Archives for February 2012

February 29, 2012 | By John Petersik | 98 Comments

Embarrasingly Enough…

Since we’re on vacay and the home-focused posts will commence when we’re back on Monday (more on that here), we thought we owed you a laugh at our expense in the meantime. That’s right, Sherry’s notorious “Care Bear Underwear Story” that so many of you requested more details about (mentioned here) is out. It actually came out during a comedy show that we attended a few weeks ago. Remember how we’re not famous, but we were invited to have some fun in that local improv comedy show (which we mentioned here)? Well – it was AWESOME. The performers of the Richmond Comedy Coalition were crazy nice and pretty darn funny. The audience was quite full,

February 27, 2012 | By John Petersik | 6,066 Comments

Fab Freebie: Round ‘Em Up

*** This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below! *** After lots of good, fun and quirky Top 5 lists this week, random.org has plucked out one person as the winner. That person is… Lori Foester (who gave us her five diaper bag must haves – lip balm for mom, change of clothes for baby, diapers/wipes, rash cream and her wallet). Congrats Lori! While we’re unplugging in Maui (more on that here) we thought we’d drop by with this week’s giveaway (it’s kitchen related- wahoo!). So don’t worry if your comment takes a while to pop up – it’s in there! Dot Coms For Moms has always hosted great collections of

February 26, 2012 | By Sherry Petersik | 675 Comments

Guess Where We Are?!

Last Monday, a surprise snowstorm (in the middle of a super mild winter) made for this picture out of our living room widow: And Clara went outside and had fun doing this: Fast forward about a week, and our view looks more like this: And Clara’s sporting a different kind of outfit: Yup, true to our anniversary resolution, we snuck off to Maui, Hawaii to celebrate finishing our book, our impending five year anniversary (in July), turning 30 (I will in March and John already checked that box in November), and any other celebration-worthy excuse that we could think of (Clara’s first four syllable words: escalator, helicopter, and anemone!). It’s actually

February 24, 2012 | By Sherry Petersik | 278 Comments

Conquering Coupon Clutter (How I Organize Mine)

Psst- Today’s our leaving-Portland travel day (sad face) so we’ll probably be spotty and slow on comments/etc after 1pm EST. We’re sorry for the interruption, but so happy to have gotten the chance to explore Portland. We owe you guys a big post about all the stuff we did/bought/ate! We purchased some local art, crashed an amaaaaazing house, ate bacon on a donut, and John scored not one but two new t-shirts (neither of which are soda related, but both of which are food-related). Lately I’ve been asked a bunch of times about how I organize/store our non-food coupons (since the grocery store ones are just stuck into one of those clear envelopes and stashed

February 23, 2012 | By John Petersik | 91 Comments

Reader Redesign: Color For Dinner

The boldest color we’ve ever used on any wall is Martha Stewart’s Plumage (which we slathered all over our guest room walls). Long story short: we’ve loved it ever since. So when Jackie sent us her dining room makeover boasting lots of Plumage, of course we were all over it. Here’s her letter: “When we moved into this house, the dining room started with just a table and the bamboo armoire. We didn’t even have dining chairs. Over the last six months I prioritized finishing this room in time for the holidays. It is filled with DIY projects including art silhouettes, board and batten walls, mercury glass vases, jute wrapped monogram, and my favorite: the

February 23, 2012 | By John Petersik | 296 Comments

Petersiks In Portland

Wow, so yesterday was a fun little whirlwind. We spent pretty much the whole day romping around the Portland Home & Garden Show (minus a break to scarf down some much-recommended Voodoo Donuts – and yes we tried maple bacon – mmmm). The Expo Center here is stuffed with gorgeous gardens, cool green living ideas, and tons of friendly Portlanders. Or Portlandians? Portlandites? Whatever they’re called, the people here are crazy nice. We’ll give you an actual Portland shopping/stuff we did/house-crashing trip roundup once it’s actually complete (today’s our Explore-The-City day) but for now we’d at least tell you about our time at the show yesterday. It kicked off early with some interviews with the

February 22, 2012 | By John Petersik | 275 Comments

How To Install A Dishwasher

As we mentioned on Monday, before we hopped on a plane yesterday, we tackled our bisque colored dishwasher. And let’s just say the stainless one is a crowd pleaser (we like it, but Clara loves it). We’ll get to that in a moment. We had been telling ourselves that it would be better to do this once the new floors went in (so we didn’t accidentally trap it behind the new cork boards or something). But then we realized that was a dumb excuse because we could just slide it on top of a few cork planks so it would be the same height as the rest of the floor once it goes in. Plus

February 21, 2012 | By John Petersik | 96 Comments

How To Make An Emergency Kit & Have A Plan In Place

After our disaster-filled week last August (we had an earthquake and a hurricane within a week of one another) we had several requests for a post about emergency preparedness. We hemmed and hawed because we’re no experts in that department, but then a couple of actual experts / regular YHL readers reached out to us with emails fulled of information. Phew! So without further ado (since it’s already taken me like 6 months to finally write this post), here are some of the recommendations and information they sent our way. First off, our experts are Amanda F, who has her Master’s degree in this field and worked as an emergency coordinator for a hospital in

February 21, 2012 | By Sherry Petersik | 152 Comments

Duck, duck, duck, duck…

goose! And horse. So apparently my little self-imposed Dude Get On That Already challenge is just a sick joke where the universe tells me: “hey crazy lady, stop hoarding animals in the playroom.” But at least I’m getting things off the floor in there and up on the walls of the rest of the house so they can actually be enjoyed (or that’s just the denial talking). So without further ado, two more thrift store finds from here and here. Yes, this week was a double whammy of getting on that, since no painting was required. And they’re both over a year overdue. Another big surprise. So it was time to get these guys up

February 20, 2012 | By John Petersik | 6,823 Comments

Fab Freebie: Made In Portland

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** As our time in Portland comes to an end, we’re excited to share that the random winner of this very Oregonian prize is… Joyce (who would go all the way back to the late 1700s to check out the Constitutional Convention). Congrats Joyce! Since we’re headed to Oregon this week, we thought we’d send a little bit of Oregon your way in return. So how does $500 in product from Portland-based Rejuvenation sound? They started off as an architectural salvage shop, but now they serve up authentic lighting, hardware, and other home staples from a whole slew of time periods and styles. We’re

February 20, 2012 | By Sherry Petersik | 343 Comments

How To Spray Paint A Pendant Light’s Cord & Canopy

A while back we bought this light for $29 at the Pottery Barn outlet. We originally planned to hang it over our sink “someday when we redid the kitchen” but then we got our oil-rubbed bronze pendant lights for over the peninsula, and although we love mixed metals, we just thought this silver + mercury glass light didn’t jive with them. So we started thinking about hanging it in a bathroom or something. Then I asked tall John to hold it up as if it was hanging over the sink and surprisingly the shape was perfect. But the silver neck, black string, and silver ceiling cap were all wrong. But the glittering mercury glass

February 17, 2012 | By Sherry Petersik | 374 Comments

Ram Down!

Remember our dear sweet never-hurt-a-fly Ramsey who watched over us in a not-creepy-at-all way when we slept? He was a beloved member of our household and even inspired Burger to do yoga. Well, Ramsey will be missed. And yes, it totally felt like this tragedy of yore all over again. Except John didn’t draw a depiction of the event… … because it actually wasn’t John’s fault. But yes, yesterday we bid a fond farewell to our TJ Maxx find when he somehow popped off the wall in the kitchen where he was temporarily hanging for a book vignette above the fireplace. No one was even in the room to attempt to catch him on the

February 16, 2012 | By John Petersik | 90 Comments

Reader Redesign: Smooth Landing

We don’t have stairs in our house. Which we love. But sometimes it’s a bummer when we see people do fun things with them like Roeshel recently did. And the most impressive part is that she did it without buying anything. You go, girl! Wait, forget I said that… just read her email: I’m sure you guys get a ton of submissions for consideration but I recently gave our stairway a little pizzazz using leftover paint and things we already had on hand. It turned out fun! So I’ve included before and after pictures in the event that you like my crazy little makeover. Before was boring. I cut out a diamond shaped stencil from

February 16, 2012 | By John Petersik | 378 Comments

Fixing A Toilet That Rocks, Replacing A Wax Ring, & Adding Dual Flush

So apparently the “Dude” in Sherry’s “Dude, Get On That Already” is calling my name. So I got on the toilet. Okay, that sounds weird. What I mean is – the toilet in our hall bathroom has rocked a little bit from the day we moved in (the inspector even noted it on our little home inspection form). We quickly diagnosed the issue as a loose bolt, so “replace bolts on toilet” has been on my to-do list for over a year now. Yup, over a year. Why? Because replacing those lose bolts necessitated removing the entire toilet and reinstalling it. But I finally decided to seize the day toilet (amidst all of the photoshoot

February 15, 2012 | By Sherry Petersik | 671 Comments

It’s A Lady! (Our First Big Art Purchase Ever)

That’s what Clara said when she woke up and saw our freshly hung real art in the kitchen. It was cute. And we laughed. And then she squealed “She’s swimming! Look, fishies!” which are most definitely not in there, but the girl has quite an imagination. So hooray for imaginary fishies. I described this gal as “real art” because it’s actually our first big art purchase ever. It’s a large print of an original oil painting by an amazing Etsy artist that we just couldn’t get out of our mind. And at $195 it was definitely a splurge for folks like us who usually frame free art that we make ourselves or hunt thrift stores

February 14, 2012 | By John Petersik | 92 Comments

Using A Tile Haze Remover, Sealing Grout, & Caulking Tile Seams

Betcha thought our grouting post was the last time we’d talk about installing our tile, eh? We’ll you’d be incorrect, sir – er, madam? We had a few other less-fun and less-interesting steps once the grout party had wrapped. And since a bunch of folks have asked us to detail the de-hazing and sealing steps… here they are! So stay tuned while I try to make them as interesting as I can. Maybe I should get my laser pointer. Anyone who has tiled knows that grout often leaves a bit of a hazy film on your tile. We saw it on both the subway tile and the marble floor tile in our old bathroom and

February 14, 2012 | By Sherry Petersik | 362 Comments

Horse Squared: Colorful DIY Bookends

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! We’re celebrating with Burger, Clara, each other, and a photography crew in our house for the third straight week. But there’s a twist today: we’re trying not to vomit! Poor Clara got sick the entire evening on Saturday and into the morning on Sunday and now it appears that John and I have the bug… but the show must go on! The good news is that we finished all of our secret projects so we just have to get the last 20 in the can by Friday and we’re done-zo. Oh yeah and we’re supposed to shoot some cover shots tomorrow (ahhhhhhhhhhhh) but we won’t think about that right now. So

February 13, 2012 | By John Petersik | 5,478 Comments

Fab Freebie: Got The Jewels Like Sherry

***This post is no longer accepting entries – check who won below!*** Just like the auditions on The Voice, random.org had it’s big fancy chair turned around as it blindly chose the winner of this week’s giveaway (I secretly picture random.org like Cee-Lo stroking his cat). Anywho, the lucky winner this week is… Aryn (who thinks she might take Zooey Deschanel wardrobe). Congrats Aryn! It’s not quite like the moves like Jagger, but this week you can get the jew-o-o-o-O-o-o-o-els like Sherry. Yep, in honor of Valentine’s Day we’re gonna give one of you some of the same bling bling (is that still a saying?) that I’ve bought my Valentine (aka: Sherry) over the past

February 13, 2012 | By John Petersik | 443 Comments

Hanging Crown Molding In The Kitchen

We’ve long disclaimered pictures of our kitchen with “oh, and we still need to add crown molding.” But that stops today! The unfinished edge where the wall/tile meets the ceiling… … is no more! Let’s get a little closer… Wait, let’s rewind so I can attempt to tell you how we got there. For all of those who have been wondering about that dark line above our pantry (a few folks asked if the beam was sagging or if there was a hole) – it’s just another spot where we’ve been missing crown molding. Since there had originally been cabinets to the ceiling along that entire side of the kitchen (including one that wrapped around

February 10, 2012 | By John Petersik | 166 Comments

Cutting Down A Cabinet For Tool Storage

Our poor tools. Remember how they used to live in our kitchen? Well, they obviously had to move when that whole cabinet went kaput a few months ago in favor of a nice big peninsula that we were adding. Well, I guess the cabinet didn’t go kaput. It just went to live in our sunroom (aka cabinet purgatory) – along with the drawers full of tools, which have been splayed out on our daybed for three months now. Yeah, we’re organized. Not. Come on, let’s bring back “not.” And slap bracelets. Anyway, as Sherry and I embarked on three weeks of photoshoots in our house for our book (you can survey some of that chaos

February 10, 2012 | By John Petersik | 38 Comments

Love (And Thanks) Are In The Air

**Psst- We know most Fridays we just post once, but every month on sponsor shout out days we double up. So we’ll be back in a few hours with a post about cabinet surgery. It’s time for our usual monthly show of gratitude to our sponsors. You know, the people who make the other 30+ posts possible, and generally keep us feeling all lovey dovey (hey, Valentine’s Day is nearly upon us, right?). So we tried to highlighting a few love/pink/red/heart related items from our sponsors (none of which have been gifted to us – here’s our no-swag policy). And if you need a little extra love, check out of some of the special discounts

February 9, 2012 | By John Petersik | 114 Comments

Reader Redesign: Welcome Home Makeover

A little bit of us is always envious of a proper entryway in a home (since both of ours have been just a door that opens into a room). Plus, with our own plans to do some sort of board and batten in our hallway eventually, we’re totally loving Jenna Sue’s sweet makeover of her foyer. Here’s her email: We’re in the middle of 92,835 projects at our house, but we recently completed one that we’re pretty proud of and I thought I’d pass it your way. Our entryway started out with old white faux marble tile floors, metallic floral wallpaper, and a cheap outdated light fixture. We ended up replacing the floor with travertine-style porcelain tile,

February 9, 2012 | By Sherry Petersik | 839 Comments

Filling Up Our Kitchen’s Open Shelves (On Video)

Remember yesterday when our shelves looked like this? Well, then I had fun doing this (if you’re at work, you can watch this without sound and totally get the gist): If you check out the video you can see that I can actually reach everything up on those top shelves except for the stuff in the corner by the window, but it’s easy enough to sit on the counter to grab it. Who knew I’d be able to reach all that stuff? I totally expected to have to scream “Joooooohn” whenever I needed something up there (he’s the chef of the family so that probably wouldn’t have happened very often anyway). Or use a step

February 8, 2012 | By John Petersik | 583 Comments

Open For Business: Hanging Our Homemade Kitchen Shelves

Let’s see… when we last left off on Monday, our open shelves had been primed in preparation for their big hanging debut. While we had the primer out we went ahead and slapped a coat on the hood cover too (using a 2″ angled brush in the cracks followed by a small foam roller to smooth everything out). Things were instantly looking less wood-sy on that wall. Once the primer dried on both – we used Zinsser Smart Prime which is low-VOC and was recommended by a few pro cabinet painters that we know – out came the same high-durability paint that we used on our cabinets (yes, there’s still plenty left!) and we gave