Archive for July, 2009
Gabriella’s Design Dilemma
Gabriella’s living room is ready to transform. Here’s her letter:
I’ve can’t wait to hear your ideas for our living room! The style that most appeals to me is ‘eclectic’ while casual and fun are also up there on my list. Small touches of modern and glamorous could also be nice. The only large item that I know I want to replace is the white sideboard/cabinet (with something longer, even wall mounted Ikea cabinets perhaps). I think I’d like the rest (rug, round coffee table, sofa, striped chair and leather Barcalounger) to stay. But I’m open to all suggestions! I love the antique Asian panels (found on Craigslist) and would like to keep them. The modern painting can go or stay. End tables could go either way. The 2 burl wood top tables were made by an old friend of my mom’s, so I’ve been trying to think of how I might alter them to work in the space. New legs maybe? Mirror on fireplace mantle can go or stay. The wall color could change, especially if that would help the room not feel so dark. We had the brick fireplace sandblasted when we moved in (it was painted white and it gave it a softer, chippy, under the sea look). We plan to eventually add either glass doors or an insert to the fireplace. I like earthy colors and all patterns, especially a fun mix of patterns (dots, stripes, ikat, graffiti, anything!). I also love the freshness of white and would love to find ways to mix in more. Thanks!!! -Gabriella
This space is chock full of potential. Here’s the plan:
And now for the mood board breakdown.
Read the rest of this entry »
We Painted Our Exterior Brick!
But it’s not what you think. Many people ask us if we’d ever paint our little brick ranch but the truth is that although we heavily considered it back when we got it, we’ve grown to love the look of our home’s exterior and completely appreciate the lack of maintenance. See, brick ranchers are known for their durability and ease of ownership (no siding replacement, re-stuccoing, or repainting- ever). Plus here in Richmond if you paint a brick house any medium or light tone (and you know we’d want a tan house with white trim, right?) green mold will start popping up, which requires a thorough scrub down with bleach at least once a season. Can you imagine scrubbing the entire exterior of your house? No thanks.
But back to the matter at hand. If we didn’t paint our brick house how the heck does that title make sense? Well, our sunroom was added about twenty five years after our house was built so it was tacked on in a way that it partially overlapped some of the house’s existing brick exterior (which then became interior brick in the sunroom. See, here I am (on the first day that we laid eyes on our house, incidentally) modeling in front of the sunroom:
But after a while we realized that painting the brick wall inside the sunroom to match the soft tan color on the rest of the walls would immediately make the room feel more cohesive and balanced. So we whipped out some exterior latex paint (since our sunroom isn’t temperature controlled) and got her done. Other than using an exterior paint, we followed the exact same brick-painting tips that we outlined here, so be sure to check them out for the play by play. And here’s the result:
At first we worried whether seeing the same unpainted brick just beyond the glass door to the left of the wall would be weird, but looking back we realize it looked weird before, when the random brick wall carried over a few feet into our sunroom.
Now the days of pre-painted brick are long forgotten. But we do have another mini-update to share regarding this very spot…
…so stay tuned over the next few days to see what we did (hint: it’s not a baby).
p.s. psst, have you updated your bookmarks / reader / blogroll / outgoing links / Twitter/ Facebook yet? If you’re still heading our way using old TYH methods, they won’t last for long so don’t forget to make the switch! We’d hate to lose a single one of you DIY-lovin’ dudes and dames.
Fab Freebie: Let The Rain Fall Down
***This giveawy is no longer accepting entries***
By now you all probably know that we try to make the best out of a seemingly bad situation. So when someone tries to rain on your parade, what do we say? Catch it in a rain barrel and put that H2O to good use!
Which is why we’re super excited to bring you this week’s giveaway sponsored by The Rain Barrel Company. They sell a range of pro-sustainability products (composters, etc.) and this week they’re offering up one of their namesake products to one lucky reader…
Yup it’s a fancy pre-made professional rain barrel which means you all can jump on the collect-your-own-rainwater bandwagon with us without even having to go barrel diving like I did. After all, who isn’t down with saving the planet and money on their water bill? Oh and you can learn more about these amazing pre-made rain barrels on the Rain Barrel Company website since the winner gets their pick of the bunch:
- PRIZE: One of the three rain barrels (and stand) show above (either the Californian, Mocha Cascata or Terra Cotta Cascata, valued at $183 – $337 a pop!)
- TO ENTER: Comment on this post with the words “RAIN ON ME!” and…
- BONUS QUESTION: Tell us your favorite way to make the most of a rainy day. Do you catch a movie? Curl up with a book (or blog)? Or just sit and dream about filling up a rain barrel?
- GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 8pm EST
- NUMBER OF WINNERS: One and only one
- PRIZE SHIPS: USA and Canada
- THE USUAL STUFF: One entry per e-mail address is permitted. The winner will be selected using random.org and announced on Thursday. Good luck!
PS: Anyone catch the subtle Hilary Duff / Laguna Beach theme song reference in the title? Yeah, um, me neither..
Get more info on our freebies at our Giveaway FAQs page. Images courtesy of The Rain Barrel Company.
Psst, have you updated your bookmarks / reader / blogroll / outgoing links / Twitter/ Facebook yet? If you’re still heading our way using old TYH methods, they won’t last for long so don’t forget to make the switch! We’d hate to lose a single one of you freebie-lovin’ folks.
In The Hopper For Young House Love
Ok, so now that we’re holding it down at a new URL, we figured you guys may be wondering what those fun features that we mentioned would be coming soon might be. Well, there’s lots to look forward to so here’s just a smattering of exciting projects and developments coming to Young House Love…
#1. A Young House Love Nursery: If people could get pregnant by popular demand, Sherry and I might just be having octuplets. And since so many of our readers were crossing their fingers that our big announcement would be a baby, we figured it was high time we did a nursery makeover, even if it’s not in our house. My sister Emily (check out her amazing casa right here) is due in October and she recruited us months ago to majorly transform her empty bedroom into a nursery for her little one on the way. We are both geeky-excited about it. With a before like this you know it’s going to be dramatic:
Yes, there’s an awesome track door leading into one side of the room (the other side is accessible through a regular doorway) so there are already some pretty amazing features to work with. Is it weird that before pictures actually make our mouth water? It’s pavlovian. And as for expanding our little family, it’s not in the works yet but it’s certainly something we look forward to in the next year or so.
#2. Videos, Baby: We’ve already ordered some video equipment to make it quick and easy to wax poetic whenever the mood strikes. And we also have a little TV appearance coming up so that should be fun/potentially-embarrassing.
#3. Our House’s History: We never knew you guys were so curious about our house’s original owners until we started receiving quite a few emails and comments asking if we’ve ever heard from them. Well guess what? Last week we heard from them. The original owners who lived here for almost forty five years contacted us after coming across our blog through a friend. Oh the tales they told. And we can’t wait to spill all the dirty details about our humble house’s past. Let’s just say there we plenty of new discoveries. And speaking of discoveries, here’s an old post about how we found some pretty amazing things under our old cabinets when we redid our kitchen (the bottom one is a childhood drawing by the woman who contacted us from back when she was five years old!):
#4. The Usual Suspects: Of course we have more Reader Redesigns, Burning Questions, House Crashing adventures, Design Dilemmas, before & afters, DIY projects, follow-up posts (how do we like our new bed a month later? how’s our edible garden doing?), Fab Freebies, and a slew of tutorials (hanging art, painting paneling) on our list. So keep an eye out for that stuff coming down the pipeline to a computer screen near you.
#5. Another Katie Bower Play Date: Ever since we visited Katie and her husband Jeremy over at All Bower Power to crash their house and make a fun little video, the people (you, our dear readers) have clamored for more. And we like to give the people what they want. So we already have a meet-up on our schedule…
#6. Some Bathroom & Basement Action: So many of you were hoping that our big announcement was a total basement or bathroom makeover that it got us even more excited to take on both of those major projects. We can’t promise a finished product anytime soon, but we’re formulating a plan and hope to kick things into gear in the near future (we’re just saving our pennies for a little while). And we know you’re all about instant gratification but time flies when you’re busy enjoying items 1-5 on this list, right? Until we “break ground” (literally) on both of those projects, we’ll leave you with a picture of our dank, dark, and oh-no-you-di’int basement. We can’t wait to get to work.
So that’s what’s cookin’ here at Young House Love. Who’s hungry? Anything else you’d like to see in the coming weeks or months? Consider this a suggestion box of sorts.
p.s. psst, have you updated your bookmarks / reader / blogroll / outgoing links / Twitter/ Facebook yet? If you’re still heading our way using old TYH methods, they won’t last for long so don’t forget to make the switch! We’d hate to lose a single one of you lovely people.
The End Of This Young House
Yup, you read the title right. This Young House is going the way of the dodo and the dinosaur. And although it certainly wasn’t our idea (let’s just say lawyers were involved) it sure has added some excitement to our little blogging lives.
The good news is that we’re already whipping up lemonade from the sour lemons hurled in our general direction. We’ve got a brand-spanking-new name and URL, but the site remains exactly the same otherwise. Unless you count all the fun new features, tutorials and before & afters that we’ll be adding in the coming weeks. So remember to visit younghouselove.com from this day forth (and to update you reader, bookmarks and even your blogroll if you link out to us) to make it easy to keep up with our adventures- and misadventures- in home improvement.
Ok, so here’s the full scoop. On July 7th, as many of you know, we were busy celebrating our two year wedding anniversary. But on July 8th we got a nice little present in the form of a cease and desist letter from a prominent home improvement magazine/TV show which bears a few similarities to our old site’s name (you guys can figure it out, right?). Don’t they know the two year anniversary present is cotton, not paper? Anyway, they basically ordered that we immediately surrender the use of our old name and URL because they believed consumers were getting confused and may think that Young House Love was in some way related to their brand. Picture us scratching our heads. In almost two years of blogging under that moniker not one person has ever asked if we were related to that company.
That started a rollercoaster ride of emotions. First came fear and sadness – were we really going to get sued or be forced to hand over nearly two years of hard work? Then came confusion and anger – why was the same pub that contacted us last year to compliment our work and offer us a free magazine subscription suddenly sending lawyers after us? Not to mention the fact that our site and our logo looked nothing like theirs, our names were essentially opposites, our projects are on a completely different scale, and we’re clearly just two young people with a personal blog (not a corporation with deep pockets and an army of lifelong experts). But we eventually unclenched our fists and faced reality. Even though we completely disagreed with every single point they made, what two-person blog wants to go up against such a wealthy industry powerhouse? Can you just imagine that? In this corner we have a million dollar company. And in this corner… John, Sherry and a feisty chihuahua. No thanks.
So after many hours spent huddling with our attorney we decided the best way to move forward (and spare ourselves a potentially long and expensive legal battle) would be to turn the other cheek and change our name and URL. After all, just as the-magazine-that-shall-not-be-named doesn’t want to be accidentally associated with us, we certainly share that sentiment. Now more than ever.
And a funny thing happened after we made the decision to move on to bigger and better things. We got fired up. Not throw-something-I’m-mad fired up, but this-could-be-an-amazing-opportunity fired up. Our excitement grew as we chatted breathlessly until two in the morning about what a great thing this seemingly stressful anniversary incident could become. We felt almost like we did when we moved into our house in the very beginning. There was raw potential for miles and we couldn’t wait to forge ahead with our paint brushes in our pockets and smiles on our faces.
Then came the search for the perfect new name. We tossed out a few odd but applicable ones first (involving our infamous love of white paint, ceramic animals and charming chihuahuas) but we still felt like Youngsters at heart. So we decided to bridge the gap between our old name and the thing that our last URL had always been missing: the can’t-deny-it crush we have on our humble home. We secured our new website addy on Bluehost for $4 with a coupon (you know we like to sniff out a good deal) and our new blog baby: Young House Love was born. It instantly felt like a place we could call home, and we really like referencing the idea of falling in “house love” (that unmistakable type of youthful puppy love that we all feel for the casa we’re tenderly fixing up). After all, we’re just two young people falling in love with our first house.
And here we are less than a week later, welcoming you to our new virtual abode. We’re still unpacking a bit, so bear with us as we transition everything and add bigger and better features as we go. We know it may take some time for you guys to get comfortable with our new name and URL, but just as our old blog was once our baby, this one is our “youngest child” which means we’re gonna coddle it and spoil our lovely readers even more than we did before. Weekly giveaways (starting back up tomorrow!), before & after eye candy, step by step tutorials- we’ll serve it all up on a white lacquered platter.
In the order of housekeeping, we would also love to remind you to change your bookmarks, Google Reader (click that link or add “www.younghouselove.com/feed” to find the right feed), and even your blogroll and the outgoing links (old and new) on your blog if you’ve linked over to us (links to specific posts can easily be redirected to the right place by replacing “thisyounghouse” with “younghouselove” in the URL and leaving the rest of the address as-is). Now that we’re legally bound to go by Young House Love from this day forward, replacing those old links and switching any old copy that says “This Young House” to “Young House Love” will really help our new blog grow and prosper (and make our day to boot).
Plus, if you’ve been following us on Twitter or Facebook (btw, we had lots of fun reading everyone’s guesses about our big news all weekend) please take a moment to switch over to our new Young House Love Twitter and Young House Love Facebook pages. They’re a little bare at the moment, but rest assured they’ll be the only place for bonus content, breaking sale news, and what-we’re-doing details from this point forward. Our old accounts will just turn into periodic annoying reminders to make the move so it’s best to abandon ship and jump aboard our new ones asap (note: please unfollow or unfan the old YHL pages after your switch to help us clean ‘em out).
Oh and of course, we’d be forever grateful it you’d tell your friends / family / blog readers / coworkers / dog / gourd lamp about our new address. We would hate to lose a single one of you in the switch. We even made a handy little 120 x 120 button for any fellow bloggers out there who wouldn’t mind adding it to their sidebar with a link back to younghouselove.com (click HERE to grab it), which will really make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Thanks so much for your support. You guys put the love in Young House Love, so smooches all around.
