Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

Archives for July 2012

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How To Decorate A Dining Room Buffet

Yes, that’s an SNL reference. But before I go any further I have to say thanks and I love you to you guys. Your kind words from this morning have literally lifted me up on a day that has been soggy and sad. You guys rock. Hard. Now onto a very important post that many of you have requested. Photos of what I put on our new craigslist buffet. I tried to pick a variety of items that are functional and special to us (hence the title of this post). So this is what the entryway looks like now: And just for fun, this is what it looked like when we laid eyes on our

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Love & A Few Tears

Over the years of jabbering on about house stuff I occasionally get questions about my family. How many siblings I have, how I grew up, etc. I always say it was a somewhat un-traditional childhood… in the best possible way. I was raised by my mom and dad, who split up when I was very young (a few years after my younger brother Daniel was born) so we just had two houses and bounced happily between them. I remember when a kid at school once teased me for having divorced parents and I put the “I have two houses and you only have one and I get double the holiday presents” spin on it. Looking

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Our Beach Vacation To Bethany Beach, Delaware

Last week we spent a lot of time reciting the first line of her song Starships: “Let’s go to the beach, each, let’s go get away.” Why? Because we were at the beach, that’s why. Surprise! And since a bunch of you have asked what we did for our fifth anniversary (which happened to fall over our family beach vacation) we’re here to fill you in. You know we love sharing lovey dovey stuff and road-tripping stuff alike. Last week was our annual family vacation to Bethany Beach along the Delaware coast (where we go with a bunch of relatives to spend time together as one big group). And since this year’s beach week just

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Our $230 Bathroom Makeover

The ceiling hole is patched (see more on how I get that done here, complete with a ridiculous video of the process) – although admittedly the paint is probably still drying. But we’re ready to call this turkey done. For now. This is one of those makeovers that wasn’t a total gut job, but was a series of smaller tweaks that added up to something pretty darn noticeable. In fact going into this we thought this just might be a “for now” fix that we’ll eventually redo completely (all that beige tile was hard to get behind) but now that we’ve made these upgrades we’re surprised how much we like the room – especially since

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How To Move A Ceiling Light

Ever since we updated the light fixture in our bathroom back in April, one thing has been bothering us: its proximity to the shower curtain. Okay, two things actually: its proximity to the shower curtain AND the fact that we didn’t have the energy to remedy the situation back in April (when we switched out the old light for a new one and did some slight drywall patching and painting- nothing nearly as involved as relocating the fixture box by a few feet). So now that we’ve spent three months building up the energy to shift that light into the right spot, once and for all, we were ready to get going. The process began

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Fab Freebies: Them Bones

***This giveaways has reached it’s cap of 10,000 and is now closed – see who won below!*** Wow, you guys really have an appetite for great pieces! After less than 24 hours of giveaway madness, we have crowned our random winner as… joyfulcanary (whose favorite piece is a tie between her $30 thrift store China cabinet and her great grandmother’s Hoosier Cabinet). Congrats on your big win! You don’t typically think of chemistry students writing home design books, but then we learned one of Sherry’s brother’s old classmates at Columbia wrote “Good Bones, Great Pieces” with her mother. It’s a beautiful book about how to combine seven essential elements, er, pieces of furniture in any

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How To Add The Joists To Build A Deck

Alternate punny post title: Joist to the world. (I’ll pause while you golf clap) Good news! My dad made it back from my grandma’s house in West Virginia so operation double-up the girders and bolt them to the posts was able to commence with him at my side. As I started to tell my dad “Okay, you’re going to hold the board in place in the air while I drill pilot holes…” he cut me off and suggested we just put both girder boards on the ground, nail them together and that way they’d both rest on the notched posts – no air-hold required. Smart. I knew there was a reason I picked him as

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Window Shopping: PB Outlet & Mary Jo’s

Woot, I finally got through the 200+ photos I took at two of my favorite on-the-road-to-Atlanta-and-back shopping stops: The Pottery Barn Outlet (in Gaffney, SC) and Mary Jo’s Cloth Shop (right outside of Charlotte, NC). So here are all the things I loved the most (and yes, I actually got something, which I’ll call out at the end of this post). So fasten your window shopping seat belts, we have a lot of ground to cover. First let’s start at the PB Outlet. Does the building beckon you in too, or is it just me? Since we had Clara and Burger with us for the Haven trip, John very selflessly offered to stay outside and

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A Sweet Blue Boy’s Nursery Makeover With Bunk Beds

Sherry and I were totally charmed by this room that Anna made over for her two boys. Partially because we don’t have a son (well, we do have a furry one, but he doesn’t have his own room) – so it’s always fun to see decor for the other chromosome combo. And also because she squeezed lots of cool ideas and details in a room that could’ve easily been overlooked. So keep your eyes peeled for a chalkboard closet, a cozy desk space, and some stylish storage. Here’s Anna’s email: I just finished making over my two sons’ room and I wanted to share. Here’s what the room used to look like (on a messy

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Building Deck Posts, Notches, & Frogs

With my deck holes dug and officially blessed by the county inspection office it was now time to – well – fill them in. There must be some irony in there somewhere, right? As I had done when setting my fence posts last year, I started off by putting a couple of inches of rocks in the bottom for drainage since the deck experts in our area unanimously recommended it under the concrete that we’ll be pouring to hold the posts in place (we dug the holes at least 21″ deep, so that by adding 2-3 inches of gravel at the bottom, they still met the 18″ required depth for our county). Imagine my surprise

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House Crashing: Breezy & Bright

Who’s ready for another house crashing adventure? This is a house in Roswell, Georgia that we dropped in on – and it’s a beaut. Julie, the owner, is also one of the ladies behind Milk & Honey Home, and it’s so inspiring to see how she pairs colors and patterns in her own home (while squeezing in some great budget-friendly ideas). We’re so thankful that she let us snoop around and share the pics! So without further ado… let’s barge in and make ourselves at home. The foyer just beyond the front door was spectacular. I mean, isn’t this like living in a magical jewelry box or something? I was immediately smitten. She got the

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Exploring The Georgia Aquarium

Ack! We’ve been home from Atlanta for over two weeks and I just realized we never shared our other animal-filled adventure in ATL. This one was more of the aquatic variety… Yep, in addition to the zoo, the Bowers took us to the Georgia Aquarium. And it was AMAZING. I haven’t been to lots of aquariums in my day so maybe I’m just easily impressed, but there was just so much to see and so many things for the kids to do that we walked around with our mouths agape for a good three or four hours. You saw a few of these photos in this Young House Love post but we’ve added a bunch

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