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My House

All Things Home

cow/calf pair

A couple of weeks ago, I painted a cow-calf pair.  If you follow me on Instagram, you would’ve seen some of the process as well as the final painting shared on the grid.  For those who don’t follow me there, here is the underpainting… …and then the finished work… I didn’t have plans to keep it when I first started this one.  I’m pretty good at selling my works.  It’s partly a hobby, but painting was absorbed as a part of my business pretty early on, so I try not to get too attached.  I paint with the intention of selling.  But I was in love with this one as soon as I rolled my chair back and viewed the painting in its entirety.  I was so excited that I had an antique gilded frame that fit it, so I tried it on before the painting was even dry.  It

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a slice of life

two years ago today…

Two years ago today, we moved from Biglerville, PA to our current home in Rochester, MN.  Can you believe it’s been two years?!  In some ways, it feels like we’ve been here longer than that and, in other ways, it seems like we just got here. There are certainly things I miss about PA.  I miss living close to my parents and an easy 6-7 hours away from Jeff’s family.  There are, of course, people that I miss.  And, I miss my favorite antique stores.  I had some pretty sweet honey holes and some great business connections who consistently helped me find good stuff.  (If you’re in the PA/MD/VA area, you can check out my list of favorite places HERE and HERE.) Even with those things that I miss, I’m so glad we moved.  This is the right place for us in this season of life. Jeff loves his job

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All Things Home

quartz counters one year later

Last May, we had Hanstone Quartz countertops (in the pattern Monterey) installed in our kitchen and I thought I would give an update now that we’ve been using them for over a year.  Of course, a review after 1o years or 20 years would hold more weight, but well…I don’t have a time machine, so you’re getting a one-year review! The original posts about these counters were a part of a sponsored collaboration with Hanstone, but this follow-up post is not. I will go ahead and destroy any suspense that may have existed and let you know that I love these counters and they were a great decision.  If you remember when I was in the process of selecting new counters, quartz felt like a bit of a compromise. I had my heart set on marble.  Or so I thought.  What I actually had my heart set on was the

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All Things Home

office shutters

I was combing through some photos taken earlier this year while I was working on cleaning up my hard drive and making backups and I realized I had pictures of a project that I never shared!  I took the picture right before my mom visited in March, so there were more exciting things to write about, like the guest room makeover and the picture frame molding in the living room.  This project wasn’t as dramatic, so the pictures remained unedited and the project was never shared. I did share that we installed plantation shutters in the large window of my office… This window faces the street, so it felt like a fishbowl and some sort of window treatment was required for privacy.  But, we left the small window, which faces the side of the neighbor’s house, untreated. I wanted a shutter on that window, too, though, so the windows looked

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All Things Home

a new home for the $50 dresser

Last week was such a blast.  I ended up spending it with my dear friend, Shaunna.  We became fast friends about 9 years ago when we met at the blogging conference, Blissdom. We are two peas in a pod, as they say.  We’re just alike enough and just different enough. Shuanna flew up to Minnesota, so we could spend the week working on our new collaborative project, which we’ll be launching within a couple of weeks.  There was lots of laughing and a lot of deep creative conversations.  By the end of the week, I was simultaneously full to the brim and drained.  I can’t wait to tell you what we’ve been up to. Until then… I took the weekend to rest and catch up.  I slept in, journaled, did my morning walk, hung out with Jeff & the boys, painted, and got back into some of my normal routines. 

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All Things Home

options for the master bedroom

Last week, I shared that our master bedroom was not quite finished and I was mulling over some ideas for how to take this beautiful room and push it over the edge.  I received so many wonderful ideas, thoughts, and suggestions on that post, so thank you for that.  As I read your comments and thought through the possibilities, I settled on a few options that could work and I thought I would share them. As a refresher, here is how the room currently looks… A few of you mentioned the desk and, in my last post, I failed to say that this is on the list of things to remove from the space.  I just haven’t found the perfect thing to replace it, so it’ll hang out there until I do.  At that time, I’ll move it into the sewing room to use as a sewing desk.  It’ll provide

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All Things Home

painting the living room trim

Back in March, my mom and I installed a chair rail and picture frame molding in the living room (along with the basement guest room and 1/2 bath.)  You can find the tutorial HERE. Since then, painting below the chair rail has been hanging out on my to-do list…languishing there.  It’s one of those projects I had built up in my mind.  It’s going to be difficult.  It’s going to take forever.  I’m going to hate every second of it.  And, given that it didn’t look that bad as it was, I procrastinated.  Lest you think I am always the model of action and productivity…I am not. But, procrastination starts to wear on me after a while.  I get frustrated with myself and I know from experience that relief will come if I just buckle down and do the project.  So, I declared on my Instagram stories that I was

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All Things Home

What’s missing from your room?

A few months ago, I was writing some content for a potential book project and I discovered that I was talking more to myself than to anyone else.  I was saying something to the effect of, “If you’re feeling stuck in a room, the likely culprit is the lack of a statement piece.”  As soon as I finished writing that segment, I ran up the steps and stood in the doorway of our master bedroom.  I took in the view of the large, light-filled space. It’s a beautiful room.  I’ve never had a prettier room in my life.  But it’s not quite there.  And it has nothing to do with the room itself.  I was given a perfect blank slate without any quirks to contemplate.  It has everything to do with the fact that there isn’t a statement piece – a compass to which all of the other design elements

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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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