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Family Room
Decorating

Pillows for the Family Room

I shared a couple of days ago that I was going to make some custom pillow covers for the family room sectional.  It came with pillows, but they weren’t my style/colors.  Making pillow covers in fabrics that tie my style and colors with the sectional is a great way to make something feel a little more custom and cohesive. I already had the checked blue pillows, so I kept those and made some more out of antique linen tea towels with blue embroidery and Waverly’s Country House Linen Cameo Toile. (I was going to add the gray linen in there as well, but decided against it.) Kriste made the piping, cut out the fabric, and pinned the pillows and then I sewed them together (more tag-teaming on this project!)  We worked together to get them all hand-stitched closed.  I know I should put zippers on my pillows, but I just don’t

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September 26, 2016 26 Comments
All Things Home

Furniture for the Family Room & Calvin’s Room

A few days ago, I shared the new arrangement in our family room as well as the progress on Calvin’s room.  I said I would give all of the details on the new pieces of furniture and this post is making good on that promise! Now, I admit, furniture stores have never been my thing.  Give me a flea market, antique store, thrift shop or yard sale!  That’s where most of my pieces have been found and I’m pretty proud of my resourcefulness and ability to make-do.  But there are some pieces that can be difficult to find second-hand and it’s also nice to mix in the new with the old to make a home a little more comfortable, functional, or hard-wearing. A few months ago, I rearranged the furniture in my family room to a two-sofa setup in an “L” shape.  One sofa was leather and another wore a white

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September 23, 2016 117 Comments
All Things Home

dog beds are decor

Before I get into the post today, I wanted to let my readers in the north east know that I’ll be in Palmyra, New York this Saturday (September 24, 2016) for The Purple Painted Lady 6th Annual Festival.  (Click the link for details.)  I’ll be teaching milk paint demos and answering Q&A’s at 11:00 am and 2:00 pm.  I hope to see some of you there! I remember reading a post years ago, written by The Nester.  In it, she pointed out that all of the things in our home, in some way, are decor.  The stack of library books by the door, the mail on the kitchen counter…all of the stuff of life that we often look over, all contribute to or detract from the overall look of a room. That post made me think about all of the “stuff” in our house in a new way. The answer isn’t

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September 22, 2016 53 Comments
All Things Home

farmhouse holiday series | fall family room

In this second installment of the farmhouse holiday series, we’re all sharing our fall family rooms… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but I don’t do much in the way of fall decorating. I’ll put out a couple of pumpkins, a bowl of apples, etc. and just leave it at that. In the case of my family room, I just put a mum in a bucket and added a couple of faux pumpkins in a wicker basket tray on the coffee table. It’s just enough to bring an essence of fall to the room without having to bring up bins of decor from the basement. I also put out a bowl of mixed nuts and a nutcracker I picked up on Etsy a couple of years ago.  My Oma always had mixed nuts on her coffee table and I like bringing them out for fall and winter

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September 13, 2016 40 Comments
All Things Home

white splint basket

If you’ve been reading my posts over the past few weeks, you know that I have a new-found love for baskets.  I collected a lot of them to sell at Lucketts and I enjoyed using them as props around the studio.  During one of my shopping trips, though, I bought a basket for myself. It’s this beautiful, antique splint basket with chippy white paint… Splint baskets are made out of thin wood strips, so they are lot sturdier than baskets made from woven reeds, rushing, branches, etc.   I haven’t seen one before with chippy white paint, though, and that’s what drew me to it.  It has just the right balance of chipping paint with the wood peeking through. And how about that pie safe?!  I mentioned it in a post a few weeks ago, but I haven’t shared much about it. I had seen it in an antique store

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June 25, 2016 19 Comments
Family Room

peonies & the family room

Last year I planted two peony bushes along the side of my house.  I never even knew what peonies were until one sweet reader sent some to me a couple of years ago as a “studio warming” gift when I moved into the studio space I currently run my business from.  (I still can’t believe I used to do all of this from my house!) They were such beautiful, delicate, and long-lasting flowers and I was excited to learn I could grow them in my yard!  In fact, my neighbor had a peony bush just on their side of the property line, so I knew I had a good chance of success with them. Well, this year, I got some beautiful blossoms off of both… I also never knew about the whole ants & peony controversy, but I got to see it first hand.  It is believed that the ants help

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June 6, 2016 48 Comments
All Things Home

back at the house & JAK Camera Strap Giveaway

There has been a lot of activity at the studio and things have been pretty quiet at my house.  I did rearrange the family room a few weeks ago, but otherwise, my house is just my house, which is a big change from how it was a couple of years ago. If I was at this stage of getting ready for Lucketts, I would have things piled up in my dining room, pieces in every corner of my basement and I would be hauling furniture up to my family room for quick photo shoots before I rearranged the furniture back in place by the end of the day. I realize I’m enjoying my house much more as just a home, not a place of business AND a home. Anyway, after living with the new arrangement for a couple of weeks, I am totally sold on it.  I still have a lot

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April 8, 2016 307 Comments
All Things Home

family room furniture shuffle

This seems to happen every year.  I’m acquiring furniture and antiques to sell at the Lucketts Spring Market and the desire to change things up in my own home starts to brew.  Since I moved my business from my house to the studio, the furniture rearranging has really slowed down.  A lot.  It used to be a weekly occurrence, but it’s now a few times a year.  It’s not as easy to “try things on” as it used to be and I find that I get the “furniture shuffling bug” out of my system at the studio. Jeff and my oldest son, Marshall, were sick this weekend, so my parents took Calvin, our youngest, to an Easter egg hunt and out to lunch to get him out of the house.  I was stuck inside, though, holding puke pots, administering medicine, taking temperatures and sanitizing everything the sick boys looked at.

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March 20, 2016 62 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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