Young House Love

DIY Home Decorating Projects, Tutorials, & Shenanigans

Archives for September 2012

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First House Vs. Current House

Q: I just read an old post of yours where you compared your last house to your current one – and it looks like you preferred the old one in some ways because you had done more renovation, etc.  I think it would be awesome if you did a do-over of that post now that it has been so long and you’ve done so much to improve your new house! – Thanks for all the inspiration, Sarah A: You’re right, it’s high time we revisited this weird little comparison of our first house and our current one, so let’s get right into it. It all started when someone (ironically also named Sarah) said this about

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It’s Done! Our $170 Bathroom Makeover For Granny

Who’s ready for the big bathroom reveal? As we mentioned in Monday’s post, there are almost always three main steps to room makeovers (some of which take forever and a day, and some that are done fast and furiously, like this bathroom blitz): prep/planning (brainstorming, picking a color palette, going shopping, priming, sanding, spackling) bigger upgrades (painting walls, refinishing or painting cabinets, laying new flooring, etc) finishing touches (curtains, new hardware, art, accessories – all the things that add “you” to the space) So Day Three (see Day One and Day two here and here) was all about those finishing touches. Here’s how it all went down (and yes, I was writing on the back

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Momma’s Closet: 11 Ways To Save Money On Clothes

Ever since this post about Clara’s clothes, I’ve actually gotten a surprising amount of requests for a post about how I save money on my own clothes, what my staples are, and how I generally get by without spending a ton of my momdrobe – er, I mean wardrobe. And although I’m hardly a fashion plate (that idea makes me snort-laugh) I do love a deal, so here’s a rundown on how I save money when I’m shopping for myself along with some sneaky sale tricks I’ve learned along the way and a few general dressing rules that seem to work for me (slash keep me from buying stuff I’ll regret/never wear/stare angrily at in

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Day Two Of Our Big Bathroom Makeover For Granny

Yesterday you saw Day Numero Uno of what I lovingly call “Operation Granny Chic.” Mission: update my Granny’s bathroom over three whirlwind days. So with all of the prep work done, our day-by-day play-by-play continues with painting and new floors. Except for one minor step that stood in our way… Notice that giant rust spot on the air duct near the floor? Since there’s no way paint would fix that on its own (it would bleed right through), we slapped some Rustoleum on that puppy before breaking out the paint cans. It was amazing how one fast coat worked like a charm. The paint color we chose for the room is “Hint of Violet” by

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Fab Freebie: Scoping Out The Goods

*** This giveaway is now closed – see who won! *** Glad to hear so many of you had fun with the quiz (though sorry it had a bit of trouble loading for some). Random.org has selected our lucky winner and she is… Emily W (who thought she’d be BOHO, but ended up a mix of Sassy and Classic). Congrats Emily! It’s been a while since we’ve posted about a fun what’s-your-design-style type quiz (like these of the past). And it’s been never since our post about one came with a chance to win $500 from HomeGoods. So if ever there was time to put aside your allegiance to scientific results, this would be a

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Day One Of Our Big Bathroom Makeover For Granny

There are almost always three main steps to the room makeovers that we tackle, and depending on the scope/depth of them, they can take a few days or a few months (ok, and sometimes we jump around so much that things take years). Either way, the order seems to go like so: prep/planning (brainstorming, picking a color palette, going shopping, priming, sanding, spackling) bigger upgrades (painting walls, refinishing or painting cabinets, laying new flooring, etc) finishing touches (curtains, new hardware, art, accessories – all the things that add “you” to the space) So when John’s mom mentioned his grandma’s half bathroom could use a little makeover we got to put those three steps into action.

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Turning Soup Cans Into Sweet Pop Art Pencil Cups

Come on, could I pass up a chance to include this SNL clip? The answer is no. No, I couldn’t. In other words: soup, there it is. Anyway, I’m beginning to think that Friday posts should be called Fast & *Almost* Free Projects since we had Sir Butterfly last week and now we have a little soup can craft that I did in honor of my good friend Andy Warhol (ok, so we’re only besties in my mind…). How cute are these guys holding some of Clara’s drawing supplies on her desk? The colors make me permasmile. The first step was grabbing four of the limited edition tomato soup cans that Target is currently selling

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A Lesson In Thanks

**Psst- We know most Fridays we just post once, but every month on sponsor shout out day we double up. So we’ll be back in a few hours with a post about an inexpensive project that Sherry whipped up thanks to a pretty delicious “material.” Happy Friday everyone! We’re kicking off the day with our monthly “thank you” to our sponsors, since they help make our other 30+ posts possible each month. And in honor of the start of the school year, we thought we’d highlight items that have an educational spin to them, even if they just remind us of some of our favorite – or most dreaded – subjects in school (none of

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Reader Redesign: When The Walls Come Down

If you send us an email with the words “1950s ranch,” “knock down walls” and “kitchen makeover” you’ve officially piqued our interest. And when you attach before & after photos as stunning as Jessica’s, well, end of story. I’ll need a moment to pick my jaw up off of the floor. Here’s her letter: Hey guys! I know how you love a good before and after and thought you might be interested in ours. We bought our 1950’s ranch just over two months ago and have been working around the clock to get her in tip top shape. We recently wrapped up the kitchen remodel and DIYed everything but the countertops. Since moving into our

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Turning Side Tables Into Benches At The End Of The Bed

Here’s a tale I’ve been dying to tell for a while, but now that we actually got it done (this has been done in my head for over a year), we can spill the beans. Because apparently doing something in your mind does not a blog post make. Ha. So without further ado, here’s how we took two 5-year-old side tables from Target (that we hadn’t used since we lived in our first house) and turned them into much needed padded ottomans at the foot of our bed (since Burger needs a little help getting up into our extra tall bed, they’re like our version of doggy steps). First we placed the side tables in

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Finally! Some Book Project Sneak Peeks…

One of the things our publisher does is have each of their authors create a short video about their book. A movie trailer of sorts – but for a book. Artisan suggested we hire a little film/editing crew to do it, but like true DIYers we took it as a fun challenge to see how much we could do ourselves. So we came up with an outline, wrote a little script, hired a local video genius to shoot it for us (who also happens to be our brother in law) and edited it ourselves in Final Cut Pro back in March. And now that we’re two months away from the official book release date (Nov

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Accidental Upgrade: Our New DSLR Camera

You guys get extra credit for being especially perceptive, because as some of you have noticed, we got a new camera (we weren’t paid or perked, we just bought it with our own benjamins for reasons I’m about to explain). It’s a Nikon 3200 that we purchased on Amazon (here’s an affiliate link to the same model we bought) – basically the latest version of our previous DSLR, the Nikon 3000 that we got back in early 2010. The reason for the upgrade? Well, let’s just say the resident klutz around here (that’s me) finally klutz-ed it up a bit too much for our poor camera to handle. Can I get a womp womp? It actually happened back

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