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the toledo drafting stool & equipto cart

There are two things that have been on my shopping list for a while – an antique adjustable drafting stool and a rolling cart, both for my studio.  I’ve been trolling craigslist and looking at local antique and consignment shops and haven’t found anything that was just right.  Well, I hit the jackpot at Junk Bonanza and found both!  A rolling cart (green, no less) by Equipto and an antique Toledo drafting stool. One of the reasons it took me so long to locate these items is that I was being very picky.  The cart had to be the right size, the right configuration, the right color, and it had to roll well.  The chair had to be comfortable, sturdy, and all of the parts had to work properly. Let’s start with the antique Toledo drafting stool/chair.  It was my most expensive purchase at $129.  I paused for a moment

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All Things Home

studio guest chair & art sale

Thanks so much for all of the love on the guest room bed!  You collectively surprised me.  While I was working on some organizing this week, I decided to try scooting around some more furniture.  This checked chair, which I reupholstered a few years ago, was up in the sewing room and I decided to move it down to my studio to use a “guest chair”.  It’s always been one of my favorite pieces and it’s nice to have it where I’ll get to see it and appreciate it more. It’s small enough that it can just be tucked in along the wall, but it’s a fairly comfortable chair.  I also like the addition of a little pattern and the pop of blue. The bottom of it has been needing some attention for a while, so I’ve added fixing it to my “annoying project list”.  It just needs a few

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All Things Home

studio closet progress

Remember the closet we were building in the studio?  (You can read about it HERE if you missed it.)  Well, we finally had some time to do a bit more work on it.  This is how it looked when you last saw it… The construction of it was very basic, but I didn’t care too much about making it fancy.  The interior would all be hidden away behind closed doors. Over the weekend, we took advantage of the warmer-ish weather and built the two doors for the larger opening.  I wanted to build them out of tongue and groove v-boards, so they would compliment the planked walls and ceiling. We put them together using 1 x 3 boards on the back side of each door.  In hindsight, we should’ve used a “Z” pattern to help reduce the risk of warping or bowing.  One of the doors is pretty warped, but

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All Things Home

studio closet

I have always loved this corner of the studio…  the oak hutch with the bird pulls, filled with art books.  The vertical row of brushes and the dress form flanking it. Having a good storage piece seemed like the best solution for that wall, but once I started really using this space, I realized that the oak hutch only provided a fraction of the storage I needed.  I had bulky photography equipment and video lighting and tripods and stands tucked all over the house and I really dislike work stuff encroaching on spaces meant to be just our home.  (I know it’s a fine line, but I try to keep the spaces distinct as much as possible.) So, over the Christmas break, I made a list of things I wanted and needed in my workspaces.  More storage was at the top of the list and that had me looking a

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All Things Home

the other side of the studio

I showed the right side of the studio in yesterday’s post and today, as promised, I’m sharing the left side.  This side is tricky, because of all of the windows, the mini-split (heating & cooling unit), and the fact that it’s the part of the room that’s most visible from the kitchen. From the moment we first moved in, I felt like I needed to put the hardware cabinet under the window.  It is, after all, one of the coolest pieces I own and I wanted it to be the focal point!  But, it was a clutter magnet and almost always had stuff stacked on it and the stuff on the adjacent wall (the chair, table, etc.) obscured the view. When I made the decision to move it over to the “big wall” and stack the bookcase on top, that meant I would need to find something else for the

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All Things Home

the bookcase & the hardware cabinet

Today, I wanted to show you how the marriage between the hardware cabinet and craigslist bookshelf look in the studio now that the piece had been organized and styled. When I first sketched out the idea, I thought it might work and it was at least worth trying.  There was some doubt, though! When the bookshelf was set in place on the top of the hardware cabinet, it confirmed that these pieces at least worked together.  The wood tones and the patina on the pieces looked like they could’ve come from the same place. (As a note of safety, the first thing we did was attach the bookshelf to the wall with L brackets at the top.  You can see the edge of one sticking up on the right side.) And now that I’ve moved in, I am sold. Even the lamps and ironstone milk pitchers and brushes worked just

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All Things Home

furniture scooting in the studio

Yesterday, Jeff made the ultimate show of love by moving furniture for me!  Since I have only one fully functioning arm, Jeff enrolled the help of a friend to move six pieces of furniture around our house.  Most of the pieces were moved from the studio to the office or the office to the studio, but some of it ended up in the garage, too. That latest round of furniture rearranging and adding new, more functional pieces to the office, has me more excited about my workspaces than ever. The move that felt like the biggest gamble was putting the shelf from the office on top of the hardware cabinet in the studio… And I love it!  I can’t wait to get it filled and styled. I was nervous that the two pieces would work together in my head and then look stupid in reality and, the only way to

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All Things Home

picture ledges

There are some decorating decisions you make that look nice and you think they will function well, and then they don’t.  Such is the case with a few areas in my studio.  I shared the overall plan HERE and we will start rearranging the furniture and working on those larger projects soon, but I’ve started on some of the smaller changes. One of those changes was making this skinny wall between the two doors work a little smarter… I hung two bulletin boards with the intention of pinning resources, inspirational pictures, color charts, etc.  I’ve pinned this and that, but I never really use it.  I also realized the top bulletin board was too high for me to reach all but the lowest part of it, so it remained mostly empty. With wet paintings leaned up all over the studio, I really needed some picture ledges to use for paintings

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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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May 20th, 2026 at 1pm EST

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