Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

Archives for August 2011

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Our Blog Makeover

Yup, after months of working on a little behind the scenes blog makeover (not kidding, this stuff literally takes us months) we’ve FINALLY let ‘er rip. Like any project, there were unexpected delays: mysterious coding glitches, inexplicable site crashes (thanks for your patience on those, btw), an earthquake and even a hurricane to round things out. But before we let another excuse get in our way, we decided to just go for it. It’s not 100% done. It may crash the site again. There could be a blizzard next week. Who knows. It’s actually surprising to us that we haven’t done this sooner. We’ve had the same exact blog look/background/layout since the spring of 2008

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A Fall Themed Baby Shower

Alternate punny title: Leaf it to me. Oh yeah, there’s nothing like a little corniness on a Tuesday afternoon. I blame it on being downright giddy to have power again. Ohthankgoodness. Anyway, this weekend before the chaos that was Irene I actually helped with a little bridal shower for our cousin Megan who is getting hitched this fall. John’s mom hosted the sweet informal gathering at her place, and each one of the daughters (and in this case, me the daughter-in-law) were asked to bring a few things. I was in charge of a bowl of candy, and a little bit of table decor. Nothing too crazy, just a few small touches to hopefully get

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How To Prep Cabinets For Paint

We were humming along on our way to updating our $6 cabinets with some primer and glossy white paint until the whole hurricane thing took out our power (update: miracle of all miracles, it’s back on, and we’ve never loved electricity more). So the three day outage robbed us of our cabinet mojo since John has some building to do (which necessitates the use of a few electric tools like drills and saws) before we paint and reassemble everything in the office. Thankfully we did get to tackle all of the prepping and priming before the outage, and took about a million photos of the process (who’s surprised?). So we figured that part of the

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Fab Freebie: Sign Me Up

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Thanks to random.org, our trio of winners are…Kristen (who just signed up for Pinterest and is already addicted, but hasn’t had the guts to do anything yet), Victoria DeVaugh-Geiss (who just signed her up for a gym with her husband) and Robyn (who sadly just signed up for unemployment after having been laid off). If you’re name isn’t here, don’t forget you can still get $10 off your Signs by Andrea order with code YHL10 through September 12th. Weathered old wood? Check. Simple clean lettering. Check. Personalized and hand-made? Double check. Signs by Andrea hit a lot of our favorite decorating notes, which

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Hurricane Irene Damage

As many of  you know, Hurricane Irene swept up the east coast on Saturday afternoon and evening, bringing lots of wind and rain along with it. Sadly, our neighborhood didn’t fare very well with high wind gusts slamming a bunch of giant trees down on power lines, roads, and even homes. Thankfully, our house was spared. But many of our neighbors and friends weren’t so lucky. It broke our hearts to look out from our patio to see that a tree in our neighbor’s yard had fallen onto their home (it easily could have hit ours if it fell in the other direction). Thankfully although they were both home with their two dogs at the

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The 8 Month Difference…

After yesterdays first house vs. current house comparison, this comment from Jess definitely got our wheels turning: “I think its an unfair comparison to put 8 months of work at the current place up against 4 + years at the old. You should have compared current photos from this house to what your old house looked like 8 months after you moved in there!!” Well, that’s probably not quite fair either, since we’ve definitely learned a ton in the last five years of homeownership (and also spend a lot more time doing house stuff these days since this DIY diary of ours is our job)… but we’re game! It’s Friday. But oh boy is this

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Comparing Our First House To Our Current House

Last Friday on this post we got this comment and thought it sounded like a good time: “I love your videos and it’s crazy to see the difference in YHL style from the first house to this house! If you wanted to do a side-by-side of rooms past and present, I wouldn’t hate it :)” – Sarah I decided I wouldn’t hate it either. So here we go. It’s a battle to the death. First house vs. current house. Cue the dramatic music and picture me in a Gladiator outfit. Of course it’s kind of an unfair fight since we’ve been in this house for eight months and it took us four and a half

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How To Reupholster A Rocking Chair With Fabric And Nailheads

Ok I’m back with part two of the madness that is Me vs. Rocker. But remember my disclaimer from yesterday’s post that this entire process was much like when aliens took over my body and I made a quilt for Clara, which is to say: I went rogue. I took in all the advice from you guys along with some google tips and some suggestions from a reupholstering-fiend friend of mine… and just played it by ear and did what seemed to work as I went along. I mean, it’s not a family heirloom, it’s a $25 craigslist find. But enough chatter, heeeeere we go. Although there was a sneak peek pic of the almost-finished

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How To Redo A Rocking Chair With Spray Paint And Fabric

That’s right. I broke out the word dastardly. And I know we should be hard at work on our office cabinets, but that’s a big job (aka: a weekend job – maybe even a two-weekend job) and I have been giving this rocker the stink eye since November (yes, even before we moved). For anyone who can’t even remember that far back (me), here’s a recap: I originally picked it up off of Craigslist for $25 because I really liked the simple lines of it. Then it sat untouched for over nine months until this weekend. Why? Well, no sooner had I gotten it home than I realized I had no earthly idea how to

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Cabinet Hunting (No Store Left Unturned)

First of all- holy cow. We just had a crazy earthquake a few minutes ago. Very strong! It was completely unexpected for our area (we’ve never had a strong one before). The epicenter was right outside of Richmond (only about 35 miles from our house) and it registered about a 5.9! We’ve even heard from friends up in NY who felt it. Miraculously nothing fell off the walls or broke, but the whole house shook violently and it was insanely loud (we all gathered under a steel-enforced doorway and stared at each other). So yes, we were all shaken up by it but very thankful that we’re ok and hope that everyone else who experienced

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Finding Secondhand Cabinets For $6

Last weekend we journeyed two hours north to Arlington, Virginia so Clara could have some quality time with her cousin Elsa (and apparently so my cousin Travis and I could rock some daddy-plaid, shorts, flip flops, and matching Kettler bikes together (the latter of which were both his, found for a huge deal on craigslist). While there, Elsa’s mom, Cat (who is Sherry’s BFF that we introduced to my cousin back in 2007 – and now they’re married with two kids) took us to this cool shop in Old Town, Alexandra called Red Barn Mercantile. It had tons of beautiful stuff, but what caught our eye most was this bowl of vintage printing press letters.

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Fab Freebie: It’s A One-derful Life

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Thanks to random.org, our four winners are…Kathryn (who wants to know how long this paint will keep, since she’s in an apartment now), Kristen: Turning A House Into A Home (who wonders if it’s better to dust or vacuum first), Alisa Decatur (who’d like to get to the bottom of her daughter’s summer-time procrastination) and Kassie (who wants to know how much painting she’ll be doing when she buys a house). Congrats ladies! Toss on some old clothes, because four of you are about to get painting. This week’s giveaway will cover everything you’ll need, starting with $60 worth of Olympic ONE paint.

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