The Beauty of My Handmade Home: A Tour Inside

As I walk into my handmade home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I'm greeted by the vibrant colors and eclectic decor that reflects my personality. This is what's inside me, and I'm excited to share it with you. My name is Marie Bartholdi, and as a neurosurgeon on Sundays, this house has become my sanctuary – my haven where creativity and playfulness reign supreme.

I purchased this Craftsman-style home in 2020, just as the pandemic was taking hold. It was a blank slate, waiting for me to put my own unique stamp on it. My vision behind decorating this home was to create an environment that inspires creativity and joy. I wanted to come home every day and feel reinvigorated to do more of what I love – whether that's painting, writing, or simply enjoying the company of loved ones.

The first thing you'll notice when entering my home is the feature wall in my office. For its 100th birthday, I commissioned a mural in the Art Deco style of the 1920s to honor the house's creation. This beautiful piece of art has become a focal point in my workspace, and it's where I do most of my creative work – including painting watercolors. Speaking of which, this is where I spend hours honing my craft, using a set of watercolor paints that I received as a Christmas gift during the pandemic.

During those dark times, we all turned inward, seeking solace in art and self-expression. For me, painting became a healing process – a way to calm myself and channel my emotions into something beautiful. My watercolors have become a staple of my artistic practice, and this is where I bring them to life. You'll notice that my studio has a gallery wall showcasing some of my favorite pieces, each one telling a story about the evolution of my style.

One of my favorite parts of my home is the bathroom downstairs – or at least, it was until the owners before me flipped it and made it their own. But I love the fun story behind this bathroom. Two Catholic nuns left the convent to be together and lived in this house for 25 years. Can you imagine that level of courage and commitment? When they demoed the bathroom, they found a note written on the wall – "Jan loves Emma" – which has been passed down through three owners now, including me.

As I move from room to room, each one tells a story about my personality and design aesthetic. My living room is a reflection of my love for whimsy and fun – from the custom-built bar in the shape of a cat's head to the colorful artwork that adorns the walls. This is where I like to host podcasts, esports tournaments, and other gatherings with friends and family.

My office is another favorite space in the house – it's where I spend most of my time working on new projects and responding to messages from fans. One of my proudest possessions is this beautiful watercolor painting of my front door, created by the two nuns who lived in this house before me. It was a thoughtful gift, passed down through generations, and now it's mine to cherish.

As you explore my home, I hope you'll notice the little touches that make each room special – from the handmade jewelry displayed on clear cases to the eclectic mix of artwork and decorative pieces that add character to every space. Happiness is what this home represents to me – a state of mind that radiates joy, playfulness, and creativity. And I'm so glad you're here to experience it with me.

So, if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to Handmade for more home tours just like this! I'm always excited to share my passions with new people, and I hope that by sharing my home with you, I've inspired you to create something beautiful in your own space.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is what's inside me what you see here in this house this is the best way that i can describe what it's like to be maria hi i'm maria this is my handmade home in minneapolis minnesota my name is marie bartholdi i do about 500 things for a living i'm mildly internet famous i'm a podcaster improviser write musicals edit video shoot video produce video also a neurosurgeon on sundays just kidding i bought this house in 2020 right in the heart of the pandemic it's a craftsman style home and i could tell the bones were really really good and that was the most important to me essentially it was a blank slate and i just got in here and threw down like a wrestler my whole vision behind decorating this home was that i wanted to be inspired creatively going out and doing what i do is a lot of giving right you're on stage you're in front of the camera you're constantly giving yourself to the audience i wanted to come home and feel like yes i'm reinvigorated to do more of what i love that was the vision behind everything being colorful the maximalist style was just wanting to feel kind of like an explosion of creativity hello this is the living room it's a burst of color and hopefully a very happy experience it started probably with the couch because i knew that i wanted to have a chartreuse green 70s style couch i think everything else is an offshoot of that it went up onto the walls it's my favorite color and so many things in my life are this color i just love it so much so this is my gallery wall of all my most favorite pieces of art this is one of the things that i think is such an easy upgrade to make in your house i know it might look scary like i got a ruler and a measuring tape and i measured everything here precisely i did not do that all i did was i measured the center of the room boom put this big unicorn piece here in the middle and then i sort of just eyeballed everything else this is my cathode ray tube tv that has been turned into a cat bed this is a super easy project it's just been gutted and then on the inside i painted a little star escape so that the kitties can have nice dreams when they go in there i love wallpaper if i could wallpaper every room in a house you know i probably would this wallpaper i agonized over for weeks and weeks what to do i eventually landed on this black and white mural which i think is a really cool idea it's all one piece of uninterrupted art that inspired the fireplace to become black instead of white is a nice anchoring color because there's so much color in this house to have a few heavy black elements is really cool so the dining room was built actually around this light fixture i wanted a lot of heavy black elements to also match the fireplace and that's where you get this black granite table which i absolutely love yeah so here is my game cabinet it's one of the premier things that i bought from my home i needed a place to put my games but also it displays kind of who i am as a person i have a regular board gaming group we meet and we play games every monday and then for my job we'll sometimes be playing board games to review for the youtube channel is it work i don't know you decide like this is a huge part of my life and it's on display as a design element which i think is a cool thing to think about how can you display who you are through design i think it was just a slow accumulation of stuff honestly you know i'll be out and i'll see something and i'll just be like yes this this i must acquire and bring to my collection it's like those birds that make a nest and they decorate it with little bits of glass i'm one of those birds here's my tribute to my great great great uncle frederick august bartholdi who designed the statue of liberty once when i was young we went to the statue of liberty and i was like do you think they'll let us in for free if we show them our ideas i'm not just a proud american that's family history as you can see i love playing with light alexa turn on dinosaur light there we go so here's a fun one that you can program to be any colors you want i've got a neon sign up there which was custom made you can get those now anywhere a smart bulb in my lady lamp at night this place looks like a disco this is the pista resistance lloyd the robot bartender i'm a huge fan of robots i love everything about them and i drew a lot of robots i had an instagram account called robot a day where i draw one every day robot bars apparently were a thing that coincided with the moon landing and someone said you should have this and i looked it up you can't of course buy them so i contacted a local woodworker who graciously offered to build me one and did it in a week and a half and so this is lloyd do you want a drink lloyd will provide he's named lloyd after the bartender in the shining this is my favorite piece that i have in my house because it's fun it's whimsical it's functional he's great i love this bathroom this is the downstairs bathroom um i can't take credit for it unfortunately the owners before me flipped it and it is gorgeous the fun story with this bathroom is that two owners ago a pair of nuns left the convent to be together and they lived together in this house for 25 years talk about being trailblazers to be two women who are catholic nuns number one leaving the convent number two living as two women together um is so brave and incredible when they were demoing this bathroom they found that behind this mirror was written on the wall jan loves emma and i can only imagine that it's still there today and that just makes me so happy to know that this was such a loving home for some people for so long i just love that story and it inspired me actually that's the next musical i'm working on right now is called jan loves emma and it's a biography of them oh this is cool this is a watercolor that's done of the front of my house that was painted by the two nuns who lived here that was a neat item that's been handed down through three owners and given to me so whoever owns it after me will also get it which i think is really cool this is my office the main focal point of this office here is this feature wall this house is more than 100 years old and for its 100th birthday i thought it'd be very cute to get the house a present and so i decided to put in a mural we did it in the art deco style of the 1920s to honor the house's creation this is where i do my watercolors these i just do for fun for myself during the pandemic i think we all turned inward we needed something to help soothe ourselves to calm ourselves and i had just recently gotten for christmas a watercolor set and i started drawing women being a proud feminist and being a champion for women it was just a subject matter i was drawn to i found it to be so incredibly healing as a process it's so relaxing and wonderful to have a nice space to do them so this is my watercolor area right next to where i work so this is where i'll host podcasts esports tournaments all from my house because of the pandemic now it makes me feel happy to be in here and whenever you're doing work that is a good feeling to have this is another example of a gallery wall my house is a little tiny one except this one is all my work these are some of my watercolor ladies these are some of my most favorite pieces you can kind of see the evolution of the style that i've developed where this one's more traditional and then i'm getting more experimental with these ones which i kind of like also if you have nice jewelry show it off you know that's why i have these in clear cases a lot of them are handmade by local artists you know i like to think of them as little mini pieces of art in and of themselves anywhere that i'm in my house i want to be thinking this is my favorite spot in the house right now that's how i want to feel in every single room i think people would describe my personality as excitable loud i like to be happy and hopefully that's reflected in the design of this home and the way that i've put it together happiness in a home that's kind of i guess how i would describe my design aesthetic here what does happiness look like this at least for me if you like this video give it a thumbs up and subscribe to handmade for more home tours just like this\n"