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My House
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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June 5, 2025 10 Comments
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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June 2, 2025 12 Comments
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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May 27, 2025 21 Comments
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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May 13, 2025 29 Comments
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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April 8, 2025 13 Comments
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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April 7, 2025 68 Comments
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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April 1, 2025 47 Comments
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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March 12, 2025 15 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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