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Exterior

1970 home renovation

fencing day two & DIY cost savings

We finished installing the second side of the fence yesterday and I took the time to take a few pictures to share how we did it for those who are curious or considering a similar project.  You can read about our first day of “fencing” HERE. The fence really needed to be replaced from the day we moved in.  Pickets were falling off and it was only getting worse.  In fact, the gate used most often fell off one day shortly after we moved in.  I had a neighborhood dog wander to our front door a few months ago and I put her in the backyard to keep her safe while I notified her owners and waited for them to pick her up.  Well, a fence that held Sebastian just fine was no match for this escape artist.  The owner came to get her and she was gone.  It was

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1970 home renovation

fencing day one | 1970 home renovation

We were planning on rebuilding our crumbling fence a few weeks ago when the weather was still reliably cool and before the vines took off, but just as I went to order the fence pickets, Home Depot didn’t have enough in stock.  Someone else must’ve had the same idea because one day they were there and the next day, they were cleared out.  We already had sections of fence rebuilt with this style of picket, so we couldn’t just go with another option that was in stock.  We had to wait until we could source them. I called Home Depot regularly to check in on their next shipment and it finally arrived Friday and was delivered to us on Monday.  With the fence materials in our driveway and the weather cool and beautiful, we made the impromptu decision to start working on the fence right away.  Both Jeff and I

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1970 home renovation

edging the front walk

If you can’t tell by my blog posts, we’ve been focusing our efforts on the exterior of the house over the past few weeks.  I’ve been enjoying it and have some good momentum, but we’re also trying to get as much done before it gets uncomfortably hot.  Spring and fall are my favorite times to be outside, so we’re trying to take advantage of it before we’re in the dog days of summer.  We started working on our fence yesterday and got the section on the right side of the house finished (except for a few finishing details) and we’ll get the other side done over the next 2-3 days.  I’ll share that process and the result in another post.  Something we worked on last week, though, was edging the front walk. While the front of our house is very visible, the front door is rarely used.  Since the driveway,

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All Things Home

first willow garden structure project & an English dovecote

Several of you have asked about the English dovecote hanging near our front door as well as the willow garden support, so I wanted to back up a bit and share about those two pieces.  Since the English dovecote came first, let’s start with that. I was initially planning on making a trellis for this bit of wall that would complement the two larger trellises on the wall just around the corner, but I was wondering if that might be trellis overload.  This wall needed something, though. Maria of Dreamy Whites had sent me a dovecote from one of her shopping trips in England and Europe last year, but it had been waiting in the basement until we started working more on the exterior of the house.  I have long admired English dovecotes and knew I wanted to mount one somewhere in the yard or on the house, but there

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1970 home renovation

update on the back garden beds | part one

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”] [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”] [et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] The areas that were always a struggle for me when it came to gardening were patience and planning.  For years, I would make a feeble attempt at weeding and planting, but I didn’t take any time to learn about the plants themselves or how to make weeds easier to control and maintain.  So, I would plant bushes, annuals, and perennials in totally the wrong places.  Plants that would eventually get huge were in front of others that were a low, creeping ground cover, plants were in the wrong soil, the wrong light, and I wouldn’t even bother to water or prune.  When what looked decent right after I worked on it looked terrible in a few weeks or months, I would shrug my shoulders in resignation.  Well, I’m just not good at gardening.  I’m a little older now, wiser, more patient, and willing

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1970 home renovation

garden updates | bishop’s weed, trellis design, & progress

In case you haven’t noticed by the subject of my recent posts, gardening has been my main focus over the past few weeks.  I feel like I have to take advantage of the weather before it starts getting really hot and also get the backyard cleaned up before we open the pool.  I keep feeling a pull to the easel to get some paintings done and I’m excited about finally painting the dining room, but I have to follow the seasons and plant when it’s prime planting time.  And, I need to get ahead of the weeds before they get out of control even more than they are.  In addition to the sense of seasonal urgency, I’m really enjoying it.  I put my headphones in and listen to an audiobook or music and completely lose track of time.  I’ve been gardening some evenings until it’s so dark I can hardly

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1970 home renovation

progress on the garage-side garden

Last year, I focused most of my gardening on the backyard, specifically the area surrounding the pool.  We were in the process of having the pool restored and I wanted the area to feel tidy at the very least.  I didn’t want to be floating in our pool, trying to soak up the slower summer days only to be tormented by the view of garden beds filled with weeds.  So, I worked a little bit most days to clean weeds out of the beds, dig out rock, mulch, and plant.  I’ll share an update on those areas in another post.  This year, I’m still working on the back (specifically the area along the back fence), but I’m focusing more attention on the front and garage side of the house.  These are the two sides that are most visible from the street.  I wanted to work on them more last year,

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1970 home renovation

1970 home renovation | painting the “garage side” of the house

We had three warm, sunny days in a row towards the end of last week, so I put painting the garage side of the house on the calendar.  We were running out of paint-friendly days outside and I wanted to take advantage of them so the two most visible sides of the house were painted and checked off the to-do list.  We’ll then be ready to do landscaping in the spring.  The front is painted, has new windows and replacement shutters on the garage and it’s looking great.  We just need to replace the panels below the windows on the right side of the house, but that’s a one-day project we can squeeze in on a nice day. Now we’re moving to the garage side of the house, which functions as the front of our house since it’s where we park.  As a reminder, here’s how it looked when we

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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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