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powder room ideas
Some friends of mine recently moved into a historic house in Virginia, and they have a powder room on their main floor that’s a blank slate. The powder room opens into a den that has lots of windows to their gorgeous, lush backyard. They’ll use this bathroom quite a bit, I imagine, since one of…
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diy spring wreath
It’s been so rainy and gloomy here lately — has it been that way for you? We haven’t been able to start any of our outdoor projects, except that I planted some annuals on Mother’s Day. The first trip to the plant store in the spring is the best! To bring a little more spring…
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vintage bathroom refresh
Our friends recently moved into a beautiful house near us, and I’ve taken it upon myself to come up with decor ideas for their consideration. I love thinking about the best ways to showcase their personalities and make their house shine. (And they’re very kind for putting up with my many ideas!) Their house has…
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bathroom: from listing to lovely
Some of our dear friends just bought a house in our town, and I couldn’t be more excited! They got a gorgeous, stately house — a place with a great sense of history and depth. It has fabulous wood floors, beautiful moldings, and some cool stained glass pieces that make the house feel unique and…
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renovating a bedroom on a budget
Some dear friends of ours live in a beach town in the south, and they have an adorable house in an artsy neighborhood. They’re raising kids and working full time. Their jobs are extremely important and rewarding — they work with people who are homeless and people who have disabilities — but it’s tough work…
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full bathroom renovation — DIY mode
If you’re new here, I’m sharing how we renovated a beach house and then rented it on Airbnb. Some of the rooms in this house needed only a facelift — new paint and new furniture — but we decided to completely renovate one of the bathrooms. This process took SO long . . . it’s…
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easy DIY: tiling a fireplace
We finally have our finished photos from the beach place, and I’m so excited to share each room with you! First up is one of the easiest transformations — the fireplace. As you can see in the photos below, when we bought the place, the fireplace was pretty blah. It just wasn’t my style at…
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the conservatory
We have this weird little room in the front of our house. We’ve never really known what to call it (except “the little room”), and a few years ago we began calling it “the conservatory” in a very high-brow accent. This very small room has stumped me for years. How could we use this space…
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framing hack: spray paint the mat
A few weeks ago I was chatting with the guy who works in the framing department at Michaels, and I complained about how expensive it is to get things framed (despite the frequent sales at Michaels). He leaned across the counter and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “You should buy frames off the shelf and…
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rebuilding the interior stairs
When we bought the beach condo, one of the worst spaces was the interior stairwell. It was dark and dingy, and the stairs were covered with blue, smelly carpet. It was depressing! And the previous owners had painted ivy down the hand rail. Under some circumstances I find that charming (we inherited a similar feature…
