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My House

My House

home

We sat at a table at the title company, signing papers while the boys were occupied with games on the iPads.  When we reached the end of the stack, we all stood up and shook hands. “Boys, we just bought our house!” We were all excited and eager to get over to the house.  A lot of work was ahead of us, but that didn’t matter.  The next chapter of our life was just a page turn away. I know my readers have been eager to see our house and I’ve been eager to share it!  As I mentioned in my Moving Story, we didn’t buy an old farm house.  In fact, we bought a suburban home with a two story foyer, something I have declared many times would never appeal to me.  But this home isn’t just for me and my business, although I will live there and work

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a slice of life

the best view in the house

As we’re getting ready to say a proper goodbye to the house we’ve lived in for 11 years, I want to take some time to reminisce.  A few readers shared they felt sad to see the house empty.  An empty house to me meant that packing was done, so sadness was not an emotion I was experiencing! But then again, our move might feel sudden, jolting, to most of you.  To me, though, it’s been the plan for several years, so I’ve had time to prepare myself and say goodbye to it slowly. When we put our house on the market over three years ago, as excited as I was at the prospect of buying an 1800’s stone farmhouse, I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to my 1940’s cape cod.  I knew this, because I was trying to take as much as I could with me!  I removed the chandeliers, sconces,

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My House

rose bush nest & more packing

A few weeks ago, my mom told me about a nest that she discovered in one of her rose bushes.  She thought I would like it, so we went snooping for it when we were over at her house for burgers on Memorial Day.  It was a beautiful nest, filled with three turquoise eggs.  Sadly, though, the mother was not to be found. We decided to keep the nest there just in case she came back.  She never did and, without her nurturing, the eggs never hatched. Yesterday, my parents stopped by to pick up a desk to take to my cousin and she dropped off the nest for me. “Since you’re packing your house and don’t have anything pretty to photograph, I thought you might want to take pictures of it and write a blog post about it.” Oh, the life of a blogger.  The scavenger hunt through each

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Living Room

the wasted space

I’ve always thought of the formal living room in our house as a bit of a waste. The original part of our home was built in 1948 and this little room, right when you walk in the front door was the only living area.  Though it’s small, it was very well designed.  It’s opened to the dining room with a wide arch and windows face south and west, letting in lovely light all day.  When the windows are open in the adjacent dining room and the living room, a nice cross breeze flows through the space…certainly a pre-central-air-conditioning essential. But when the owners before us added on a new kitchen, a master suit, and a family room, that little living room became redundant.  I also didn’t see much versatility in the space, since you walk smack into it from the front door.  “Hello, welcome to my workout room/play room/home office,

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My House

this home is not my world

We spent last week split between visiting Jeff’s family in Raleigh and sneaking in some R&R at Myrtle Beach. It was nice to get away from the packing and to spend some time on the beach, by the pool, and playing board games with the boys.  I always look forward to getting home, though. There is no denying that I’m a homebody. I walked through the door, my arms weighed down with bags, and I sighed as I set them down.  I know the walls are bare and much of our stuff is in boxes.  Despite that, I declared, “It’s so amazing to be home.” Jeff pointed out what was glaringly obvious.  We were coming home only to prepare to move. While I knew this in my head, the contrast of the consolation of being home against the urgency to pack hit me afresh. It doesn’t bother me that we’re moving away from

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a slice of life

good & perfect time

Timing is an interesting thing. If you have read my blog for a while, you may remember that we put our house on the market almost exactly three years ago.  We had seen a local farm that was for sale and we were hot to buy it!  We got our house ready and listed it with high hopes of selling it quickly. Well, it was on the market for three months and not one person even called about it or looked at it!  Not one.  It was the strangest thing, like no one could see our listing, but us.  And as people were NOT looking at our house, the house we were interested in, that had been on the market for over six months, sold.  We found a couple other farms we liked and, basically, if someone wanted their house to sell, Jeff & I just needed to want to buy

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All Things Home

Room Refresh & Renew with Birch Lane

I have shared in the past that rugs are my nemesis when it comes to decorating.  It’s just so hard to find a rug that works with everything happening in a room.  I threw in the towel and had pretty much all jute and seagrass rugs in the house.  I love the look of them and I have found certain styles that feel comfortable underfoot, but the one that was in our bedroom was not one of those.  It was scratchy and rope-like and definitely not comfortable.  The problem was that I needed a large rug, 9 x 12, and it had to work with the fabric wall and I didn’t want to spend thousands on it. I’ve been looking for a long time and haven’t found anything that I loved for a reasonable price. When I was asked by Birch Lane if I would like to work with them on

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All Things Home

Christmas tree 2.0, paper whites & a blue truck

This year, I really took my time selecting the Parsons’ family Christmas tree of 2016.  It was the perfect height, fluffy, and full…just like I wanted. I was practically giddy as I put on over 1200 lights, the garland, and ornaments.  It looked beautiful. Here is how my glorious, perfect tree looked yesterday morning… The tree was totally dried out and the branches were sagging, touching the floor.  This caused the garland to slide off.  Like a glacier, it was gaining ground each day.  Since so much of the tree was on the floor, watering it became almost impossible (and probably pointless), and I couldn’t vacuum up the blanket of needles littering my pretty grain sack tree skirt, which was all but invisible, anyway. I mean, how am I going to put presents under that tree?!  I started to joke with my sons that their presents would be buried underneath and

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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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