always envisioned them in a different fabric in my mind’s eye. So, I finally took the time to remove those thousands of nails and even more staples and then reupholstered them in this

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August 3, 2018 78 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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