Young House Love

DIY Home Decorating Projects, Tutorials, & Shenanigans

Archives for April 2011

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Cleaning & Organizing Our Closet

In the words of Eminem… I’m cleaning out my closet. But first a closet-themed dance break for the Marshall Mathers fans out there (I can actually do a mean Eminem impression): Ok, now that we have that out of the way, I’ll get to the meat and potatoes of this post. I’m actually not currently cleaning out my closet, the deed has already been done. And it’s not just my closet, it’s both of ours. We’ve mentioned a few times that before we got a proper dresser we were living for over three months with piles of socks and pajamas on the floor of our bedroom closet. Yeah, it was a disaster, and we just

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Birthday Bidness

Guess what today is? It’s Sherry’s BFF Katie Bower’s son Will’s 1st Birthday! Did you get all that? It’s a lot of apostrophes. And Clara is doing her best to be a good baby girlfriend, so she sent her main squeeze a couple of items that she loves: tools and clothes. (PS- if your name is Katie Bower and you haven’t had Will open his gifts yet, scroll no further – we don’t want to ruin the surprise). The first thing that we Clara bought for him was this wooden tool kit from Melissa & Doug (Clara has a few Melissa & Doug puzzles that she loves). We gotta get the babies to follow in

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How To Build A Console Table (Part Two)

After victoriously completing the two end sections of our three-piece DIYed console table (explained here), I turned my attention to the middle portion. You may recall that this piece will be entirely hidden between the other two (and sandwiched between the back of the sectional and the wall) so I could’ve gotten away with a very simple platform on which to lay the long tabletop that will span across all three pieces that we’re planning to make out of our already-around reclaimed pallet wood. But we figured that would just be wasted space, so we took the less simple route of creating some hidden storage in the middle piece. Allow my sketch to explain: Who

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Any Given Day (A Keeping-It-Real House Tour On Video)

I thought it might be fun to walk around the house with the Flip cam and show you guys how each room can look on an average day. You know, before we pick the clothes up off the floor, put away Clara’s toys, and fold the big blankets that we snuggle under on the sofa. So here’s an impromptu house tour (while John and Clara ducked out to the post office and grocery store) in all of its average everyday glory: Things to note: Ugh, I have a cold. Sorry about my annoying voice. Who am I kidding, my voice annoys me even when I’m not crazy congested. I’m terrible at walking around, talking, and

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12 Design Mistakes We (Hopefully) Won’t Make Again

Q: I have an idea for a blog post. “Design mistakes we won’t make again.” As I look through pictures of all the beautiful work you’ve done, I’m thinking of choosing many similar styles & purchases. But then I wonder, over time – did you ever regret a design choice? – Shannon A: That’s a good one. And now for 1,970 words on the subject. We’ll start by saying that we definitely don’t always know what we’re doing when we do something (us = so not experts) so we just try to take things one day at a time and learn as we go. We make tons of mistakes. You’ve just gotta feel your way

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All The King’s Horses…

… and all the king’s men, couldn’t put my faceless ceramic pooch together again. Well, maybe they could, but they weren’t around. So I tried to do it myself, using only a mother’s love (and some super glue). And because I’m a freak about fumes I did it on the back patio while Clara was napping (baby monitor in hand). Pretty much immediately things got wonky. Wop-wop. Nothing matched up and it looked all crazy and jagged. I think the fact that some shards were just too small to keep & reglue threw everything off. And somehow there was a huge chunk from the top of my beloved pup’s head that was mysteriously gone. I

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A Big Move Deserves A Tiny House Painting

Something big happened last week: my parents sold the house I grew up in. They’ve been planning to do this for a while, so it’s not a shock or anything. It’s also not as depressing as it could be since they’re selling it so they can move to Richmond (right now they’re about 2 hours away in Northern Virginia). My parents are both retired and have been planning to downsize for a while now. They picked Richmond for a bunch of reasons, including that four of their five grandchildren live here. So all in all, we’re really happy about the news. But there’s still something major about the closing of this particular chapter, so allow

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Fab Freebie: The Devil’s In The Details

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – scroll down to see who won!*** Thanks to the devilish randomization that is random.org, our two winners are… Steph (who was just talking to a colleague about the two tattoos she has…for now) and Alason (who’s thinks her little butterfly tattoo on her back makes people assume she’s a bad girl). Congrats ladies! Since you guys seemed to enjoy last week’s spring cleaning related giveaway, how about another? Your house can’t possibly be all cleaned up yet can it? This one comes from the folks over at Dirt Devil who are gonna hook two of you up with a tattoo. But you’re not going to disappoint the

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Building A Console Table (Part One)

First things first. Thanks for being such great sports about our little April Fool’s Day prank (seen here). Sherry was giggling the entire time she made that crazy nautical themed doggie mood board (at one point Katie Bower called and I actually heard a laugh-snort or two as she shared her little “project”). And it’s safe to say that every single comment – ranging from those of you who fell for it and those of you who knew it was a joke from the first sentence – made her day. Which made mine. Happy wife = happy life. In fact things were so copacetic around here that I was inspired to start my next big

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Playroom Plans

You guys already know that our playroom is looking kinda rough these days (thanks to this whole house update post from last week): But we’ve decided that once we clear it out, it’ll actually suit our family better as a less traditional space. Burger is a beloved member of our family, so we think he deserves his own little area. And since Clara plays pretty much all over the house (in the office, the living room, the kitchen, and her room – depending wherever we are with her) we won’t really need an official “playroom” until baby number two comes along (and we turn the playroom into a bedroom). And I’ll spoil the surprise for

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