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All Things Home

painted garden obelisk

When I decided to make custom lattice for our DIY A/C surround, I measured and counted out how many 1 x 2s I thought we would need for the project.  I estimated that we would need 85 1 x 2s and figured I should round it up to 100 to have some extras in case some were warped or in bad condition.  I was confident in my math, so Jeff and I primed and painted all 100 pieces, even though he pointed out that we wouldn’t be able to return extras. Well, it turns out that math still isn’t my strong suit, and I dramatically overestimated how many 1 x 2s we would need.  Since I have a big pile of primed and painted, unreturnable 1 x 2s sitting on our newly-organized garage floor, I decided I should get building!  We’re going to make a surround for our propane tank,

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1970 home renovation

DIY custom A/C surround reveal

Jeff and I noticed a stretch of stifling days in the forecast, so that gave us the push we needed to get the DIY custom A/C surround installed and finished this weekend.  I shared the progress we made on building the surround a couple of weeks ago HERE. Since I had all of the pieces painted and two of the panels of the A/C surround built, it was pretty quick and easy to install.  We had a general plan of how to attach the pieces for stability and longevity, but we knew we might make some adjustments along the way since this is the first one we’ve built and installed.  It’s all finished and I am so excited with how it turned out! As a reminder, here is how the store-bought one we’ve been using for a couple of years looked… THIS is the one we had.  It worked pretty

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All Things Home

facebook marketplace find | vintage oak desk

If you followed my blog during our move to Maryland three years ago (can you believe it’s been that long?!), you probably remember that I sold a ton of stuff.  One of the pieces I sold was the vintage oak teacher’s desk I used in my studio.  Oak teacher’s desks turn up pretty regularly on the used furniture market and are generally not very expensive, so I figured I could find a replacement pretty quickly.  Three years later, I was still using a table as a makeshift desk!  Since I still hadn’t found a desk I liked after over a year of casually looking, I purchased the small drawer cabinet so I had a place to store my desk accessories.  It worked, but I continued to search Facebook Marketplace and at local antique stores for a vintage oak desk. I finally found one a few weeks ago and, after some

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All Things Home

tell me you’re doing home renovations…

…without telling me you’re doing home renovations.  Just look in their garage or any other storage spaces.  They will likely be a jumble of materials and tools used for projects looking something like this… Yes, those are still boxes that have not been unpacked since our move into this house almost three years ago.  Yes, this space is embarrassing.  Yes, I watermarked the photos. When we first moved in, Jeff built some simple garage shelves to provide some storage.  Before that, we had the foresight to prime and paint the walls behind the built-in shelves so it wouldn’t be an issue later.  Aside from those early efforts and a few feeble attempts at getting this beast under control, it’s been a disaster since we moved in.  It’s just been in varying degrees of disaster.  Just when it’s less of a disaster, we undertake another project, and it becomes a disaster

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1970 home renovation

power washing the front walk

We have done so much work on the front of our house over the last couple of years.  After all of the painting, planting, and updates, there was one glaring thing that needed to be addressed.  This front walk desperately needed to be cleaned. We bought a power washer a few years ago, so we just needed to get it out and put it to use!  (The pressure washer we purchased is no longer available, but it’s similar to THIS ONE.  We paid much less for ours, though!)  I imagined doing this long sidewalk, along with the patio and pool deck, inch by inch, so I looked into power washer attachments that cover a larger area with less effort.  I ended up purchasing THIS 15″ surface cleaner attachment by Karcher.  Jeff was highly skeptical and really didn’t even want to get it out of the box.  He kept saying things

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1970 home renovation

progress on the custom A/C surround

When I last shared about the custom A/C screen/surround we’re building, it looked like this… My dad came over on Thursday to help me with turning those primed and painted pieces into finished panels.  My dad and I are a good building team because we have a similar approach – done is better than perfect.  Several times, we said something like, “We’re not sending anyone to space in this thing, so it’ll do.”  Even Jeff, who usually brings more perfectionism to the table, said it doesn’t have to be perfect.  It’s just hiding an A/C unit.  No one is hanging from it or living in it. That being said, now that we’ve built two of the panels, I can see some minor flaws in my design!  Perhaps they are not so much flaws as things that could be improved upon.  My design allows for access to the A/C unit for

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1970 home renovation

DIY Custom A/C Screen

After having the lumber on our garage floor to season for a few months, we are finally building the DIY custom A/C surround.  I am joking about letting the wood season.  I bought the material without consulting my building partners, and we were not all on the same page regarding starting this project in the fall.  That meant we were stepping over it and tripping on it for a few months because I put the cart before the horse.  Now, the supplies are off the garage floor and we are making the plans (sketched on a now crumpled piece of paper) come to life.  You might be wondering about the A/C screen we already have… I bought it when we opened the pool a couple of years ago, and it does a pretty good job of hiding the A/C unit.  THIS is the one we have. Here’s the thing: when

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All Things Home

opening the pool & back patio

Yesterday was the kind of day that I love.  The weather was just to my liking: overcast, dry, breezy, and warm enough to work outside, but not too hot.  And everyone in our family worked together to get things ticked off the to-do list.  Marshall power-washed the front walk, Calvin mowed, and Jeff and I worked together to trim hedges, weed, mulch, and tidy up the back yard.  Since the temperature is still to my liking today, I’m going to work on painting the back trim.  Since I don’t enjoy working on ladders, Jeff and I will work on the gables together, but I’ll take care of all the lower parts of the trim, priming, and painting them. For today, I am sharing the work I did last week to get the patio cleaned up and looking nice for pool season.  Here is how the pool and patio area look

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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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