Young House Love

DIY Home Decorating Projects, Tutorials, & Shenanigans

Archives for February 2013

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Our $57 Board and Batten Tutorial (It’s Surprisingly Easy!)

Yesterday you saw how our board and batten project came out for the Pinterest Challenge, so today we’re back with the full tutorial shebang. And hold onto your safety goggles, it’s 2,000 words long. But don’t let all the words fool you, we’d say that this was one of the biggest bang-for-you-buck / most fool-proof ways to make an easy upgrade that we’ve encountered in a while. Wow, just realized I’m five sentences into this and I’ve already said “bang” twice. Not sure if that’s a good sign or what… We had long known that adding some sort of molding feature to our hallway was in our future… and now we’re just kicking ourselves for waiting

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Reader Redesign: Yellow, Not So Mellow

You know Sherry and I strive to develop the skill of brevity, so receiving Avis’ submission was a reminder that it can be done. While her email gave us the main parts of her story, her pictures did all of the talking (somewhat literally). You’ll see what I mean below: Sherry and John, HI!  I’m Avis. I started reading your blog this year and fell in love! Although we have no Clara (who is the cutest accessory EVER!) we do have a few Burgers running around the office. Aside from designing stationary I occasionally do DIY re-modeling in my Decatur, Ga condo. I was inspired by you to do a dining room re-do that I

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Winter Pinterest Challenge: Board & Batten, Baby!

It’s Wednesday the 27th… so it’s time to share this season’s (completely unofficial) Pinterest Challenge project (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else, just dreamed up by Katie to make us stop pinning and start doing). Huzzah! And this season’s challenge was the biggest one we’ve tackled by far. We tried our hand at adding some character with some easy board & batten in our formerly bare hallway. Which now, a week later, is looking like this. Woot! Is it weird that I’ve been sitting on the floor just staring at it? A few folks who had already installed board & batten or wainscoting commented last week to say that pictures don’t do it justice

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Listy McListerson: Updated

Warning: this is longer than the Oscars, so feel free to fast forward to the good parts. These posts actually came about when people asked how we organize all the stuff we have on our to-do list. We explained that we basically just have one long run-on document, and when folks kept asking us to share it (and update it as we went along), it sounded like our idea of a good time. And it’s high time that we actually updated it considering it has been ten months since we last shared it! Yowsa. In an attempt to keep our eyes from crossing when we read it, we separated what we’ve done in each room

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Fab Freebie: City Love

***This giveaway is now closed – see who won below!*** This week’s TWO lucky winners are… Maria G (who loves Kansas City despite being under 12-15″ of snow at the moment) and Fiona (who loves her hometown of Washington DC so much she even loves the traffic). Congrats you two! Today marks the seven year anniversary of our move to Richmond, VA. Woo hoo! It’s crazy to think that it has been that long, and to celebrate this week’s giveaway is from a city-minded artist: Kimberly of Albie Designs. We’ve had her charming illustration of New York City hanging in our hallway o’ frames for as long as there has been a frame collection there

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Finishing Touches In The Playroom

Mwah, hah, hah. Picture me laughing like a cartoon villain while rubbing my hands together maniacally. That’s sort of how I feel when I get to the “finishing touches” part of a room. Home stretch bay-bay! Remember how the middle makes no sense? Well, this weekend I think we rounded a corner thanks to a few small tie-things-together updates (you know, between all the board & batten we’re furiously installing/caulking/painting for Wednesday’s big reveal). So let’s take a look-see, shall we? As you can see, we finally got a new sheet set for the daybed (just a basic navy blue 100% cotton set from Target for a twin bed) to replace the worn and faded

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Squeezing In Some Craftiness

Since we always share our road trip adventures with the Bowers (like this one, this one, and this one), here’s a long overdue recap of our most recent visit – which included lots of kid fun, a fair amount of antiquing & crafting, and even a little luxurious mom outing for good measure (along with a really cute gift idea). Let’s jump right in, shall we? Oh but for those looking for pictures of us doing sexy exciting things like cutting wood and using a nail-gun, that’s going on as you read this. The soundtrack of the day is bam-bam-bam! Yes, we’ve begun our big board & batten project and can’t wait to share our

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A Small Kids Closet That Doubles As A Play Space

The closet in the spare room used to be packed with things like luggage, wrapping paper, gift bags, and a bunch of other clutter that had to be dealt with in order to free up space for actual playing and Clara-storage (since this is now the playroom/big girl room instead of a room full o’ junk). So we took everything out (except for the photo albums & yearbooks up top) and it magically disappeared. Just kidding, it ended up in the guest room closet. Which actually seems ok since we’re on year three of living here (CRAZY!) and we haven’t noticed any guests using the guest closet at all, so it made sense for us

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The Big Apple to The Big Peach

This may sound hard to believe – but this is our very last book tour recap post. Yup, all of our scheduled tour stops have officially wrapped up so we’ve just got these last three cities to share our adventures from: New York, Charlotte, and Atlanta. If you want to see our previous recaps, they’re all linked up on this page. And like all the other recaps, this guy is just as long. But I personally think our insane conversation with Mark McGrath (!!!) makes this whole post worth reading. New York City was actually supposed to be sort of our big kick off event back in November. But then Sandy happened and the date

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Knock Knock… Who’s There?…

But wait, this is probably our favorite video we’ve ever made, so we’ll let that do the talking. Just allow Clara & Will to explain how you can play along, and please enjoy the outtakes up front, which are my absolute favorite part… Yup, as that sweet as pie video explains, it’s high time for the winter Pinterest Challenge (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else, just dreamed up by Katie Bower to make us stop pinning and start doing). I’m still laughing at how quickly I gave up hope on the kids in that video by the way. Way to keep it real $herdog. But you gotta love when two toddlers prove ya wrong… Anyway,

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Framing Kid Clothing And Adding A Few Fun Wall Hooks

This adorable handmade poncho was actually brought back from Peru by my amazing sister-in-law a few years ago (thanks Ali!), and I was literally counting down the days until Clara was big enough to wear it. She has gotten a ton of use out of it over the last few years and it even made it onto the cover of a local mag (it was perfect for the holiday colors they were going for). But alas, Clara’s a growing bean, so it’s a little on the small size these days. Which would ordinarily make me want to cry, but I’ve been planning Phase 2 (aka: Operation Keep This Poncho Forever) for a while. $herdog had

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Fab Freebie: Get It Done

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Random.org has done it’s random duty and selected our #ReadyDoneClean winner as… Stephanie B (who hates the clean up part of painting – especially “getting the paint of my hands!”) Congrats! If you despise the prep or clean-up parts of a painting project, this week’s giveaway is right up your alley. Procter & Gamble and The Home Depot are teaming up to help you “Get it ready. Get it done. Get it clean.” Because in addition to the $200 Home Depot gift card this week’s winner will score, they’re also throwing in a Swiffer Sweeper and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser #ReadyDoneClean Prize

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