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All Things Home

how I manage home decorating/renovation projects

A few weeks ago, I received this e-mail from a reader and I thought I would share it along with the answer to how I manage my home renovation projects.  Here is an excerpt from the e-mail… “I know you’re extremely busy, but if you haven’t already done so, I would really love to see a blog post on how you arrive at your project list(s).  Do you sit in a room and add everything that ever needs to be done, and then add more as things come up?  Or do you just start a running list as ideas come to you?  Do you keep track by project (i.e., everything that needs to be painted), or by room?  How do you decide what gets moved up and down on the list?  How do you resolve competing priorities for projects including decisions re: resources (money, time, motivation)?” Now that I have

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All Things Home

How to Clean Stinky Furniture

One of the questions I’m asked most often is about how to clean stinky furniture.  Here is the most recent e-mail I received about that… “I have an older dresser that smells awful! I have no idea what to do to alleviate the smell. It was my mom’s and now it’s mine. There hasn’t been anything smelly stored in it but I’m stumped as to what to do to have fresh-smelling drawers without having to sand the inside of the drawers down or douse it with chemicals. My only other thought is to spray or paint it with KILZ. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?  Thanks for your time!” Having bought and sold thousands of pieces of furniture over the past 10 years, I have done battle with many pieces that were stinky, musty, smelled like smoke or animal pee, or were just completely dirty and gross.  Sometimes it’s

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All Things Home

milk painted dresser makeover

I know that my followers love a good furniture makeover and I have a good old fashioned painted dresser makeover today! This is a dresser I bought in the spring of 2019 when my mom and I were working on the guest room makeover.  We went out to a few local antique and consignment shops to see if we could find dressers to use as storage/nightstands and we ended up finding one for each side.  This is one of those dressers that was now replaced by an almost identical dresser we found when they were visiting a few weeks ago.  Are you tracking with me? We ended up swapping out the one we bought last March with the recent find because the drawers work just a little bit better.  Since Jeff will be using it daily as a nightstand, it made sense to use the slightly sturdier one.  Be also

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All Things Home

fluffing up faux boxwood topiaries

I have been looking for a pair of faux topiaries to put in the living room ever since I styled a couple of photos with these live ones.  I wish I could keep these perpetually alive and beautiful in this room, but there just isn’t enough natural light to keep them happy.  Finding faux boxwood topiaries were going to be the best option. While my mom and I were at Hobby Lobby, I found a pair of faux boxwood topiaries that were pretty perfect.  I like the pots, the size and scale was just what I wanted and I even liked the spiral shape.  I wouldn’t say that they look real, but they look nice.  The problem is that one of them had some issues.  It was about two inches shorter than the other one and had clumps missing.  The price for that one was reduced, so I decided to

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All Things Home

how to paint a granite fireplace surround

One of the downsides to buying a house that is new-ish and in nice condition is that it’s hard to rip out and replace things that are perfectly nice.  In the other homes we’ve owned, I’ve been able to take the approach of “we can’t make it any worse, so let’s just go for it!”  In this house, we can make things worse and also make them look cheap and shoddy in comparison to the quality of the home.  So, I was hesitant to do any sort of DIY treatment to the granite fireplace surround in the living room.  There was nothing wrong with it, but it just wasn’t my taste.  I can’t tell you how much research I’ve done over the past three years on how to paint a granite fireplace surround before I finally took the plunge! I wasn’t even sure I wanted to paint it, so I

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All Things Home

live painting class | grazing cow painting

Well, this is my last live painting class post for a while.  I have enjoyed it so much, but I need to clear my plate to focus on some other projects for a while.  It has been a learning experience for me and a great source of joy during these tough times!  I really appreciate everyone who participated and sent me pictures of their work, notes, and e-mails telling me about their painting journey and how this class has been a bright spot for them, too. I can’t tell you how many people started painting along with me simply because they’ve always wanted to try it.  I can tell from the work I’ve been receiving that there are a lot of people who found a talent they didn’t know they possessed.  It makes my whole year to hear that! This isn’t the end, though.  I’ll be back when my schedule

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All Things Home

Edging & Painting the Concrete Patio

Last Thursday, the weather was lovely.  It was sunny, wasn’t too hot, and there was a light breeze.  It was the perfect day to get the patio under our deck painted.  Oh, this patio was so sad and neglected.  It felt so good to finally give it some attention! Before we could paint, we had to get it all cleaned up.  We did the majority of that during one of our family workdays.  We burned the sticks, bagged the trash, put things in the garage that we wanted to keep (like the cinderblocks) and power washed the dirt and debris off. It looked so much better after a good cleaning, but the power washer (we have ) did not remove the paint splatters from when the previous owners painted the deck.  The best option was to prime and paint to achieve a nice, clean surface. I started by edging around

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All Things Home

live painting class | still life with flowers & glass

Last week was absolutely packed!  Jeff took the week off, so I cleared my schedule as much as I could to take advantage of our time to work on projects together.  We installed the picture frame molding and chair rail in both the sewing room and master bedroom and got a ton of work done in the yard.  We did a “family workday” on Saturday to get all of the big stuff done (hauling mulch, edging the beds, putting down weed-blocking fabric, etc.)  We have some small things to do when it cools off later this week, but the yard is really coming along.  I also still have caulking, priming, and painting to do in the master bedroom and sewing room. I’ll be sharing my progress and process on these projects starting this week, but first, I wanted to post about the live art class from a couple of weeks

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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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May 20th, 2026 at 1pm EST

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