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My House

1970 home renovation

progress on the front garden bed

I’ve been chipping away at gardening projects this week and have most of the front garden bed planted. After looking at black plastic for a year, it’s nice to see plants and mulch out there.  As a reminder, I laid down black plastic to smother some weeds and get a fresh start with this bed.  A couple of weeks ago, I started lifting up the plastic to plant a boxwood hedge along the house.  I received several comments from experienced gardeners, encouraging me to move the hedge away from the house and porch… As I started spacing out the rest of the plants, I decided it would be best to listen to seasoned advice and move the hedge. I removed the plastic section-by-section, planting, laying down cardboard as a weed barrier, and mulched.  I planted a small square boxwood hedge around the birdbath and surrounded that with English lavender.  I’m

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1970 home renovation

planting the front garden bed | part one

I feel like I’m way behind with gardening chores and projects, but when I looked back at last year to see when I did most of my gardening work, I’m pretty much on schedule.  I might just be a week or two behind, but not as far behind as I feel!  My two biggest garden projects this year are planting the front bed and cleaning up the left garden bed.  Since I want to get plants in the ground as soon as possible, I decided to start with the front.  I’ve been a little bit daunted since it involves adding new soil to fix the grading and revive the soil as well as planting bushes, perennials, and annuals, but I’m just taking it one step at a time, and I’ve made some good progress this week. This is how the front garden bed looked last spring before I started working

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All Things Home

start where it’s easy | organizing

I shared a couple of weeks ago that I feel maxed out when it comes to my stuff threshold.  (You can read that post HERE.)  Given that we have an enormous basement and this house has ample storage, we still have plenty of room to accumulate more, but I find that I want even more empty space and fewer things that we don’t really need or use.  I’ve already started pulling pieces from some of my collections to sell, but it is hard to let go of things collected with such intention over a couple of decades!  I love what one reader said about stuff in reply to my post.  She likes to envision the way she manages her stuff as a river.  There is water flowing in and water flowing out.  If the outflow slows or stops, the water can become stagnant.  I’ve been pretty good at getting rid

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1970 home renovation

dining room options & taking creative risks

Last week, I shared that I was contemplating the fate of the hand-painted dining room mural and unintentionally posted it on April 1, so a few readers thought it might be a joke!  It might seem a little nutty, but it wasn’t a joke.  It’s not unusual for me to look at something I painted and decide I don’t like it.  I’ve thrown paintings away, repainted or stripped pieces of furniture, and goodness knows I’ve painted rooms repeatedly over the years.  I used to joke with Jeff that we were losing square footage in our PA house because I repainted the walls so many times.  While the dining room mural was a much bigger time investment than just rolling paint on, I’m still able to look at it the same as if I picked a paint color that isn’t playing with the light as well as I’d hoped.  I can

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Decorating

the fate of the dining room mural

Sooooo… remember the dining room mural? The one that I designed, hand-painted, and spent hours and hours on?  Well, I’m rethinking it.  Let me explain… First, let me say that I do love how it turned out.  I love the colors and style of the mural, and even though there are some areas I want to work on, I’m happy with the overall design and look.  I decided to call it “finished for now” as we went into the holidays, so I could step away and think about what I wanted to do next.  I knew I wanted to work a bit more on the distant trees and the foreground, and I was considering adding a glaze over the entire mural to mute the effect. Once I had some distance from all the work I put into it, I was able to get a fresh perspective.  There are things about

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Living Room

six-inches to the right

A small decorating saga has been playing out in this living room corner for the past couple of years.  If you recall, shortly after we moved into this house, I arranged these plates and antlers on the wall in the style of James Farmer.  It’s one of my favorite decorating “moments” in the house. When I painted the living room walls Card Room Green in November of 2023, I took everything down, patched the holes, and left it down through Christmas since we put up the tree in that corner.  Once the Christmas tree was taken down, I excitedly put the dresser back in place and hung my plate & antler arrangement back on the wall.  I quickly realized I hadn’t put the dresser back in the same place.  It was pushed into the corner a bit more, so now the arrangement felt squished. I got sidetracked with other projects

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Living Room

check on check on check | tufted wool living room rug

Over 10 years ago, I shared here on this blog that rugs were my decorating nemesis.  I would get a room where I really loved it and then I would miss on the rug.  It would be too busy, too bright, too light, too dark, or not the right color, material, or style.  It would hijack the room and fight with other elements instead of complementing or enhancing them.  While I think I’ve gotten better with selecting rugs (I mostly go with neutral, safe selections), it’s still an area of struggle.  I don’t know if I’ll ever feel entirely confident, but I have picked some winners in recent years that have made me feel a bit better about the whole thing! In the living room, we’ve had my default rug of choice – woven jute.  They are neutral, work well with antiques, and are forgiving when it comes to kids

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1970 home renovation

2025 yard clean-up

In the final days of February, we kicked off the yard work season of 2025.  We had a few warmer days and wanted to be outside, so we decided to start cleaning up the left side of the house.  This is the side of the house we’ve avoided the last two Springs because it’s such a tangled mess and seemed overwhelming.  Jeff has wanted to rip it all out since we bought the house, but I’ve been protective of it and insisted it would be better to trim it all back.  It’s a nice hedge of beautiful bushes that would cost a lot to replace.  He was willing to leave them but was itching to cut them way back, so that’s what we did. As a reminder, this is what the house looked like when we bought it… And this is what it looked like last summer while I was

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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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