Young House Love

DIY Home Decorating Projects, Tutorials, & Shenanigans

Archives for April 2013

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Cutting Back And Removing An Overgrown Vine From A Tree

(Punny alternate post title: Heard It Through The Giant Non-Grape Vine) Ok, so remember the ol’ crazyvine that was putting the squeeze on an oak tree in our backyard that we mentioned last fall? It’s a scene straight outta Jumanji. About half a year ago we cut the base of the vine… … in an attempt to kill it and rescue our oak tree from its death grip. And then it just sat there, a la Rose in Titanic. It never let go. And things took a turn for the ugly when the leaves and branches got all dry and dead. So after 6 months of waiting for it to give up the ghost and

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Covering A Box With Kid Art

Update: If you’re reading on a mobile device and are still seeing the glitchy new mobile-version of our site that we tried out for a few hours before discontinuing it, try clearing your device’s cookies to return to the standard desktop view :) Now that Clara’s old enough to hold a tiny paint brush, get down with some Mod Podge, and rock out with a nail gun (just kidding about that last one), I thought doing the occasional project with her would be a good time. And I’m not gonna lie, this project is still fun without a kid (and can definitely be done with adult-made art or even some awesome decorative gift wrap or

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A How To Video For Hanging Crown Molding

Mission: Finish installing crown molding around the rest of the house (with the nursery done, we still had the guest room, the playroom, and the hallway on our list). Status: Complete. And thanks to the magic of the internet, something that took us about two weeks on and off, will appear to have been done in two seconds. Behold. Yep, as I mentioned in this post about hanging crown in Clara’s nursery, it ignited a burning desire to install crown in the other main areas of our house that were oddly missing it (our bedroom had it but the other bedrooms didn’t, one hallway had it but the other one that was connected to it

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Ten Tips For Smoother Travel

* We’re sending lots of love to everyone in Boston (our cousins were at the marathon but are thankfully safe). Back in October we hardly would have called ourselves traveling experts. Honestly we only took a flight once every few years (we went to Alaska for our honeymoon in 2007 and didn’t get back on a plane for a family vacation again until 2012 when we went to Hawaii for our five year anniversary). But thanks to our book tour, we’ve been on lots of flights. 29 of them in four months to be exact. So while we still can’t quite claim expert traveler status yet, here are a few things we learned about planes

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Fab Freebie: Finnishing Touches

*** This giveaway is now closed – see who won below! *** And our randomly selected winner of $500 to FinnStyle is… Erika (who just finished with all four of her kids having the stomach flu and is praying it never comes back). Congrats on your prize! Nope, that’s not a typo up there, the double-N is for FinnStyle – whose site is full of sleek, bold, and colorful pieces that are commonly associated with Scandinavian designers (everything from home accessories and bedding to dinnerware and clothing). And if you’re like us, what pops out most are the iconic Marimekko pieces that populate much of the site. So if you ever wanted to get your

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How We Boxed Out Our Old Curvy Porch Columns

And I’m calling this bad boy done. Commence the rejoicing! And to recap why we wanted to box those columns in: the carport has 4 columns that are already chunky and square, so up until this point the house had a split personality with 3 curvy columns in the mix boxed in square columns are more true to a mid-century ranch, so we wanted to get back to that (many other ranches in our neighborhood have ’em already) Back to finishing things up. After getting this far within one afternoon we had high expectations for how quickly the finishing touches would go. I mean, how long could finishing one column, caulking the seams, and painting

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Reader Redesign: A Layered Living Room

When Katie sent us pictures of her living room makeover, we couldn’t get over the difference between the before and the after. Here’s her letter: Hi guys! I just wanted to share my living room redesign with you. When we first laid eyes on our house, the living room (well the whole house) was definitely not our style. So among a few other major events since we moved (like having baby boy #3 last summer) it felt great to paint the room, switch out the lighting, and find some great pieces via Craigslist and garage sales. The drapes are from [my son] Isaac’s nursery with some pom pom trim added. I’m also loving my new canvas (from Surface

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Made In The Shade(s)

Notice anything different when you peek into the office from the dining room? Hint: check out the window region. We got these guys at Home Depot for $22 each (they’re 35″ bamboo blinds with the name Miranda on them if that helps identify ’em in the store) with the hopes that they would finish off the windows in the office and tie into the thick wooden desktop and the jute rug that we have in there. In our first house we had bamboo blinds in a bunch of rooms and always planned to bring them into this house as well (we mention them a lot in our Listy McListerson posts like this one) – just

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Warm & Fuzzy Thanks

It’s time for our usual monthly shower of gratitude to our sponsors (the people who make the other 30+ posts possible). And since it’s finally getting warmer out, rather than stick to a strict color theme this time around, we just picked out items that made us excited to get outside and watch some flowers grow… or something equally springy. And we threw a bunch of special discounts at the bottom of the post – plus a hint about Monday’s giveaway. The happiest map watercolors you’ve ever seen, painted by Audrey + Gem. Figuring out dinner with the help of Couple Supper, which designs meal plans for two. The many color and pattern options in

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Removing Scalloped Porch Trim & Fixing The Columns

We’ve been talking about streamlining (buh-bye scallop) and beefing up the porch (namely those columns) ever since we moved in back in 2010. And it’s finally warming up enough for us to tackle an outdoor project after a long winter – seriously, we were still getting snow a few weeks ago. Most of the ranches in our neighborhood either have chunky square columns or a more traditional colonial style. We prefer the former, but inherited the latter. Along with a curved scallop header that isn’t exactly our style either. Our first house had an issue with a scalloped header too, which Sherry tackled back in 2008 (one of her most exhausting projects to date –

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Feeling Crafty: Making Kids Play Money

Clara really seems to be into the concept of money lately. Not so much for using it to pay bills, but using it to count, stack, and stash in her pockets/purse. I’ve been digging up quarters and handing them over left and right (she’s thankfully well past the putting-things-in-her-mouth stage) but they always get lost. So I have one question: is there a vortex in our house that eats socks and loose change? Is Burger secretly saving up to buy a jar of peanut butter? Seriously, it’s a mystery. So instead of being fifteen bucks down after a few weeks of play, I figured I might as well attempt a little DIY alternative. Ok, and

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Eighteen Tips For Working Smarter, Not Harder

I’ve received a bunch of comment requests for an update on how we’re doing when it comes to finding the ever-elusive work/life balance that we’ve publicly proclaimed that we want to get a handle on this year (we never aspired to work nights, weekends, and even on vacation – and we only have ourselves to blame). So we thought it was a fun subject to tackle while we’re working away on the front porch (can’t wait to share an update for you guys tomorrow!). The scallops are a-tumbling down and the columns are getting boxed in. But back to the whole work/life balance battle. The first step in the not-working-every-second-of-every-day thing for us was definitely

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