Let's Meet Marcie Millholland

Marcie Millholland and her beloved Cooper

Friends I‘m thrilled to share my interview with Marcie Millholland. Marcie is the lady behind the IG handle Made By Mollies Mom. She’s crazy creative - loves the art of the thrift and takes many of the treasures she finds to new heights by painting or re-imagining them.

Marcie has a Home and Garden Blog. Where she shares her thrifted finds, projects and diy adventures in her home. Every space of which she has touched. She’s also been featured on Apartment Therapy more than once.

Welcome Marcie I am tickled you said yes when I asked if I could interview you. Please tell us a bit about yourself. Thank you Meryl I live in the metro Atlanta area - Cobb County with my husband, daughter Mollie. Plus, of course, Cooper (my Golden Retriever named after the Cooper River in Charleston) whom certain people think I love most of all :)

I am originally from Charleston SC. We moved a lot when I was young (because of my dad’s job) before settling in Washington DC. I was lucky to spend every Summer in Charleston and local beaches and the school year in DC and Northern VA. I think those places have a lot to do with my design aesthetic. We also spent a lot of time in historic homes belonging to friends and in places like Williamsburg, Monticello and Mt. Vernon. My grandmother and mother were great at flower arranging and setting beautiful tables. My mother also had a great eye for antiques that needed restoring but were real treasures. They both could sew anything! We used to spend Sunday afternoons riding around the DC outskirts looking for quaint antique shops and barn sales.

I have the first item I bought at an antique shop in the VA countryside when I was 6 years old. My mom put the date on the back, and interestingly enough, it’s a little sign with a whale on it (always the coastal girl!) It sits on my “memory shelves” in the garden room. It was purchased at Thieves Market in Alexandria VA. I remember it as being a big warehouse full of treasures. My mom and I would walk over and wander through. And I remember it was cold!! My grandmother was also an amazing gardener.

Marcie did you decorate your childhood bedroom? I definitely decorated my room while growing up. My mom always let me “design” my room when we moved and it made moving a lot easier having a new room to think about. I once drew a “plan” for built in bookcases with a windowseat and my dad built them. I wanted ochre gingham/buffalo check cushions and curtains which my mom sewed. I also spent a lot of time in SC beach houses which, back in the day, were furnished with hand me downs and such from the primary homes. The couches were draped with off white slipcovers or furniture throws but underneath would be a fabulous, worn Sheraton settees or caned furniture. I used to sleep in a creaky faux bamboo bed that I would spend time imagining how it would look painted a great color. I still rearrange vacation homes in my head when we stay in them.

Where and What did you go to school for. I have a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Surface/Textile Design and a minor in Romance Languages. These were acquired after changing my major multiple times (International Business, Journalism, Studio Art to name a few) and my dad mentioned I needed to “wrap things up!” I have never actually worked full time in either area. I have had several creative jobs (just not production jobs like my degree prepared me for) including working for a gallery and painting furniture and custom color swatches/formulas for a decorator in Atlanta. I’ve worked in education and non-profit/NGO for a long time but the job I remember the most fondly was watering plants in large greenhouses for a local grower decades ago - it paid nothing but it was warm, classical music played in the greenhouse and I got to plant and water flowers. Marcie that sounds fantastic communing with nature and being soothed with lovely melodies!

How long you’ve been in your home and what is your favorite space? We have lived in this house for 30 years. My husband was in the family building business and the contract on this house fell through so we moved in “temporarily” and were supposed to stay only 2 years. It was not any of the things we particularly wanted in a home and very different from the 100 year old home we had just restored. But things have a funny way of working out, we almost moved multiple times, but here we still are. This house is truly an example of “loving the home you are in!” We did a small (very small) renovation to the kitchen and reconfigured the space to work better for us. Nothing fancy - just some additional cabinets and changing the back windows. We did add a screened in porch to the back of our house. It is pretty large now but it grew in stages as time and resources permitted. It is the most used space in our house and my favorite.

I know you added this wonderful hand-painted “rug” to the porch for the last One Room Challenge event. Yes, I did. Cooper and I spend spring until late fall out there. It’s where we watch tennis and the Braves. We nap in the swinging bed and read on the wicker chaise. There is a large rattan couch out there that we call the Golden Girls Couch. Mollie saw the same couch on an episode of Hawaii 5-0, the original one :))) We have had so many meals, great “porch parties” and celebrations out there over the years.

Featured Image I shared for SayNoToEmptyWalls

I know you love faux bamboo, zebra and chinoiserie touches. I love this view into your library - You were kind enough to use my hashtag on Instagram and I featured this image in my feed. In your original post you asked How many zebra rugs is too many? I would say there are never too many!

Can you talk about your design philosophy and how long have you been thrifting. I guess I started thrifting at age 6 with my first antique/junk shop purchase I mentioned above. Our first home was a 1904 farmhouse Victorian. We were young and didn’t know that old houses always need a lot more work than you think. After spending a small fortune on plumbing instead of the beautiful couch I wanted I realized thrifting/antiquing/flea markets was going to be the way I could furnish my home and find the kind of pieces I liked. It’s what I had grown up with as well so it wasn’t a stretch to go that route. Now I love that using thrifted and vintage pieces gives my home an evolved, lived in, unique look and that it’s economical and environmentally beneficial too. It’s very satisfying to me to bring something home, give it some fresh paint or recover the cushion and have it work in my space like it was made for it.

So tell us Marcie what’s the best thing you ever thrifted? The zebra rug in my library is a pretty epic find. I’ve been thrifting a very long time so I have found some great things. I have a Gampel Stoll mirror in my entry way that I found for less than $25.00. I posted a quick picture on IG stories when IG was new and a man messaged me immediately and offered me $800.00 for it. I realized I had found something even more fabulous than I realized and researched it. Mirrors similar to mine can go for $1500.00 - $3500.00.

I have a lot of bamboo and rattan furniture thrifted over the years for amazing prices. The coral faux bamboo cabinet in the main bathroom was a great deal at $50.00. It was smoke stained when I got it but I cleaned and painted it and it’s one of my favorites now.

I found a peacock chair for Mollie after searching for years. It was at Good Will and I pulled the tag ($24.94) and sat in it to call my husband to come get it on the way home. A man shopping there really wanted it and kept asking me if I was sure I was going to get it. Even though I promised him I was getting it he kept standing there. My husband was on his way so I sat in it until he got there to load it up!!

A Brighton Pavilion chair had been on my thrifting wish list for years. A few years ago a pair of Brighton Pavilion chairs with a matching side table popped up on Offer Up for $100 for all three. Wow! I messaged the lady that I wanted it and she agreed. It had only been listed 5 minutes when I claimed it. As we were trying to figure out pick up literally 100 people messaged her they wanted it. She knew then she had a hot item. She honored our deal. She was over an hour from me (maybe more in Atlanta traffic!) I told her that I didn’t want to lose out on the chairs but that I was trying to crate 100’s of books and school supplies to take to a school in Honduras and was leaving the next day. She said, “Oh Honey, I love shopping in your area. My husband will load the chairs up and we will bring them to you. You can meet us at the shopping center.” They met us near my house and her husband loaded the 3 pieces in my chair and she didn’t change the price. I have had more and more negative experiences on Facebook Marketplace over the last few years so her kindness and generosity make me love the chair set even more. I think fondly of her when I pass them in my entryway!

I would love to hear about your sewing…I love the faux pleated lamp shape you made. Thank you but this makes me laugh. I really am not good at sewing at all!! I fake it. The pleated lampshade tutorial requires zero sewing! I had to invent the process I used because sewing a pleated shade is beyond me. My mother and grandmother could sew anything!! My mother encouraged me to learn to sew - even paying for lessons. More than once. I cannot use a pattern to save my life. I have sewn simple curtains (like in my downstairs powder room) and I make pillow covers and recover the cushions on my porch furniture but I go at it more like an engineering project than a sewing project. I make my own paper patterns and use YouTube tutorials. My dream is to actually learn to put in a zipper in a pillow cover!! I make mine envelope style. I do have a huge fabric hoard - not being able to sew does not keep me from buying fabric :)))) Now, if you want a floor painted in checkerboard or faux grained or something like that or a driveway painted to look like brick (a very popular reel) then I’m your gal!!

I was so excited to be featured on Apartment Therapy. As I mentioned this lampshade trick was a necessity because I would never be able to sew one! I have loved pleated lampshades since my college days when I would wander in the cute Pierre Deluxe shop in Buckhead to look at the gorgeous block printed French fabrics (textile majors, remember?) All the lamps had these exquisite (and pricey) pleated shades. When they started showing up in the last couple of years in rooms I loved on IG and in mags I decided to fake one.

I am an admirer of your blog - please share when and how it came to be. I have blogged a long time, sometimes more regularly than others. I love the quick visual aspect of IG but I will always be a big fan of blogs. They slumped in popularity for a while and a lot of people dropped blogging but I’m glad to see a resurgence in blogs lately. Sometimes I just want to read/know a little more than a few lines on an IG post. I admire bloggers who post regularly. Maybe someday I will be a scheduled blogger. Ha! I started my blog in 2011 because I was working in education training early education teachers in creative teaching practices/styles for all learners but emphasis on non-traditional learners. I would present at conferences and teachers would ask for written support material. So I started posting little creative projects and activities for children. I would add in home decor projects and family/personal stuff, too. When I stopped doing that I kept blogging and it became more of a lifestyle blog. I like to blog so I’ve kept it up even though I think my mom and her garden club friends were my only readers :)

I always wanted to ask about your IG handle. The IG handle came from the blog. The blog name came from a little business I had when Mollie was a baby and I quit working rather abruptly. She was hospitalized often and required some surgery at 15 months (all good now.) We had to avoid germs in the outside world and were pretty isolated at home. I needed something creative to do so I started a little business painting jewelry and home accessories. I sold to some shops and had little home parties and I called it … Made by Mollie’s Mom. Mollie loved the name so I never changed it!

In addition to your IG feed you’re also involved with a Hashtag group. While IG can be challenging lately I do so very much love it! It is my favorite platform and I still think the amount of inspiration and community that is right at our fingertips is worth the glitches and such. I have been on IG since early days (my first post was in Feb of 2012 and was of one of my dogs - of course!!) and I have had some great opportunities and have made friends I DM (direct message) with regularly and quite a few I’ve met in real life which is so much fun. I was invited to join the #adwellingtoremember group by sweet friends - here are their accounts: @acquired_by_andrea - @bhomewithbernadette - @cjswank_newyork - @parkerkennedyliving - @pepperleigheclectic - @tortoiseandharevintage How is little ol’ me even in this group? It’s been fun to get to know everyone and choose accounts to feature each week. It’s a great group to be in - lots of talent and knowledge which is shared freely. Can’t beat that.

Here are a few items Marcie has created - a painting, matchbooks, one of a kind chinoiserie Christmas ornaments and her latest creation her Chinoiserie Fall Tree - that she shared on Instagram and her blog last week.