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My House
home improvement

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You can read part one of laying a floating floor HERE.  It shows how we stripped the carpet and installed the underlayment.  Today, I’m going to talk through how we installed the actual floor.  As I said in part one, we’re not professionals at this, so this isn’t meant to be a comprehensive tutorial, but more of a testimony of our experience.   I was a very good blogger and took lots of pictures as we ripped out the carpet and installed the underlayment and then I got tired and the sun set (so my natural lighting went away) and I just wanted to finish, so this was the last picture I took.  When we lay the floors in the bedroom, I’ll take more. As I said in part one, laying the floor was the easiest part of the project.  Since it is a floating floor, there is no gluing,

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January 11, 2013 12 Comments
home improvement

laying a floating floor

You can read part one of laying a floating floor HERE.  It shows how we stripped the carpet and installed the underlayment.  Today, I’m going to talk through how we installed the actual floor.  As I said in part one, we’re not professionals at this, so this isn’t meant to be a comprehensive tutorial, but more of a testimony of our experience.   I was a very good blogger and took lots of pictures as we ripped out the carpet and installed the underlayment and then I got tired and the sun set (so my natural lighting went away) and I just wanted to finish, so this was the last picture I took.  When we lay the floors in the bedroom, I’ll take more. As I said in part one, laying the floor was the easiest part of the project.  Since it is a floating floor, there is no gluing,

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January 11, 2013 38 Comments
Before and Afters

family room reveal

 I was going to show how we installed the engineered floating hardwood floors today, but I did a little photo shoot with my family room and I decided I would share the pictures and some of my reasons for picking this floor.    This is how the room looked when we first moved in… We ripped out the fireplace a little over a year ago and I’ve been waiting to rip out this carpet since the day we moved in.  After 6 1/2 years of living in this house, we finally ripped out the carpet and replaced it with 4 3/4″ wide Heritage Hickory (a floating engineered hardwood floor) by Virginia Mill Works.     The color on the walls is Glass Slipper by Benjamin Moore.  I love this color.  It’s a soft blue, but it’s still sort of neutral.   Having wood floors means that all of the furniture

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January 10, 2013 119 Comments
Before and Afters

family room organization

Now that our new floors are installed in the family room, I am very motivated to clean up the joint.  Things were so busy for me in 2012 that I really slacked on my usual “stuff control” duties.  I knew I needed to clean out a closet, organize the toys, or get rid of clothes that were too small for the boys, but I would feel pressed to get something else done and I wouldn’t do it.  For some reason, stuff stresses me out.  It might be in a closet, totally out of view, but I know it’s there and I don’t like it. I like the stuff that’s in plain sight even less!     For about a year, we’ve had this toy shelf with locker baskets in the family room.  It’s a piece we built for Cottages & Bungalows magazine and it’s been a great storage piece.  My

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January 7, 2013 74 Comments
My House

my office & my floors

I have been working hard the past few days to get some things done around my house.   Most of the week was spent catching up from the lack of work time over the holidays.  That included organizing my office to get it super functional.  There’s still a long way to go, but I’m only in phase one, which is sorting and organizing the stuff.  I shipped off a couple boxes of fabric to Sutton Place Designs, have a buyer for my Cricut and have another pile for local girls who want to buy some of my craft supplies.   Phase one is messy.  It’s getting there…   We also installed the hardwood floors in our family room yesterday, which is why I was absent from all social media.  (And why I can hardly walk today.)   It was a day of ripping out carpet, padding, staples and tack strips.

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January 6, 2013 108 Comments
Antiques

my new bed

You know me.  Almost all of the furniture and accessories I buy for my home, I buy used.  (The only exception I make is for a sofa and mattresses.) It’s almost always cheaper and the quality is almost always better.  I also just like buying used.  The pieces have more “soul” and character.  If I have money burning a hole in my pocket, I go to the antique mall.  I don’t think I’ve set foot to shop in a real mall for over a year.  Any time I do go to a real mall (usually for a youth trip), I make a point to wander into Restoration Hardware.  A lot of their furniture and accessories are a bit masculine for my taste, but I love the classic quality of their designs.  In my mind, they are tops when it comes to beautiful neutrals.  I never bought anything from them, but I

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January 3, 2013 83 Comments
My House

The totally wrong way to hem curtains

  I took the tree down a couple of days ago and it left me staring at my unhemmed curtains that I finished about two years ago.  I came to the realization that I am never going to hem these curtains.  There is always something more fun to do than pinning, measuring, ironing and sewing straight lines.  They don’t look bad without a hem, but I have to fluff them a lot to position them right and they puddle on the floor in an unattractive way, so the curtains don’t hang as well.   As I was looking at them I realized that they have not frayed at all.  The fabric is indoor/outdoor canvas that hasn’t been washed, so it has a nice stiffness to it.  Well, I grabbed a pair of scissors and just cut them off.     I felt a little bit like Chevy Chase in Christmas

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January 2, 2013 85 Comments
Miscellaneus

Home Projects for 2013

I said in my post yesterday that I have a home improvement list a mile long.  That might be hard to believe, but you have to remember that you see very strategic shots of my home and I’ll often use pieces for photo shoots and then sell them, leaving a big hole in my house.  2012 was a crazy year for me that started with cramming in home improvement projects to get ready for a Better Homes & Gardens photo shoot, the Nate Berkus Show House Proud home tour, then the book, then the Flea Market Style shoot.  The May fair came right on the heels of all of that, then I had the Women’s Day home office shoot, the launch of the paint line, moving to a new space at Lucketts…you get the idea.  It was nuts.  All of these things prodded me to “finish” some rooms in my

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January 1, 2013 No 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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